But wise consumers will consider his minority opinion before buying this shiny new product. Here’s a succinct roundup that should put you off 6G and even make you reconsider 5G.

And if you think I’m being Henny Penny, here is my depressing list of “innovations” that later turned out to have serious consequences:

Conventional Medical Practices:
Amalgam Fillings,
Fever Suppressants,
Fluoridated Tap Water,
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) (Bioidentical hormones are much better than synthetics),
Mammograms, Prophylactic Antibiotics,
Root Canals,
Routine X-rays and CT Scans,
Statin Drugs,
Vaccines

Environmental and Technological Exposures:
Fluorescent and LED Lighting,
Microwave Ovens,
Smart Meters,
Ultrasound Scans,
WiFi and 5G Radiation

Dietary and Lifestyle Factors:
Artificial Sweeteners,
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs),
Homogenized and Pasteurized Milk,
Refined Vegetable Oils

Personal Care and Household Products:
Antiperspirants with Aluminum,
Chemical Sunscreens,
Chlorinated Water,
Plastic Food Containers

FOCAL POINTS (Courageous Discourse™)

6G Will Expose Entire Populations to Largely Untested Terahertz Radiation, Enable AI Brain Chips, and Allow Through-Wall Surveillance

by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH…

Listen now

a month ago · 84 likes · 13 comments · Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

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Comment from Lauren: Challenge your assumptions, watch (or read) this bouquet of “conspiracy theories” that actually fit the evidence better each passing day. Mark Sharman condensed a vast amount of troubling information into just 2 hours. It takes even less of your limited time if you read this annotated transcription. Yes, it’s a big dose of Bad News, but isn’t that the first step in rousing humanity to stop the 1% (actually 0.01) from conning us into their “Brave New World”?

The Agenda: Their Vision, Your Future

2025
Full Documentary (4K)
1,321,508 views in the 13 months since its premier on 6-4-25

In fiction and fact, there have always been people and organisations with ambitions to control the world. And now the oligarchs who pull the strings of finance and power finally have the tools to achieve their global objectives; omnipresent surveillance, artificial intelligence, digital currency and ultimately digital identities. The potential for social control of our lives and minds is alarmingly real.

The plan has been decades in the making and has seen infiltration of Governments, local councils, big business, civil society, the media and, crucially, education. A ceaseless push for a new reality, echoing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, or George Orwell’s 1984.

The Agenda: Their Vision, Your Future examines the digital prison which awaits us if we do not push back right now. How your food, energy, money, travel and even your access to the internet could be limited and controlled; how financial power is strangling democracy and how global institutions like the World Health Organisation are commandeered to champion ideological and fiscal objectives.

The centerpiece is man-made climate change and with it, the race to Net Zero. Both are encapsulated in the United Nations and its Agenda 2030. A force for good? Or “a blank cheque for totalitarian global control”? The Agenda presents expert views from the UK, the USA and Europe.

▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

00:00:00 - Intro
00:07:45 - No Money, No Choice
00:13:20 - The Digital Prison
00:25:51 - The Master Plan
00:44:58 - The Davos Dynasty
00:50:20 - Crisis? What Crisis?
01:03:11 - The Net Effect
01:16:19 - From Farmer to Pharma
01:29:02 - Controlling the Narrative
01:50:08 - End Credits

Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, the distinguished author Mr. Aldous Huxley:
Brave New World is a fantastic parable about the dehumanization of human beings. In the negative utopia described in my story, man has been subordinated to his own inventions. Science, technology, social organization; these things have ceased to serve man. They have become his masters.

Narrated by Badria Timimi: Aldous Huxley’s novel portrays a dystopian future under the dictatorship of a world state, where every aspect of human life is controlled, from laboratory creation to the grave. He described the story as fantasy, but later wrote: “The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would. The nightmare of total organization has emerged and is now awaiting us just around the next corner.”

Prof. Yuval Noah Harari: With the rise of brain computer interfaces and biometric sensors and so forth, all the bodies, all the brains would be connected together to a network. And you won’t be able to survive if you are disconnected from the net.

A man’s voice: All life on Earth is going to be radically changed.

Klaus Schwab: It’s a fusion of the physical, the digital, and the biological world. It’s changing who we are.

Another man’s voice: These people have gotten to the point now where they are openly anti-human.

A woman says: Everything will be monitored. The environmental consequences of every human action.

Another woman speaks: It cannot happen without digital ID.

Man: Once the digital ID is in place, it’s game over for humanity.

Badria Timimi: The ideology of a world dictated through science is deep-rooted. Almost a century ago, a movement was established in the United States, preaching that the population should be governed by an elite of selected experts, scientists and academics rather than democratically-elected politicians.

They called it Technocracy.

Patrick M. Wood, economist, author: These engineers and scientists from Columbia University promoted what they thought was going to be the replacement for capitalism and free enterprise.

It’s not going to be a price-based economic system. It’s going to be based on resources and energy, control over energy. They thought that science was the answer for everything. They didn’t have any spiritual bone at all. You know, they were very mechanistic in their thinking.

Badria Timimi: The definition was clear.

Aman Jabbi, engineer, scientist: Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population.

Badria Timimi: The movement was short-lived, but the principle never died. As we’ll demonstrate, a stranglehold on policy and resources has always been the ambition of the powerful oligarchs behind many of today’s world institutions.

Nick Hudson, actuary, private equity investor: It seems to me that there’s a very strong drift in the direction of globalization, of the ultimate centralization of control in the hands of unelected officials at supranational organizations. The lust to control other human beings is a story as old as time.

Patrick M. Wood, economist, author: They want all of the resources of the world in their pocket. They do not want you and me to have anything. It’s in writing all over the World Economic Forum’s website. By 2030, you will own nothing and be happy. That’s an oxymoron. If you don’t have anything in your name, you’re not going to be happy about it.

Badria Timimi: The World Economic Forum may have called that infamous phrase a prediction, but it translates as a statement of intent on behalf of its global power brokers.

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: The bigger picture is that an attempt is underway now to collapse liberal democracy and replace it with global technocracy, what I call an Omniwar is now underway, which is to say that the transnational ruling class is literally – it’s not a metaphor – is literally at war with the rest of humanity and has weaponized everything that it can.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street investment banker: This is a coup. 5:00 They can remove the power from the Parliament and the legislative branch and consolidate it into a monetary system which has complete control.

Narrator – Badria Timimi: That control is now entirely achievable because the would-be controllers finally have the tools to execute it. Total surveillance, artificial intelligence, digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Dr. David A. Hughes: The potential for social control is gigantic and potentially irreversible.

Badria Timimi: What our experts are describing is a world commanded by an exclusive group of bankers and industrialists, affecting every aspect of our lives – what we eat, what we can buy, where we travel, where we live. And all bypassing democratically elected governments. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a grand conspiracy theory but please consider this.

Dr. David A. Hughes: The term conspiracy theory has become one of the most successful propaganda terms of all time, in closing down discussion and debate. It’s a thought-terminating cliché, but nevertheless, it’s surprisingly effective when you try to calmly present evidence in a factual and reasoned manner.

Narrator Badria Timimi: In this film, we will present evidence that the global takeover is not only possible, it’s actually happening and has been decades in the making. They plan to commandeer land, reduce farming, and radically change the food we eat. Transform the supply of electricity. And then dictate how we use it. And replace currency with a system of credits under their control.

It’s a classic template. To win the war, take control of food, of energy, and of money. And here’s the key.

All three strategies are built on the premise of a climate crisis caused by carbon dioxide – a gas that is actually vital for life on the planet. So what if the whole carbon narrative was one gargantuan lie? A political maneuver to establish their brave new world?

Dr. David A. Hughes: A big lie is a lie which is told on such a scale that ordinary people simply would not imagine it to be possible.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street investment banker: People with empathy can’t fathom that a group of people would organize and engineer this kind of mass atrocity to get where they want to go.

Badria Timimi: It should come as no surprise that financial kingpins are calling the shots. And it’s certainly no conspiracy theory when banking executives spell out their intentions.

Chapter 2: No Money, No Choice

Pippa Malmgren, former US presidential advisor: At the 2022 World Government Summit: We are on the brink of a dramatic change where we are about to – and I’ll say this boldly – we’re about to abandon the traditional system of money and accounting and introduce a new one. And the new one, the new accounting, is what we call blockchain. It means digital. It means having a almost perfect record of every single transaction that happens in the economy, which will give us far greater clarity over what’s going on. It also raises huge dangers in terms of the balance of power between states and citizens.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street investment banker: We are shifting to a new financial system, but the general population is not shifting to a new financial system. It’s shifting to a control grid.

Bo Li, deputy managing director, the International Monetary Fund: CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency] can allow government agencies and private sector players to program. To create smart contracts. To allow targeted policy functions. For example, welfare payment. For example, consumption coupon. For example, food stamp. By programing CBDC, those money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own and what kind of use this money can be utilized.

Agustín Carstens, general manager, Bank for International Settlements: A key difference with the CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street investment banker: They’re saying we can control with rules. We don’t need currency anymore. And so it’s no longer a financial system or a currency system. It’s purely a digital concentration camp. It’s a slavery system.

Badria Timimi: When Catherine Austin Fitts talks, we should listen. She’s a former high level investment banker in New York and held senior office in the first Bush administration in Washington.

Catherine Austin Fitts: There may be a thousand models of how it could work, but essentially you will have, whether it’s a banking account or a credit card, and it can be turned off and on. 10:02 So my incentive system is not you go to work and work hard and you get money. My incentive system can be based on how you behaved in the last five minutes, you know, on a 24/7 basis.

Badria Timimi: CBDCs, as the name suggests [Central Bank Digital Currency], would be issued by central banks like the Federal Reserve in America and the Bank of England, not by high street banks. They would signal the end of cash. And every transaction you make would be transparent and held on a permanent database. Crucially, under a Net Zero regime, your carbon footprint could be at the heart of the system.

John Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group: We’re developing through technology an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they traveling? How are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform?

So individual carbon footprint tracker.

Melissa Ciummei, independent financial investor: This can be the infrastructure for a carbon credit system. It’s totalitarian control. And if people don’t become aware of it now, it’s going to be too late to backtrack from this. It’s a ratchet system where it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to backtrack.

Badria Timimi: But why is now the time for change?

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: Because the system is in crisis. It entered crisis in 2019. Mark Carney, he talked quite openly about how the international monetary and financial system had entered profound crisis, and was effectively on its last legs.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street investment banker: If you study the history of how the central bankers designed Technocracy, you know, essentially when they created the Fed, they said, look, this can’t last forever; we’re going to need, at some point – somebody is going to get hip to this game. We’re going to need another system. And I will say this because I used to be part of that group – I was born and bred to be a central banker. They plan ahead hundreds of years in advance.

Badria Timimi: Predictably, the money brokers seem to hold all the cards. As a subtext, does the ruling class need to protect itself as artificial intelligence threatens mass unemployment? And what will happen to our existing assets if the banking system is collapsed and money disappears overnight?

In an unknown future, one thing is certain. Digital IDs are essential to the project. If they become compulsory, data on every detail of our lives will be monitored, stored and monetized. Nothing but nothing would be private.

Ivor Cummins, biochemical engineer, commentator: For younger people, often it’s the case that they like technology. They’re completely au fait with it. They enjoy it. So they don’t see the dangers that technology can bring, because like a drug dealer does, you feed people, you know, low levels of drug where it’s all fun. And then later, when you have them addicted, you feed the hard stuff and that destroys their life.

So, in a similar way, all of this technology is currently pretty much nice. But when the Central Bank Digital Currency comes in and the control comes in and the censorship systems, then the younger people will realize, all too late in many cases, that they’ve walked themselves into a trap.

Chapter 3: The Digital Prison

Badria Timimi: One man who knows the dangers only too well is Aman Jabbi, who was at the forefront of digital development in Silicon Valley, California, for 25 years. He left when he recognized the dark side of surveillance technology, choosing instead the peace and beauty of Montana. He’s an expert in facial recognition.

Aman Jabbi, Aman Jabbi, engineer, scientist, expert in facial recognition: It’s a technique that is used to uniquely identify the biometrics of any face. So in a device like your smartphone – and most modern smartphones in the last 5 or 7 years – they have a 3D camera module in the front of the phone, which you cannot see. Within that module is a near-infrared projector, which projects tens of thousands of dots on your face. Those dots are then distorted, based on the contours and the features of your face. And there’s a near-infrared camera then takes a picture of that distortion, captures it, and then reverse engineers the exact profile of your face. In the longer term, facial recognition will be used to unlock your digital identity, which is going to be a tool of control for the agendas that are coming down the pipeline.

Badria Timimi: Elements of that control are already with us.

Human: “ Alexa, good morning.”

Alexa: “Good morning.”

Aman Jabbi, Aman Jabbi, engineer, scientist: You are never alone in your home. And this is why. 15:00 All your devices at home and all smart appliances, they are all connected on a wireless network. Many of these devices will have cameras, many will have microphones. And so they are monitoring everything all the time. Your smart appliances are communicating with the smart meter and sending it real time usage data. If there’s a ring camera also in your home, a mesh network is formed and all your devices are being tracked within the home, its location, its usage, and all the data is going to Amazon’s servers.

When you leave your home, all modern vehicles are connected to the internet, so your automobile is being tracked all the time. When you’re going under a string of smart LED poles and smart LED lights on the highway and in the streets of your towns and cities, those form a wireless network and are tracking your vehicle. They are tracking all the devices on you, from smart phones to smart watches when you’re walking on the streets. So data is being collected 24/7 continuously on every human being whenever you are within these wireless networks.

And it’s obviously not good for health also because of all the electromagnetic radiation. In the long term, the plan is to pretty much lock up humanity in smart cities, which is kind of a superset of a 15-Minute City. They’ve sold all the state and local governments and countries that Smart Cities are about sustainability and the good of the city. But in reality, the language from the UN and WEF and their white papers is all inverted.

So, air monitoring is really about limiting mobility and no car ownership. Surveillance control via LED grid is why the smart lighting is there. Water management is about water rationing. Noise pollution is about speech surveillance. Traffic monitoring is about limiting mobility. And then, of course, energy conservation is all about rationing heat, electricity and gasoline.

Another concept one should be familiar with is called Geofencing. And that’s, think of it as an invisible fence around you. Where you cannot go beyond a certain point. And that’ll be related to your face recognition, digital identity and access control. Your smart contracts software can turn off your digital currency beyond a certain point from your house. Our world has been turned into a digital panopticon. That means you can be monitored, analyzed, managed, and monetized.

Badria Timimi: Surveillance capitalists are already making billions of dollars selling our information to big corporations, because this kind of detailed knowledge enables them to predict and influence our behavior. Worse, our children are being exploited.

Aman Jabbi, engineer, scientist: There are a lot of board games and other games that are already in the market and have been for over two years that have cameras inside and underneath these LED screens that are observing and scoring and emotionally calibrating the faces of all the children. So are all the iPads that they use in schools. They’re all manipulating children’s behavior by what they display on the screens.

And child data is big business. There’s a concept called Social Impact Investing, which people should read up on. If your kids are in schools, they are already being traded on Wall Street in real time. They can bet on groups of kids whether they’re going to be successful or not, whether they’re going to become computer scientists or environmental engineers. So children have become essentially a commodity and have been for years with this system. And once it’s fully in place, it is going to be used to fully control the behavior of children as well as how they behave with respect to, you know, diversity, equity, inclusivity, etc.

Narrator: The Chinese have already gone one step further.

Young woman’s voice: Classrooms have robots that analyze students’ health and engagement levels. Students wear uniforms with chips that track their locations. There are even surveillance cameras that monitor how often students check their phones or yawn during classes. These sensors pick up electrical signals sent by neurons in the brain. The neural data is then sent in real time to the teacher’s computer.

Badria Timimi: We’ve been drawn into this digital spy network in the name of convenience, connectivity, safety, and especially entertainment. The 3D world of cyberspace creates virtual lives that are often more exciting than reality.

Aman Jabbi: Why is this technology being developed? It’s all for the culmination of this digital prison from which there will be no escape after all the switches are turned on.

20:00

Badria Timimi: The critical switch would be the introduction of those digital IDs and central bank financial control. A world of Zero Trust.

Woman’s voice, from an ad: Zero Trust is based on a simple principle. Never trust. Always verify.

Aman Jabbi: Zero Trust is a protocol that is implemented by cyber security companies. And what it really means is ‘We don’t trust you. And you have to prove who you are all the time, 24/7.’ So think of it as going from a world of Implicit Allow to Default Deny. In tomorrow’s world, once Zero Trust is implemented in say, retail. Everything will be behind plexiglass doors with a 3D camera and it will only be unlocked through your digital identity and facial recognition – if you have the available carbon credits in your digital currency.

Badria Timimi: If you’ve reached the limit of your allowance, it could be Access Denied. This would apply to fuel, to travel, to meat and dairy products, to clothes and other consumer goods. Because everything in life could be valued by its carbon footprint. Even access to the internet could be denied.

Aman Jabbi: So the new world of Zero Trust is really a world of locks. It’s like an inverted prison. You are supposedly free to roam about, but everything you want to access is behind lock and key.

Badria Timimi: Most advances in science, including A.I., bring great advantages to the world. They can enhance and improve human endeavor in almost every walk of life. But you don’t have to be a scientist to see the flip side.

Young woman: They’re constantly monitored by facial recognition cameras that are able to instantly put a face to a name. Now, the Chinese are also ranked, given a mark out of a possible 950 points. For now, the number is a sort of bank credit rating, keeping track of everyone’s spending habits.

Chinese woman interviewed on the street: It may seem scary, but it’s just like that here. We’re used to it. And anyway, we don’t have a choice.

Badria Timimi: If you think this couldn’t happen in the West, ask yourself why so many cameras, smart poles, and 5G networks are being installed in your neighborhood. In London, the police are using facial recognition surveillance. Sainsbury’s is already experimenting with AI. Thank you for waiting. The cabinet will now be opened. In UK railway stations, surveillance is being tested to collect travelers’ data. And in Oxford, these barriers were installed by the council under its so-called 15 Minute City plan. They were removed following protests. But look at what’s replacing them in these quiet residential streets. As the tech companies are proud to tell us, the possibilities are endless.

Tech guy from Axis Communications: We’ve developed the camera into a sensor. The camera does not only capture video. It can now start to count, measure, and detect. With deep learning capability, the camera is able to generate accurate and trustworthy data and send notifications in order to take action. All directly from the camera. And since our cameras have open technology, well, we can work with different analytic partners from all over the world and together, do just about anything we want.

Badria Timimi: Note that they can do just about anything they want.

Klause Schwab interviewed at World Economic Forum: Digital technologies mainly have an analytical power. Now we go into a predictive power. But then the next step could be to go into prescriptive mode, which means, you do not even have to have elections anymore because we know what the result will be.

Badria Timimi: Ultimately, we’re facing manipulation by the system. A world where instead of us using technology, technology is using us.

But who’s really pulling the strings? Banking and oil dynasties like Rothschild and Rockefeller inevitably get mentioned, as do the modern day big tech masters, including the ubiquitous Bill Gates. David Hughes takes a wider view.

David Hughes: It’s those who own the means of production, who are capable of magicking money out of thin air, who control the media and all of the other means of production which have now been weaponized against the rest of the global population.

Badria Timimi: Catherine Austin Fitts, the banking insider, adds a sinister thought.

Catherine Austin Fitts: If you know their name, they’re not at the top.

25:03

Badria Timimi: Either way, it’s a story of power, money, and manipulation by a small group of people who share common interests and a belief that the world needs top down control for maximum efficiency. As we’ll see, it could result in the destruction of the farming industry in favor of laboratory foods, and a shortage of electricity because of the race to Net Zero.

Derrick Berthelsen, business analyst: Net Zero means the impoverishment of ordinary people. It means fundamental changes to their lifestyles. And the politicians are not being honest with the people about it.

Badria Timimi: Surprisingly, the blueprint for transformation is woven into the United Nations Agenda 2030, ostensibly a vision for a better world.

Chapter 4: The Master Plan

Peter Thomson, General Assembly President (2016-2017): Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I say again that, taken together, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement provide humanity with a master plan for a sustainable way of life on this planet.

Badria Timimi: New York City, late September 2024. The setting for the United Nations Summit of the Future, a gathering of member nations to reinforce and accelerate Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. The plan has a broad spectrum and is full of worthy ambition. But behind those deliberately bright and colorful boxes lies a darker theme. A shifting of influence and potentially power towards unelected world bodies. The strategy goes back well into the last century, and pressure is growing because the goals are far behind targets set at the grand relaunching in 2015.

Ban Ki-Moon: Seventeen inspiring Sustainable Development Goals – the SDGs. Our aim is clear. Our mission is possible. And our destination is in our sights.

Male Narrator: To end poverty and hunger. Address inequality. Protect our planet. And build a life of dignity for all.

Badria Timimi: It appears to be a noble and ambitious program for a perfect world. And who could argue with those aspirations? But critics insist the goals are not what they seem. Alex Newman is a journalist and broadcaster who’s been investigating the issue for 15 years. He has his own way of interpreting the rhetoric.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: You have to learn to speak what I call UN-ese. You have to know what the terms mean if you want to truly understand what is being discussed. When they talk about peace keeping forces or the peacekeeping role of the United Nations, they’re actually talking about the war-making capabilities of the United Nations. So you have this Orwellian doublespeak. When they talk about transparency, more often than not, they’re talking about eliminating your privacy.

Human rights is another very, very good example. They make very clear in this document that your rights can be restricted under the guise of public order or morality or whatever the case may be. And so they’re saying, here’s your rights. But by the way, they’re not really rights. We can revoke them at any time.

The UN is filled with contradictions like this. Like, for example, when they talk about gender equality, right? A normal person in the Western world thinks gender equality means a woman has a right to earn money, to own property, to have all the rights and privileges that a man would have. When you look at the individuals who lead this movement within the UN, you’re talking about radical feminists. You’re talking about people who are very interested in dissolving the nuclear family. As you dig into these goals, it’s very clear we’re dealing with something far more nefarious. Once you look past the marketing slogans, the kind of warm and fuzzy, ‘we’re going to end hunger’ – which, again, is just window dressing – you realize that this is actually a blank check for totalitarian global control.

Badria Timimi: Author and campaigner, the late Rosa Koire, called out the plan more than a decade ago.

Rose Koire: It is the biggest public relations scam in the history of the world. But it’s far more than that.

It’s a blueprint. It is the action plan to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all information, all energy, all means of production, and all human beings in the world.

Badria Timimi: What can be measured can be managed and ultimately monetized. In fact, a study at Yale University has calculated that the natural assets of the world are worth $5 quadrillion. 30:00 Is this the basis of the new world monetary system? And is it the deep underlying reason for the United Nations’ project to rewild 50% of the Earth by 2050?

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: They talk a lot about biodiversity. They want you to think, ‘Oh, we’re going to preserve the toucans and the parrots and the lizards.’ But when you actually dig into this, what they’re talking about is creating – and they’re working on it now – an international database with virtually all of the genetic material of all of the species on the planet. And then they want to start mixing and matching it. Bill Gates, ultimately, and his buddies want to end up in total control over all life on the planet.

Badria Timimi: Is it a coincidence, then, that Bill Gates has become the largest private landowner in America? While planning to build smart cities in which to corral the general population? What is indisputable is that the oligarchs of global business are embedded in United Nations policy.

Melissa Ciummei, independent financial investor: They don’t care about the planet. They care about getting in. Finance goes to where it gets the greatest return. There’s a move into the green finance.

It’s all about profit. It’s not about the planet.

Badria Timimi: This is not conjecture. Under the guise of climate change and Net Zero, vast fortunes are already being amassed. Take carbon exchange markets. Companies emitting excess carbon dioxide can buy credits from businesses that are carbon negative. But increasingly, many are paying a high price to offset their emissions against land schemes – grasslands, forests, conservation projects and so on.

Some legitimate, others not so.

Either way, the brokers and middlemen get rich while having no impact on actual carbon emissions. We’ve also seen the emergence of Natural Asset Companies whose name says it all.

Whitney Webb, investigative journalist: They identify the asset and then issue shares in that asset. Out of thin air, essentially, and they can sell it to financial institutions, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds. And then they go public and have an IPO. And that funding is, they say, meant to preserve the natural asset. But elsewhere they say that their main purpose, like so much else, is to generate profit for shareholders. It has nothing to do with preserving the environment. That is literally just the talking point they think will stick and sell. ‘We’re all in it together. We’ve got to save the planet. So let’s allow the bankers to create a new racket that makes the natural world collateral.’

Badria Timimi: So if everything in nature is to be traded on financial markets, setting a value on the land we walk on and the air we breathe, why do we, the public, have no say?

Ben Pile, researcher, writer: There’s no route that an ordinary person can take to make a representation to the United Nations. So it’s fundamentally undemocratic. What it has done is build relationships with billionaires.

Badria Timimi: Right from the start, the rich and powerful have enjoyed undue influence in the UN’s inner sanctum. In fact, the Rockefeller family part financed its headquarters in Manhattan.

Video clip of a younger Rockefeller giving a check for $8.5 million to some UN leader, “...to hand you, Mr. Lie, my father’s check.” “Thank you, Mr. Rockefeller.”

Badria Timimi: Between them, the Rockefeller family has funded hundreds of organizations and as a consequence, spread their authority on civil society, institutions, banking, education and global politics.

The Rockefellers always believed in world governance. In the 1950s, their Special Studies Project report declared [audio clip]: “The UN stands finally as a symbol of the world order that will one day be built.”

In 1973, David Rockefeller co-founded a non-governmental organization which still carries international power today – the Trilateral Commission. Its stated objectives revived technocracy and, in turn, planted the seeds of the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda.

Patrick M. Wood, economist, author: They said at the time that they were going to create a new international economic order. It was all over their literature. The goal of the new international economic order was not to get richer in the sense of money. They knew even back then that eventually the fiat currency system of the world was going to disintegrate. So the goal became to actually capture the physical resources of the world.

All wealth historically has come out of the ground. They wanted to take away everything that they could possibly take away from the nation states of the world, and from private individuals of the world, and stuff it into the Global Commons Trust, where they would administrate it, and they would be the ones getting licenses for the resources to turn around and make stuff.

35:02

Badria Timimi: The financial kingpins have long seen themselves as masters of the universe, manipulating global affairs through institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Is Agenda 2030 the defining act for complete control? And how significant was the global response to Covid-19?

Michael Bloomberg, Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, UN: As the world builds back from Covid 19, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make investments that will strengthen the economy and improve public health and fight climate change for generations to come.

Badria Timimi: One might ask why the UN needs a multi-billionaire finance and media player as a special envoy. Or why Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England who called for a new global monetary system, is the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance.

And then there’s Larry Fink, the boss of Blackrock. The world’s largest asset management company.

He’s a board member of the World Economic Forum and, as we’ll see, has driven the UN’s goals through investment strategies for the past 20 years. All three are principles of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero , a partnership with the UN. With the green economy worth trillions to corporations and investors alike, it’s hard not to see a conflict of interests. Are the bankers raising money to achieve United Nations goals? Or are the goals a Trojan horse to change the world’s financial control systems?

Now consider the events at Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August 2019, only three months before the Covid outbreak. It’s when Mark Carney delivered his call for change and BlackRock proposed a new financial mechanism, ‘Going Direct’, which in principle allows central banks to channel capital direct to large corporations.

Catherine Austin Fitts: So the central bankers got together in 2019, the G7 central bankers, and voted on the Going Direct reset, and the Going Direct reset, of which the Covid operation was part, has done a phenomenally excellent job of massively consolidating capital into central control. If you look at the Covid operation from a financial standpoint, it was absolutely clear that it was one way you balance the books. It worked.

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: The major corporations like Amazon and others were allowed to continue business. Meanwhile, other businesses, particularly small and medium sized entities, were deemed to be, quote, ‘inessential’. Many of them were put out of business. And so what we saw was a global wealth transfer of a reported $3.3 trillion from the working classes and the middle classes to this kind of super rich billionaire brigade.

Catherine Austin Fitts: The people who ran the operation made an absolute fortune. It was economically – as a taking – it was a huge taking.

Badria Timimi: And that included billions of pounds of taxpayers money going to pharmaceutical firms for so-called vaccines. Whatever the truth around Covid, Dr. Hughes says the response deployed dangerous elements of social control, what he calls weaponized deception.

Dr. David A. Hughes: We see techniques of shock and awe being applied through the lockdowns, techniques of isolation, making reality seem strange and threatening. All of this helps to de-pattern the mind. These are all well-known military tactics.

Actor voicing the strategy: Look them in the eyes and tell them you’re doing all you can to stop the spread of Covid 19. Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.

Dr. David A. Hughes: These are in fact, very nasty and very vicious techniques which were deployed against the public of multiple countries at once. [On screen, a video clip of a woman on oxygen tube struggling to breathe, with words in white letters on black background: Stay home. Get tested. Book your vaccination.] These are forms of serious psychological abuse. I think once the public starts to understand that, there’s going to be a very severe, pushback against everything that’s happened.

Catherine Austin Fitts: The general population cannot fathom the psychopathy of the vision that they’re facing. So they can’t fathom that a group of people would organize and engineer this kind of mass atrocity to get where they want to go.

Badria Timimi: Be aware, then, of the World Health Organization, the UN’s most powerful agency. 40:00 Since Covid, the W.H.O. has sought to increase that power to unprecedented levels through amendments to its pandemic treaty and the International Health Regulations. A key driver is its One Health initiative.

Dr. Meryl Nass, physician, researcher: One Health is a concept that was created to enable the W.H.O. with these documents to take over jurisdiction of everything in the world by saying that climate change, animals, plants, water systems, ecosystems are all central to health.

Badria Timimi: That places the Director General in a key position to influence world events. Another potential conflict of interests, given the W.H.O’s financial backing, particularly from the pharmaceutical sector. Its accounts for 2022 show that an eye-watering 84% or $3.656 billion of income came from voluntary donations. The top four sources of these donations included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI, a public private vaccine alliance also heavily supported by Gates.

Dr. David Bell, former medical officer and scientist: People see the W.H.O. as a benign organization, and there are still areas where the W.H.O. does useful stuff. But the biggest focus now is purely on a tiny disease burden, where investors can extract a large amount of wealth. This has shifted the W.H.O’s focus very much to this emergency agenda, which is very false. Pandemics are very rare events.

Dr. Tess Lawrie, former external research consultant: This is why we now have a W.H.O. that promotes vaccines all the time, because that’s what the money is coming in to support. So instead of being a World Health Organization, we have a world vaccine organization and that seems to be the only thing they’re touting.

James Roguski, researcher, author: What’s in the treaty has got nothing to do with health. It’s a business deal focused on the most profitable business imaginable, pandemic profiteering.

Dr. David Bell, former medical officer and scientist: The other part of it, they’re setting up a huge surveillance network. We’re talking about $31 billion a year. They have to surveil for variants of viruses, and they will find them. They just have to decide there’s a threat, not even a real harm.

Video clip of BBC newscaster: Experts are preparing for what is known as ‘Disease X’ or the next pandemic virus.

Dr. Tess Lawrie, former external research consultant: They are creating a supranational, self-perpetuating pandemic industry.

Badria Timimi, as video clip from BBC plays: The latest scare is monkeypox, renamed Mpox. A disease highly unlikely to affect the general population. Nevertheless, the W.H.O. has acted.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO: The emergency committee met and advised me that, in its view, the situation constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Dr. Tess Lawrie, former external research consultant: If you get to declare the emergency and then profit from it, there’s a big problem, isn’t there?

James Roguski, researcher, author: It’s essentially a build out of big pharma, and the W.H.O. is essentially looking to be their marketing and distribution arm worldwide.

Video clip of activist on megaphone saying: W.H.O. the people say no! W.H.O. the people say no!

Dr. David Bell, former medical officer and scientist, WHO: We’re fighting for, really, the right to own their own lives. We’re fighting for that freedom versus a sort of corporate authoritarian structure or medical fascist structure, which is what is clearly trying to, you know, interests are trying to impose on us.

Badria Timimi: Changes to the W.H.O’s regulations are expected to be voted through in the coming months. As we speak, the UK government is fully behind them. Meanwhile, in common with many other global institutions, the W.H.O. tries to silence criticism and dissent, branding it misinformation. The science, it says, is settled.

Antonio Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations: Digital platforms are being misused to subvert science and spread disinformation and hate to billions of people. This clear and present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action.

Nick Hudson, actuary, private equity investor [pony tail]: I have a little rule of thumb for diagnosing the centralization scam. If we can detect (1), a propagandized global crisis, (2) admitting only global solutions. And (3), with dissenting voices viciously silenced, then we know with absolute certainty that we are dealing with a scam.

Badria Timimi: Control. Dictate. Eliminate debate. The hallmarks of a totalitarian regime. And nowhere is the cold ambition of corporate dominance more evident than with the World Economic Forum.

45:00

Chapter 5: The Davos Dynasty

Badria Timimi: Klaus Schwab founded the W.E.F. in 1971. His mentor was Henry Kissinger, statesman, political shaper, and close confidant of the Rockefellers. The organization now employs 800 people and has programs in business, academia, and in training future global leaders. It’s far more than its famous annual meeting in Davos.

Ivor Cummins, biochemical engineer, commentator: Over the last 50 years, the World Economic Forum has blossomed into an enormously influential organization with all of the major corporations as stakeholders, or trustees, and all funding the World Economic Forum to ultimately fund the UN world government plans and Agenda 2030.

Badria Timimi: Klaus Schwab is the public face of Stakeholder Capitalism, a planned system of central ownership and control that has little to do with democratic process, and is uncomfortably close to communism. It’s a partnership between global corporations, governments and what Schwab refers to as civil society – NGOs and so-called think tanks. The agenda is driven by finance, which gives the unelected and unaccountable oligarchs huge influence, if not control, over policy. The UK’s prime minister, himself a one time member of the Trilateral Commission, has already declared his interest.

Interviewer speaking to Keir Starmer, January 2023: You have to choose now between Davos or Westminster?

Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition: Davos.

Interviewer: Why?

Sir Keir Starmer: Because Westminster is too constrained. And you know, it’s closed. And we’re not having – once you get out of Westminster, whether it’s Davos or anywhere else, you actually engage with people, that you can see working with in the future. Westminster is just a tribal, shouting place.

Badria Timimi: Starmer seems to forget that he is elected by the people to serve the people through Parliament. That’s his democratic duty. And while he refuses to listen to our farmers, he entertains the globalists in Downing Street and publicly doubles down on his philosophy.

Onscreen, Keir Starmer’s post online: I’m determined to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people’s pockets. This can only be achieved by working in partnership with leading businesses like Blackrock, to capitalize on the UK’s position as a world leading hub for investment.

Badria Timimi: To underline the influence of non-elected, unaccountable policy drivers, consider this document from 2004. It was commissioned by the UN and produced by financial institutions including the World Bank. It cited research by the W.E.F. The result was the emergence of Environmental, Social and Governance metrics, ESGs.

Ben Pile, researcher, writer: ESG is an attempt to turn financial power into governance without going through the democratic process, without the normal process of making law.

Badria Timimi: ESGs allow major asset management companies such as BlackRock to impose ideologies on businesses and consumers across the world through their investment strategies. BlackRock’s billionaire chairman and CEO Larry Fink, also a board member of the W.E.F, remember, is clear.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock: You have to force behaviors. If you don’t force behaviors, whether it’s gender or race or just any way you want to say the composition of your team, you’re going to be impacted.

Ben Pile, researcher, writer: Now we get ethics, green ethics, racial ethics, gender ethics, driving corporate decisions about who may have money, what they may use their money for and how they are going to behave in society and what they’re going to do with it. This is a new form of political power that isn’t accountable, isn’t transparent, and it isn’t democratic.

Badria Timimi: We, the public, are being manipulated. Our lifestyles, our culture and our future. Be it through forced woke ideologies, intrusive technologies, so-called pandemics, censorship, or information which is too often propaganda. Your compliance is vital to the agenda. To impose global solutions, the leadership needs you to believe in global problems.

Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of UN: Climate change is here. It is terrifying and it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived.

Image onscreen: June 4, 2025, article titled “Who Will Stop Earth Burning? You’re the ringmasters in fight to save planet, UN’s new climate chief tells world leaders in exclusive standard interview.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: This stuff is so fantastically stupid. It’s hard to believe that they’re doing it. 50:03 There is no climate emergency. That is a total scam. If they came out and said, ‘Hey, we want to destroy your economy, we want to destroy the middle class of your country, and then, ultimately, we want to make you a slave to a one world government,’ it just wouldn’t be as appealing as saying ‘We’re trying to save the planet for future generations.’

Chapter 6: Crisis? What Crisis?

Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of UN: 2024 – with the hottest day on record and the hottest months on record. This is almost certain to be the hottest year on record, and a masterclass in climate destruction.

Badria Timimi: Statements such as that are amplified by emotional footage from all over the world. But is any of it true?

John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science: I do not think there’s a climate crisis, and I base that on all the evidence in the climate data sets that we build to answer questions just like that. We actually use satellites to monitor the global temperature, the true global temperature of the atmosphere. And we find there is a rise. It’s about, 1.5 degrees per century, which is certainly something that’s manageable, and the Earth has seen before. Compared to the 19^th century, which was about the coolest century in the past 10,000 years, we’re warmer. But we’re about the same as we were a thousand years ago, and certainly cooler than we were about 5000 to 8000 years ago.

Badria Timimi: John Christy is a highly regarded climate scientist who developed the measurement of accurate temperature records using satellites. His evidence is critically inconvenient to the climate change industry.

Onscreen: A graph – the red line (a “hockey stick”) is labeled “Average of102 IPCC CMIP-5 Climate Models” and, below that, a small upward slope titled “Observations” using weather balloon data.

John Christy: I’m not popular in most of the climate community, that’s for sure, because, much of the climate community depends on climate model results. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into that industry of climate modeling. And I show, well you folks have failed. But yet they prop up the entire political world that tends to support this. In 2017, I came to work and there were seven bullet holes in our office suite. And so some people are pretty upset that, the evidence that we build and show,

that can stand the test of time and can stand up to cross-examination, is just not going along with their issues and their desires.

Badria Timimi: So let’s consider these statistics on the Earth’s atmosphere. 78% is nitrogen, 21% oxygen. Other gases make up less than 1%, and carbon dioxide accounts for a mere 0.04%, the majority of which is natural. Can manmade CO2 really be a problem?

John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science: Roy Spencer and I are going on the assumption that all the warming that you see is due to carbon dioxide emissions. And, so we find that that’s a pretty modest warming. But see, that’s a big assumption. Mother Nature is able to warm up the planet without extra CO2. And so, we are just saying the worst case scenario is this warming of about a degree and a half. And, that’s certainly not a catastrophe at all.

Badria Timimi: On the contrary, carbon dioxide is vital for the world’s survival. The greater the concentration, the better plants grow. In fact, according to NASA figures, the world has become 14% greener in the last 40 years.

John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science: During the last cool period before industrialization, let’s say 200 years ago or so, it was below 300 parts per million. And during the ice ages, it was even lower. And that’s a dangerous, level because plants struggle and struggle to survive when the CO2 is at a low level. And so the biosphere becomes less diverse and less available to support the animal life. So low CO2 is not good for the planet as a whole.

Badria Timimi: Where is the logic, then, behind the UK’s decision to spend 22 billion pounds on facilities to capture carbon? The greatest controversy of all revolves around readings from ice cores. CO2 levels can be measured in bubbles of air trapped in ice thousands of years ago. By aligning this to temperatures, scientists have argued that carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming. However, closer inspection leads to the opposite conclusion.

John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science: Once the temperature starts to rise, you will see the carbon dioxide rise about 500 to 1000 years after. 55:00 So the CO2 actually lags the temperature changes.

Badria Timimi: But what of the extreme weather events, which are increasing and driven by climate change, according to everyone from the top of the United Nations down? Professor Christy says there is no data to support those claims.

John Christy: What we find is that virtually every one of these claims is false. The extremes are not increasing. Hurricanes are not increasing in intensity or frequency. Same with tornadoes or thunderstorms or floods or droughts. It’s just going along like it always has with a natural variability.

Chris Morrison, Environmental Editor, The Daily Sceptic: Why aren’t we looking at the surface data sets that are constantly adjusted upwards? Why aren’t we looking at the 40.3 [Celcius, which is 104.5 Fahrenheit] record at Coningsby, which the Met Office is very proud of? On July the 19^th in 2022 and when we did a freedom of information request at the Daily Sceptic, we found that there were three Typhoon jets landing on a runway next to the measuring device. Because Coningsby, as they call it, is actually RAF [Royal Air Force] Coningsby. It’s a military airport. The temperature lasted for 60 seconds. Sticking a thermometer up the backside of a jet aircraft is not, probably, scientifically the best place that you can sort of determine temperature measurement. Particularly when you then morph it into a global database, which the Met Office has, and then tell dear old António Guterres says that the globe is boiling. The whole thing is junk.

Prof. Judith Curry, climate scientist: How we came to the point where we think that we’re going to prevent bad weather from happening by eliminating fossil fuels is just about the most nonsensical, illogical thing that I can imagine. And the whole world is caught up in this nonsense.

Badria Timimi: So how did the carbon story take hold? Meet the man who invented climate change, according to The Telegraph. His name? Maurice Strong. An oil tycoon, a Rockefeller associate, and a man with an extraordinary talent for moving between high finance, politics, and the United Nations. Strong was a member of the highly influential Club of Rome, an institution formed in 1968 at a Rockefeller property on Lake Como in Italy. A group of scientists, academics and industrialists discussed what they saw as an urgent crisis – the impact of human activity on the planet.

Dennis Meadows, management scientist, clip from an old event: I don’t think we can sustain current growth trends much beyond, say, the lives of children who are being born today.

Badria Timimi: To prove the thesis, they commissioned computer modeling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This research laid the foundations for an agenda that has persisted for over 50 years.

Clip from old public service video: Cut use of autos, use less electric power. Have fewer children. Limit growth.

Sandi Adams, researcher, author: All of this was fueling this ideology that there’s too many people on the planet, there’s not enough resources, and that something has to be done.

Maurice Strong, oil tycoon: The natural world in which man lives and on which he depends is indeed deteriorating, is being destroyed in many instances at a rate that is accelerating and that can only continue to accelerate unless we begin to control the activities that are having this destructive impact.

Badria Timimi: In 1975, the Club of Rome published a second report: “Mankind at the Turning Point.”

The lead quotation was telling: “The world has cancer and the cancer is man.” The report concluded: “The solution of these crises can be developed only in a global context, with full and explicit recognition of the emerging world system. A new world economic order and a global resources allocation system.”

In other words, technocracy; top-down control of everything, including populations. But if that was the solution, a worldwide problem was required. Climate change provided the answer, as admitted in a later Club of Rome document.

Sandi Adams, researcher, author: This is the quote from page 115: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

It really does look as though they are inventing climate change there.

Patrick M. Wood, economist, author: They just made it up out of thin air, literally. Nobody really looks at that book and says, ”Well, there you go.” This has nothing to do with science whatsoever. They just made it up.

1:00:00

Badria Timimi: Interestingly, in 1988, Maurice Strong had been instrumental in establishing the IPCC, the mainly political entity which endorsed a thesis by a small group of scientists, that industrial carbon dioxide was driving climate change. And the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body established in 1988] has been locked into that theory ever since. Maurice Strong’s masterstroke came in 1992, when, as secretary general of the UN’s Earth Summit in Brazil, he saw 179 nations commit to a world action plan: Agenda 21.

Video clip of Maurice Strong from the Earth Summit: We have been the most successful species ever. We are now a species out of control.

Badria Timimi: Nobody would question the need for a cleaner environment and the protection of nature. And Strong’s legacy lives on through the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Accord, the current Agenda 2030 and the worldwide push for Carbon Net Zero. But there are questions on his motives and his connections. He was behind the first financial carbon market and a founding director of the World Economic Forum. Surely a conflict of interests with his involvement in the IPCC.

A sceptic might ask why nearly all research grants in almost 40 years have gone on developing IPCC carbon dioxide theories, while anyone who raises questions is ridiculed, canceled or has their career stalled?

John Christy, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science: Funding for someone who wants to determine the natural variability of climate system as an explanation for what has happened is just not there. I mean, the government is very clear that they want a catastrophic story.

Chris Morrison, environmental editor, The Daily Sceptic: There is no single science paper that proves conclusively that humans control all or most of the global climate. If there was, you wouldn’t hear the last of it. Instead, we get this call to authority to the IPCC, the United Nations Panel on Climate Change.

Badria Timimi: Many more scientists and academics are speaking out against the IPCC. Almost 2000 have signed a declaration stating that there is no climate emergency, including Nobel Prize winner Professor John Clauser, who wrote: ‘The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.’ We need to have a full and honest debate about the science and it needs to be to discussed in Parliament.

It needs to be discussed in the media, it needs to be generally discussed, and we need to sort of bring the drains up if you like, on all of the science, to see is there really a threat?

That debate is highly unlikely because the juggernaut of Net Zero careers on with trillions at stake. What is certain is that the repercussions will affect the food we eat, ravage our countryside and have a disastrous impact on our energy supply.

Chapter 7: The Net Effect

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General: If you cannot set a credible course for Net Zero with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business.

Professor John Clauser: Well, Net Zero is insanity. It’s pure insanity. I mean, the idea that you can remove 85% of the world’s energy, which comes from hydrocarbons, within less than 30 years, and replace it with the sun beams and the breezes. It shows a complete lack of economics, societal effect.

It shows a simple lack of the progress that we’ve made over 300 years.

Badria Timimi: Nevertheless, Net Zero is enshrined in UK law, with the government passing the Climate Change Act in 2008. A 100% reduction in emissions by 2050, from 1990 levels, was included later in a strategy document. But experts argue that the policy is fatally flawed.

Derrick Berthelsen, business analyst: Europe’s mad dash towards Net Zero is effectively economic suicide. Politicians are purposely impoverishing ordinary people, purposely deindustrializing Europe, where companies are forced to move to countries where they have access to cheap energy, whether it’s the US who frack and therefore have cheap gas, or whether it’s to China, which is still predominantly producing from nonrenewable, especially coal. It is literal economic suicide.

Badria Timimi: China continues to open new coal fired power stations to drive the factories that manufacture wind turbines and solar panels, which are then sold to the West. 1:05:00 As a result, China emits almost 30% of global greenhouse gases, while the UK is responsible for less than 1%. In essence, carbon emissions are merely transferred to another part of the planet. And while China gets richer, UK households face a bleak and expensive future.

Dr. David Bell, former medical officer and scientist: What it will effectively do is price ordinary people out of having access to electricity at a time they want, and a price they can afford.

Badria Timimi: The core problem is that neither the infrastructure nor the technology exist to provide a constant supply of electricity.

Dr. David Bell, former medical officer and scientist: The proportion of time that solar actually generates electricity is actually 9% in the UK. That means that for 90% of the time, solar doesn’t generate the average amount of electricity that its “capacity” can generate. For onshore wind, it’s about 20 to 40%, and for offshore wind it’s about 30 to 50%. So that means, by definition, you will always have periods of time when renewables aren’t producing electricity but there is demand for electricity.

Badria Timimi: As we’ll hear, the net result is that supply will be rationed. Reality, though, seems not to concern the activists.

Young woman blocking traffic: I’m here because I don’t have a future.

Chris Morrison, environment editor, The Daily Sceptic: I look at the, some of these hysterical youngsters and some of the hysterical oldsters as well. You know, screaming about the climate is collapsing and all that sort of thing. And you think, you haven’t got a clue what would happen if you removed hydrocarbons. You haven’t got a clue! You’d be back in service like probably your ancestors were. You’d be skivvying on the land, in big houses with warlords, you know, calling themselves aristocracy and all that sort of stuff. You want to go back to that? Fine. You know, get rid of hydrocarbons.

Badria Timimi: Many of these apparently grassroots protest groups are backed by organizations such as the Climate Emergency Fund, financed by billionaires like the oil heiress Aileen Getty. And if they claim to be environmentalists, they conveniently ignore the bigger picture. Thousands of wind turbines are disrupting coastal waters, changing habitats, affecting marine life and killing seabirds. Landscapes are being scarred by the production of lithium for electric car batteries, and by cobalt mines in Africa, where child labor contributes to huge corporate profits. How does the loss of thousands of square miles of farmland to vast solar parks meet the UN’s biodiversity goal? And how helpful are wind turbines when they’re blotting the landscape visually and through noise pollution and disrupting wildlife in the air and on the ground?

The glorious mountain terrain of southwest Wales is a stark example. It’s a landscape breathtaking in its beauty, untainted and largely untouched by humans. A haven for wildlife. A place where life runs its natural course. Yet this is what’s planned: Mega turbines designed for offshore, reaching 700ft into the air and dwarfing the hilltop forests. Planning permission is being sought for the so-called Bryn Cadwgan Energy Park.

Justin Cotter, a local resident: If you put one in the valley floor, it would be standing some 40m above the valley floor, above the horizon. But they’re not putting them in the valley floor. They’re putting them on the top of the hills so it would be standing some 600 odd meters above sea level up there. Casting a shadow over our solar panels.

Badria Timimi: Justin Cotter lives right in the center of the proposed development. He’s fighting to preserve the countryside he loves. And across the mountain, Jason and Josie Barker are equally aggrieved.

Jason and Josie Barker: It feels very much like it’s exploitation. Using the climate crisis narrative as its supporting evidence, so it feels like it’s being abused in a tremendous way. And there’s going to be a lot of destruction done in the name of doing good, which really just seems utterly backwards. And if we really want to protect nature, then some of the best way of doing that would be to leave it, leave it alone, especially in the wilder places, and let it flourish. We’ve certainly found that being here, the more we’ve lived here, the more we’ve worked with it and encouraged it, the more it’s come back. All of those spruce trees on top there, they will have to go to make way for turbines. All of that, all of this spruce will be gone.

1:10:03

Justin Cotter, a local resident: To build a 230-meter turbine in that location, it’s going to take some crane to lift the 240-ton nacelle on to the top of the tower, some 180 meters up. So they’d have to stabilize all the ground for the crane. Stabilize the ground for the actual turbine. Put in a concrete plug, basically in the ground of some, thousand tons of steel, 4000 tons of concrete, just as a base.

Jason Barker: They’ll need to be lit. It’ll take away the dark skies.

Josie Barker: It’s totally devastating. It would just be catastrophic damage and destruction.

Justin Cotter: The roadways up through these valleys, they’re Welsh valleys. They’re all twists and turns.

They’re going to have to straighten out the valleys. Where you’ve got steep hills, they’re going to have to level out those hills. There’s a 200 meter drop into the actual valley itself. So they’re gonna have to create gradients that machinery carrying 400 ton loads can actually traverse and get up.

Badria Timimi: The locals argue that there are much better ways of creating clean energy, such as solar panels on industrial sites. Areas of natural beauty should be respected.

Josie Barker: This is about preserving and protecting this sacred land. We need to speak up and protect the environment. It’s just tremendous amount of damage in the name of saving the planet.

Jason Barker: It does make you ask the question of what is it we’re actually saving if we’re paving it over? It doesn’t make any sense at all in my head.

Badria Timimi: The proliferation of turbines and solar panels certainly seems at odds with protecting biodiversity. And experts argue that the economics simply don’t add up.

Ralph Ellis, scientific researcher: If we are going to go on to full Net Zero, we not only have to change our electrical system, but we have to change the other 66% or more of the rest of our energy needs as well. So we need to triple the amount of renewables just to cover our present electricity generation. And then we need to triple again to cover all of the other usages like, you know, transport, space, heating and industry. So it’s almost a ten-fold increase in the amount of renewable energy that we’re producing.

Badria Timimi: Ralph Ellis has analyzed three government reports and says all have grossly underestimated costs. Two of the reports ignore the need for that crucial backup when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. At present, this is the only such site – Dinorwig in Wales. But going by the government’s own figures, Ellis says the equivalent of 2000 Dinorwigs would be required. The overall cost would run into trillions of pounds.

Ralph Ellis, scientific researcher: It’s an energy fantasy because none of this has been thought through.

Badria Timimi: Battery plants are one alternative to back up the national grid, like this one already constructed in Australia. But again, they offer limited supply. We’re facing a situation where if fossil fuels are eliminated, it will be impossible to maintain a constant supply of electricity.

Derrick Berthelsen, business analyst: You can’t instantly put on new supply. So what you have to do is control demand. And to be honest – they’re quite open with this. – if you look at the National Grid’s latest paper on this, they talk about demand management. And the system is, well electricity will only be available at a price you can afford when the wind is blowing and when the sun is shining and when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and the 1 or 2 hours of battery storage have been used up, the way they will reduce demand is by simply increasing the price of electricity, so that demand falls to the available level of supply.

Part of the control that the government has, or part of the means by which you can manage the demand, is through the use of smart meters. Effectively, smart meters allow them to do minute-by-minute pricing, which means that as the intermittent renewable production goes up and down, they can effectively change the price at which you can use electricity. So essentially it’s going back to pre-industrial age, where the weather determines our lifestyles and our energy use.

Badria Timimi: A government sponsored report from the UK Fires Organization agrees that targets will not be met, and therefore electricity usage will have to be cut.

Chris Morrison, environment editor, The Daily Sceptic: They say we’ll have a quarter of the power by 2050, and they say there’ll be no travel. There’ll be no meat or no beef, lamb. There will be restrictions on clothing and we will live in mud huts. And it’s not an exaggeration. They use the word earth. The United Nations used the word bamboo. 1:15:00 Impacted [rammed] earth, soil detritus. This is what they’re writing.

Badria Timimi: But what of the claim that renewable energy will be cheaper? Not so, says Derek Berthelsen.

Derrick Berthelsen, business analyst: We can also look at the accounts of these renewable energy companies. And what we see, if we look at those, is that the cost of production is considerably higher than the market price of electricity. And therefore, without these subsidies, these renewable companies will go bust.

Badria Timimi: Ironically, the anticipated reduction in supply comes at a time when demand is about to skyrocket, with the explosion of surveillance systems and artificial intelligence. BlackRock’s Larry Fink predicts that by 2030, data centers will use 30 times more power than a single city.

Larry Fink, Chair & CEO of BlackRock: Where’s that power going to come from? Are we going to take it off the grid? What does it mean for elevated energy prices for everybody else, if it’s that? I think it’s going to represent some huge societal questions that we have not addressed – the negative side. Forget about the use of it, but just the generation of it is massive power.

Badria Timimi: If the race to net zero will affect our energy, it could also have a devastating effect on our food as global policies and the march of corporations accelerate.

Chapter 8: From Farmer to Pharma

Farming has been at the heart of our lives for generations. But to the climate change advocates, suddenly it’s a threat.

John Kerry, U.S. Climate Envoy 2021-23: A lot of people have no clue that agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world. You just can’t continue to both warm the planet while also expecting to feed it. Doesn’t work.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: One thing John Kerry didn’t mention was that farming and agriculture contribute 100% of the food that we need to eat. So that’s a little, kind of an important detail that he ought to have mentioned. And I think what we’re dealing with here is actually a global war on agriculture. I believe they are demolishing our food infrastructure, partly to cause a crisis. And I guarantee you, mark my words, we’re going to be in a food crisis and they’re going to say ‘It’s climate change.’

Kelly Seaton, dairy farmer: I wouldn’t say it’s about saving the planet. No, I would say it’s about land grab and about profiteering and corporatization of our food sector.

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Wall Street banker: It’s basically the pharmaceutical industry taking over the food supply. If I can switch everybody from real food to pharma food, then 100% of the agriculture industry can go through my publicly traded stocks and I have complete control. So the idea is we get rid of farmers, we kill any naturally grown food, and we engineer food in manufacturing plants and laboratories. But I assure you, those guys are not eating this.

Badria Timimi: Bill Gates is one of the familiar corporate faces and he’s investing heavily in the food revolution under the guise of avoiding climate disaster.

Bill Gates: Cows alone, account for about 6% of global emissions. So we need to change cows.

Badria Timimi: And while he talks up the perceived problem, Gates is pouring money into the supposed solution – artificial meat and genetically modified crops. Crucially, anything that is invented or altered can be patented.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: The core of his agenda is he wants to do in agriculture – and pharmaceuticals, by the way – what he did in the computer world. True power, massive, incalculable wealth, comes from owning intellectual property and then monopolizing it. They want to make it so that every single organism that is used for food is ultimately under their control, either through the 3D printing or through this genetic manipulation. So we’re moving now very rapidly towards this totally centralized food system, where a tiny handful of corporate interests, in bed with totalitarian government, will dominate the food supply, so that there is only a giant public-private partnership with total control of all food, all energy. And I believe water will be next.

Badria Timimi: While the global machinations continue, thousands of farmers fear for their livelihoods. And the new UK government’s first budget has multiplied those fears. By reducing relief on inheritance tax, they’re penalizing those who would want to pass their farms to sons or daughters. The National Farmers Union described it as: A disastrous budget for family farms that would snatch away the next generation’s ability to carry on producing British food, and see farmers forced to sell land to pay the tax.

For Kelly Seaton, concern goes well beyond her family farm in Cheshire. 1:20:00

Kelly Seaton, dairy farmer: It makes me feel incredibly sad that the dairy and meat industry is so vilified. You will never find anything as nutritionally complete as milk and meat. The food that is going to replace milk, meat and all of the other products that we produce in this country is going to be very nutritionally lacking. They will starve us from nutrients and then the pharmaceutical companies will probably pick up the slack on that, all of which create a profiteering circle.

Badria Timimi: No Farmers, No Food was set up to campaign against untenable Net Zero and climate change policies. Farmers, says Kelly, are being dealt a deeply unfair hand.

Kelly Seaton, dairy farmer: When cows are blamed for climate change, it does make you question everything and I think this is where a lot of farmers are waking up to the fact that there’s a lot of lies being told to us. The problem with the current carbon system is that a lot of big corporations are offsetting their carbon, so most dairy producers now, especially, but other farmers as well, are having to record their carbon footprint on systems that aren’t fit for purpose. They are woo woo figures pulled from the sky, quite frankly. And then the big corporations are using that data to offset their carbon so that they can look better. Again, at the same time as beating us with a stick and saying that we’re the ones killing the planet with these girls.

Badria Timimi: The methane emitted by cows’ digestive system is part of the argument against them. But Kelly says that’s just hot air.

Kelly Seaton, dairy farmer, founding director of No Farmers, No Food: The grass that they eat would produce the same amount of methane whether they ate it or not. Okay, they do speed that up. But the other thing they give us is this – muck – which we put on the fields to fertilize the fields and reduces our reliance on buying in fertilizer.

Badria Timimi: 200 miles to the south, Ed Rhodes farms 188 acres of Devon countryside. He’s not part of the No Farmers, No Food movement, but agrees that the whole narrative on cows and climate change is wrong.

Ed Rhodes, farmer: As farmers, we recycle carbon all the time. That’s what we do. You could almost define farmers as carbon recyclers. We’re an organic beef, sheep and vegetable farm. We run a fairly traditional system of rotational farming. We’ll have a field which would be growing a brassica crop for one year, a non-brassica crop for another year, such as broad beans or sweetcorn. And then we have a break for that field. So it goes into a predominantly grass and clover mix. That allows the soil to recover from the work that we’ve done with it while we’ve had the vegetables growing. It also allows things like the clover to put nitrogen back into the soil.

So the livestock are absolutely essential for grazing that grassland. We also mow it so that the hay, the silage that we take from those fields are fed to the cattle in the winter. The bale I’m sitting on, the bedding that they’re standing on is all mown from very rushy areas on our farm. The animals then dung onto that, we compost that. That gets spread onto the land, primarily where we’re growing the vegetables, to put the fertility in. And that’s what then produces our crops. If you remove livestock from the system, you have no system.

Badria Timimi: Farmers like Ed Rhodes work with knowledge and passion, but still have to comply with a labyrinth of government rules and regulations, including carbon monitoring. And now land itself is under threat.

Badria Timimi: Corporations, such as British Airways, are buying farms to plant trees for carbon offsets, while other areas are being declared sites of Special Scientific Interest, restricting or even preventing use for crops and livestock. And then there’s the United Nations SDGs.

Male Narrator: Goal 15 – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems.

Badria Timimi: Consequently, rewilding programs are impacting farmland across the world. In the UK, for example, the government is planning to set apart 1,200 square miles for wildlife habitat by 2042. That’s an area almost as large as Cornwall. And in America, dams are being removed and river courses reopened, disrupting water supplies for crops.

Male Narrator: Go 13 states: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Badria Timimi: As a result, the Dutch government plans to close 3000 farms to meet EU emissions targets, drawing widespread protests. And in Denmark, farmers face paying £80 for every cow they own in a world first tax on meat.

Male Narrator: Goal 7 - ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

1:25:06

Badria Timimi: One result: cultivated land is disappearing under vast solar parks. How does this square with the UN’s biodiversity goals or even ending hunger? Maybe they’re questions for Ed Miliband, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. He’s cleared the way for a huge solar park on prime farmland in East Anglia, An area big enough to site 1745 football pitches.

Kelly Seaton, farmer, founding director of No Farmers, No Food: It’s a crime to take food productive land out for solar panels, which are unrecyclable, potentially not that productive going forward, and don’t feed the planet. It’s absolutely catastrophic. We’ve gone from being 78% self-sufficient in 1984 to now less than 60% self-sufficient – I think it’s about 54%, which I think is set to fall even further this year.

Badria Timimi: On top of all that, British farmers are being paid not to produce food under schemes like the Sustainable Farming Incentive. Kelly Seaton understands that many farmers accept the money to balance their books, but has this warning.

Kelly Seaton: When you look at how many farms are selling up, how many arable farms are struggling,

we’re walking into food shortages. And I think we’re going to end up eating more processed food, maybe lab grown meat. And I think that’s part of the plan.

Badria Timimi: The squeeze on farming is self-evident. Our supply of natural food is under very real threat. Just as the WEF predicted. Worse than that, Catherine Austin Fitts says that with programable currency, you wouldn’t have a choice.

Catherine Austin Fitts: No one in their right mind would ever eat this stuff. But the reality is, once they have control of your transactions, they can dictate what food you can and cannot buy. If they want you to buy pizza made with insect-based flour, that’s what you’re going to get.

Patrick M. Wood, economist, author: There’s an energy crisis even though there is an abundance of energy. There’s a food crisis, even though there’s plenty of food to feed the world. There’s a water crisis even though 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered with it. There’s an air crisis where CO2 is declared the enemy of mankind, even though it’s necessary for life to exist on Earth. There’s a resource crisis, even though there are abundant resources to support everyone. What’s with this here? Who created all these crises? They did it. Just as clear as the nose on my face. It’s all been a sham. All the essential things of life, they’ve been declared to be scarce, because things that are scarce, you can control.

Nick Hudson, actuary, private equity investor: The architects of such globalist trajectories – all the Kissingers, Rockefellers, Schwabs, Carneys, Strongs, Carstens – are held out as great intellects. But they are nothing of the sort. We know, both in theory and in practice, that centralization causes nothing but misery because it destroys the mechanisms of error correction, leading to doubling down on flawed policies.

Badria Timimi: And yet, the creed of global dominance continues apace through the W.H.O’s so-called Pandemic Agreement, its One Health Initiative, and, ultimately, the United Nations Agenda 2030. From medical diktats, to gender and racial politics, to climate change. The indoctrination runs deep.

Chapter 9: Controlling the Narrative

Badria Timimi: Local councils have been sucked in by the tentacles of global power, encouraging them to spend vast amounts of time and taxpayers’ money on climate schemes, without challenging the rationale.

Ben Pile, researcher, writer (burgundy shirt, chin): Local councils have taken these actions because they are part of, or lobbied by, a network of green organizations throughout the United Kingdom.

For example, the UK 100, there’s also C40 cities, and there’s the Global Covenant of Mayors. And these organizations require local authorities to sign pledges that say they’re going to ban cars from streets, we’re going to make people vegetarian, we’re going to restrict certain forms of trade faster than is required by national government. They’ve been able to do this because democratic engagement at the local level is so weak. 1:30:02 The voters’ decisions are completely outweighed by the influence of the green blob, essentially.

Badria Timimi: One organization, Climate Emergency UK, has introduced scorecards, a league table to compare the progress of councils. It brings both pressure and opportunity.

Ben Pile, researcher, writer: Environmentalism creates the idea that a local councilor is a planet saver. And of course, there are organizations, like the UK 100, that are going to flatter people in that position. They’re going to indulge those people and say how important they are.

Whereas most of the rest of the public are going to probably see them and say, ‘What the hell are you doing?!’

Badria Timimi: Ben Pile emphasizes that such organizations are not grassroots initiatives.

Ben Pile, researcher, writer: Civil society has been bought, and it’s been organized around the interests of its billionaire philanthropists.

Badria Timimi: Newspapers and television also consistently push the same story –
‘We’ve been hearing about the threat of climate change for decades, but now we can’t ignore it.’

‘Here, the climate crisis is very real and it is getting worse.’

Chris Morrison, environment editor, The Daily Sceptic: What mainstream media does in following this narrative is that they exclude vast areas of climate science. They exclude all the sceptical scientists. By the BBC, which has done it for 20 years, saying that you cannot have any other view apart from the settled narrative, It’s doing an enormous disservice to science.

Badria Timimi: Journalists and broadcasters are schooled in the carbon doctrine by organizations such as the Carbon Literacy Project, which claims to have trained 1000 BBC employees. Meanwhile, Sky [News] joined forces with the psychologists of the Behavioral Insights Team to produce this initiative:

“How the power of television can nudge viewers to decarbonize their lifestyles.”
The recommendations included:
• Give green content more screen time, more salience in plots and scenes.
• Use kids’ content to encourage positive environmental behaviors amongst children and their parents.

How, then, can we possibly expect impartiality in reporting? Rather, we’re served with propaganda; statements that nobody seems willing or able to question.

BBC newscaster: It is unequivocal that human activities are responsible for climate change.

Prof Steve Koonin, scientist, author: I can take current media and [for] almost any climate story I can write, I think a very effective counter. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. This [bias] is endemic to a media that is ill informed and has an agenda. The agenda is to promote alarm, and induce governments to decarbonize.

There’s an organization called Covering Climate Now, which is a nonprofit membership organization. Their mission is to promote the narrative. They will not allow anything to be broadcast or written that is counter to the narrative.

Badria Timimi: Among the 500 plus media partners on the Covering Climate Now website, are Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, Channel 4 News, The Guardian, the Daily Mirror, and The Lancet, as well as several British universities. Funders of Covering Climate Now have included the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Rockefeller Family and Associates, and the One Earth Fund.

Nick Hudson, actuary, private equity investor: It’s true that the mainstream media only report one side of the story, and that most of them are in the pockets of the powerful people who are trying to implement these changes. I don’t question that at all. But it’s also true that people are listening to them less and less, and reading them less and less.

We see independent media people with much larger audiences than mainstream papers, and I think that phenomenon will gather pace now.

Badria Timimi: That rise in independent voices has seen institutions like the UN, the WEF, big tech companies, and broadcasters like the BBC, wage war on what they call mis-, dis- and mal-information.

They don’t appreciate views they can’t control.

BBC newscaster: The fight for truth is on.

Badria Timimi: A partisan media, obsessed local councils, and then, there are the universities, which should be the first and last bastions of objective research and open debate. 1:35:03 But here, too, is a story of outside pressure.

Prof. Gloria Moss, academic, author: With the drop in government funding, the shortfall has been made up from other sources and those tend to be NGOs, private organizations. For example, the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Invariably, money from private organizations will come with vested interests.

Badria Timimi: These vested interests, according to Professor Moss, drive university teaching towards business goals and ideologies at the expense of critical thinking and levels of academic achievement. One new initiative is the European Network on Climate and Health Education, led by Glasgow University. Medical students have been trained to accept that climate science is an established fact.

Maha Alothman, medical student: Increasingly, climate change is harming people’s health. You could say it’s the largest health emergency of our time, and I do need to be ready to help tackle this challenge.

Badria Timimi: Can the outcomes really be free of prejudice when the backers include the W.H.O. and major pharmaceutical companies?

Newscaster: This new collaboration will help train the next generation of medics with the skills they need to treat the health impacts of climate change and deliver more sustainable health care.

Dame Emma Walmsley, CEO, GSK: That’s why health leaders from across the public and private sectors are coming together to support this transformative new network.

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: Academics, right from the beginning now, are socialized to orientate their research towards the money. So this, I think, is quite damaging, when it comes to fearlessly pursuing the truth, wherever it may lead. That doesn’t really happen anymore in academia. It’s more about pursuing the money, wherever that might lead.

Prof. Gloria Moss, academic, author: It makes me feel distraught. It makes me feel that the whole purpose of university learning has been subverted.

Badria Timimi: The influence and ambition of big business, the mission creep of so-called ‘woke’ thinking, the cancel culture, the suppression and smearing of those who dare to question – shockingly, the conditioning starts in the youngest of minds.

Onscreen: “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” ~ Vladimer Lenin

Kids show announcer: All aboard for Global Goals. This year, Thomas and his friends have teamed up with the United Nations.

Badria Timimi: The world of young children is supposed to be one of innocence and joy. But it’s being permeated by the global ideologies of the United Nations.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: If you go to goal number four, it deals exclusively with education. And when you think education, recognize they’re talking about indoctrination.

Onscreen: The Sustainable Development Goals.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: Under the surface of it all, is this effort to bring all the children of the world into this one world, globalist system. And what’s so remarkable about this to me is that it’s not even hidden anymore.

Onscreen: The Angry Birds 2 Movie

Kids’ voice: ‘Take part in the global movement!’

Red Angry Bird: To save our world from being destroyed.

Young woman television host: How will you fight climate change?

Angry Birds: Try meat-free meals. Reduce your electricity use. Give your clothes a second chance. If we die it’s kind of your fault!

Badria Timimi: And you can never ignore Greta.

Greta Thunberg: The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic.

Young girl in a march: We want action. We want justice. We want equality. And we want it now.

Greta Thunberg: I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.

Young marchers: Fossil fuels have got to go.

Greta Thunberg: I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: This propaganda, relentlessly, promoting fear in various ways – be it disease, be it climate, I think is having a very damaging impact on young people’s mental health.

Sir David Attenborough: The disasters that continue increasingly to afflict the natural world have one element that connects them all – the unprecedented increase in the number of human beings on the planet.

Dr. Valerie Fraser, former OFSTED [Office for Standards in Education] inspector: We’re asking children to believe they are a scourge on the planet. I have a problem with children believing they shouldn’t be here from the off. How are we ever going to encourage them to have strong mental health and emotional well-being if they believe that their birth is a disaster for the planet? 1:40:00 That’s not encouraging them to be productive citizens who are making an active contribution to society, if they’ve got to apologize for their very existence. I think it’s very dangerous, and I think we need to reverse that as soon as possible.

Badria Timimi: The indoctrination of children is further evidenced across their learning. Objectivity and freedom of thought are being stifled by the persistent pushing of agendas.

Prof. Gloria Moss, academic, author: I undertook a study of secondary school textbooks to see what children are being taught, and what I found was extremely shocking. I found unqualified acceptance of climate change, the wonders of vaccines, GMO foods, and very few counterarguments were presented. If you cannot produce this information that’s in the textbooks, you cannot succeed in the school system. If a student undertaken a geography exam, for example, doesn’t talk about manmade climate change, then they’re very unlikely to hit the top marks. Is it not surprising that the phrase critical thinking actually only occurs in relation to two subjects? One is art and design and the other is history. Other than that, it’s completely absent from the national curriculum. If we have a dumbed down syllabus, we’re actually stunting children’s brain capacity and brain potential.

Badria Timimi: While parents may not be fully aware of these issues, many are concerned at the growing trend of gender politics, including transgendering. One former head teacher says his local authority advised teachers not to use the words “boy” or “girl” for fear of misgendering anyone.

Mike Faiclough, former headteacher: The Department for education as well, has really subscribed to this kind of ‘woke’ ideology, so there’s almost like brownie points for the more woke you can be.

A child asks a born-male person wearing sequins and make-up: Why do you have make up and lipstick and glitter on?

The reply: Because I think it looks pretty. Oh, you don’t think it looks pretty?

Dr. Valerie Fraser, former OFSTED [Office for Standards in Education] inspector: What schools have done is employ third party agencies to deliver material for which the third parties most certainly have a vested interest in. And I wouldn’t have a problem if it was – I’m there in school to ask children to accept me as I am. That’s fine. We all need to be tolerant and liberal in a diverse society.

My problem is that what they’re actually doing is more a form of evangelism, which is: “This is who I am, and you might be too.”

Teacher reads this story book aloud to the class: “In my heart, I’ve always known that I’m a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. I wish my name was Tilly, not Thomas.”

Dr. Valerie Fraser, former OFSTED inspector: Language carries so many meanings and messages. And if schools are encouraging social transitioning, that’s not a neutral act. That’s a significantly impactful act.

Badria Timimi: Doctor Fraser is also highly critical of the World Health Organization’s recommendations suggesting that four-year-olds should learn about sexual stimulation.

Dr. Valerie Fraser, former OFSTED inspector: It’s harmful. They don’t need to know it. And in fact, for those children who are, perhaps, victims of adult abusers, how would they ever know the difference between what is happening within the home if they’re encouraged to also explore that part of themselves within a school curriculum?

What do we do with an organization like the United Nations or the World Health Organization if we take our orders from them about what is suitable education for our child? How do we say, no, we’re not doing that. We want a change.

Badria Timimi: Teachers are sent on courses to embrace the diversity dogmas and many buy into them. But Fairclough says that those who don’t, keep quiet for fear of reprisals.

Mike Faiclough, former headteacher: It’s a dereliction of duty. It’s a dereliction of their legal as well as their moral duty to safeguard children against harm.

Dr. Valerie Fraser, former OFSTED inspector: I can certainly say I feel very let down by the teaching profession, because I am not hearing people speaking out on behalf of the children.

Badria Timimi: A one world dictatorial education. A dumbing down in the classroom. Fluidity of gender. The impact of technology. Are our children being groomed for a life in the digital prison?

Prof. Yuval Noah Harari, historian, philosopher, author: Today, nobody has any idea what to teach young people that will still be relevant in 20 years. 1:45:00 As computers become better and better in more and more fields, there is a distinct possibility that computers will outperform us in most tasks and will make humans redundant. And then the big political and economic question of the 21st Century will be, what do we need humans for? Or at least what do we need so many humans for?

Interviewer: Do you have an answer in the book?

Prof. Yuval Noah Harari: At present, the best guess we have is keep them happy with drugs and computer games. But this doesn’t sound like a very appealing future.

Badria Timimi: A chilling forecast, and one which echoes Brave New World, in which the oligarchs did indeed provide drugs and entertainment so that people learned to love their enslavement. Yet there are even darker clouds on the horizon. The specter of transhumanism.

Dr. David A. Hughes, Senior Lecturer in International Relations: In a sense, it is that final piece of the puzzle. If you want to gain total control over everyone and everything, then you actually ultimately need to be able to implant technologies inside human bodies. And that’s exactly what’s taking place.

Klaus Schwab: Artificial intelligence, the metaverse, near space technologies. And I could go on and on.

Synthetic biology. Our life in ten years from now will be completely different, very much affected. And who masters those technologies in some way will be the master of the world.

Badria Timimi: These modern technocrats seem wedded to science and technology at the expense of our human spirit and ingenuity. They aspire to a data driven world which is robotic and predictable in every sense, with no room for creativity or individual choice. But if the goal is, and always was, population reduction, maybe they’re right on track.

An unidentified woman: We feel too afraid to have kids because we feel that we are heading towards civilization breakdown.

Newscaster: People under the age of 35 are more likely to report climate change as a reason not to have children.

Male millennial: I’ve decided not to have kids to do my part for climate change.

Female millennial: If I don’t think the future is worth anything, then I’m not going to have children. If I think it is worth something. I will have children.

Nick Hudson, actuary, private equity investor: I think these ideas have spread like bad viruses, and there’s been a lot of investment in promoting some extraordinarily weak ideas. Sitting at the top of all of these very bad ideas is one giant one, which we can call anti-humanism: transhumanism. The trans phenomenon. Net Zero. Lockdowns. Population reduction. All of these ideas are basically the ugly stepchildren of anti-humanism.

There are, as I read it, essentially two competing ideas in the world at the moment. One is that humans are the best feature of the observable universe. The only creatures capable of creative thought and generativity, and of creating explanations for how reality works, that humans ought to be revered and ought to be cherished. That we should plan for their flourishing, that we should be planning, for the flourishing of as many people as possible. That human agency ought to be respected. That civil liberties ought to be respected. And that the imposition of top down, one-size-fits all policies on humanity is completely incompatible with that kind of worldview.

Set up against them are people who regard humans as the scum on the surface of the little blue dot. People who regard humanity as some kind of blight. People who believe that the Earth needs rights to protect it from these horrible humans. And I think it is a deeply sad reflection of the state of our societies that so many people live in the latter camp. But I’m definitely not one of them.

Badria Timimi: We can all stand up to tyranny. We can and must fight for the things that truly matter.

The people we love, the fairness we’d like to see, and the personal freedoms we’d like to experience. We should not be bullied. Nor should we accept the influences of those who would split our society, be it by race, by gender, by culture, or anything else we hold dear. And perhaps we should 1:50:00 start by limiting our reliance on technology and remembering how creative we can be.

Onscreen: In memory of Rose Koire & Alan Watt

Chapter 10: End Credits

Dr. David A. Hughes: Once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. You can’t go backwards. So what that means is that, over time, more and more people are starting to see this now. The powers that be have no choice but to keep pushing forward for their global technocracy. They’re the ones who are attempting the controlled demolition of liberal democracy. They have only one route they can go and they are tobogganing towards disaster.

On the other side, we, the people have no choice but to fight back against all of this.

Alex Newman, investigative journalist: I don’t expect that we’re going to just be able to tell the truth indefinitely without consequences. But we must continue to do it. We must, for the sake of our children, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of generations yet unborn. We have no option but to stand against this evil.

Catherine Austin Fitts: If you look at where this thing is going, I’m not going there. Okay? And whether God takes me out or the leadership takes me out, I don’t care. I’m not going there. And the only way we cannot go there is if we can find a better pathway. And the only way we’re going to find a better pathway is with transparency.

Unidentified man’s voice: If I want to live as a virtuous human being, I need to live amongst people that are free. And if one understands that one mustn’t live on their knees, even if you have to die on your feet, you must share truths because truth is the weapon for free people.

Index

A

acetylcholine 50
addiction
… food 58
… junk food, case study 88
addictive qualities
… processed foods 92
additives
… average amount per year 83
adolescents
… American 84
… diet of 84
… favorite foods 84
… impacts on 84
… nutrient deficiencies 85
adrenal glands
… function 63
… location 63
… overstimulation by caffeine 71
… overstimulation of 63
… sugar and hypoglycemia 63
adrenaline 63
… glycogen and 63
… production stimulated by caffeine 71
aging process
… selenium and 66
Alameda County Probation Department 195
alcohol 43
… craving, chromium and 156
… nutrients, effect on 56
alcoholism
… hypoglycemia and 43
… orthomolecular approach and 173
allergic reactions. See also allergies
… adults and food additives 64
… causes 57
… common foods cause 57
… discontinue cause 150
… sugar’s effect on 63
… to chemicals in processed foods 64
allergies
… common food 59
… corn 62
… food addictions 58
… hypoglycemia and 63
… sugar 61
…… case study 61
almond butter 143
aluminum
… symptoms 67
American diet
… brain malfunction and 75
… components of typical 75
amino acids 49
animals
… nutrient supplementation for 193
antimony
… symptoms 67
arsenic
… symptoms 67
artificial sweeteners
… never use 150
ascorbic acid 56 See also vitamin C
Aspartame 73
attention deficit 64
avoid
… substances to avoid 150

B

B-vitamins 55. See also vitamin B
… deficiency, effects of 80
… deficiency, symptoms 87
… need for 82
… sources of 83
… supplementation 154
B₁. See thiamin
B₁₂ 56
… deficiencies 56
Baron Clinic 108
beriberi 87
beverages
…recommendations 149
… sugared 91
biochemical individuality 139
blood sugar 35
… converting to cell energy 66
… levels, testing of 116
body chemistry
… individuality 54
body/mind connection 135
bones
… boron and 66
Boron 66
brain 34
… amino acids 49
… and thiamin 55
… chemical processes of 137
… chemistry affects behavior 188
… damage by sugar 56
… effects of toxins and carbohydrates 103
… malfunction and American diet 75
… minerals and 155
… molecular environment and behavior 136
… neurons 48
… neurotransmitters 48
… nutrient requirements 47
… nutrition 141
… orthomolecular requirements 137, 139
… proper functioning of 75
… proper molecular balance 137
… storage of toxic metals 121
… sugar, damage by 56
… sugar’s effect on 40
… toxic metals and 155
… zinc, importance of 66
bread
… recommendations 148
… selecting 145
… spreads 143, 150
breakfast
… crucial 152
… lack of 90
… sugar and carbohydrate 90
… what to eat 151
… when 151

C

caffeine 71
… approval of 74
… effects 72
cake mix
… ingredients in 83
cancer
… prevention 141
candy
… warning 76
canned fruit juices
… toxic metals in 69
canola oil 143
carbohydrates 36
… and thiamin 55
… complex 141
… fiber and 141
… minimize simple 141
… processed foods 79
… source 141
case study
… detention center 172
… driving under the influence 163
… illegal drugs 167
… indecent exposure 162
… junk food addiction 88
… learning difficulties 164
… metal poisoning 68
… nutritional test groups 171
… petty theft (54-year-old) 165
… Portugal 196
… shoplifting 163
… sugar allergy 61
… telephone harassment 168
… Tidewater juvenile detention home 170
… toxic metal poisoning 123
… U.S. Naval Correctional Center 173
central nervous system
… effects of toxins and carbohydrates 103
cereal
… nutrients, lack of 79
… sugar content of 39
cerebrum 40
chemical intervention 189
chemicals
… in processed foods 64
children
… educating about nutrition 184
junk food abuse 76
Chinese food
… MSG used in 72
chlorpromazine 159
cholesterol 142
choline 50
chromium
… alcohol craving and 156
cigarette smoke
… toxic metals in 70
Clinical Ecology program 196
coal burning
… toxic metals and 70
coffee
… quitting 149
cola
… quitting 149
cold pressed oils 143
commercials
… food habits and 181
corn 49
… allergy 62
corn sweetener
… processed foods, use in 62
correctional institutions
… costs 132
costs
… correctional institutions 132
… juvenile detention centers 132
courts
… case load 194
craving
… allergies, and 58
… caused by addition of sugar 76
… reducing 156
crime
… increase in 132
… prevention 131
… prevention (orthomolecular approach) 136
… processed foods and 85
… recidivism rate 134
… statistics 195
criminal justice system
… costs 195
… current state 134
… rehabilitation and 194
… state of 194
criminality
… hyperactivity and 64
… learning disability and 64

D

dairy products
… avoid 150
deficiencies
… niacin 53
… nutrient, in adolescents 85
… thiamin 55
… vitamin B, effects of 80
… vitamin B, symptoms 81, 87
… vitamin B_l2 56
… vitamin C 56
delinquency. See juvenile delinquency
… predictors of 133
… prevention method failure 134
depression
… and vitamin deficiency 55
… vitamin B deficiency and 81
dermatitis 52
diabetes 118
… diagnosing 116
diagnostic tests 110
diarrhea 52
diet
… behavior and 196
… correctional 146
… effects for everyone 198
… prison 93
probation departments 195
… probationers’ typical 90
… recommended 146
… rotation 153
… treating illness by 131
… variety in 153
dinner
… recommendations 152
dirty minds 68
dopamine 50
drink
… high-protein 152
driving under the influence 163

E

eating pattern 151
economy
… processed food and 198
Edison, Thomas A.
… prevention of disease 131
empty calories
… in children’s diet 87
endocrine system 40
enrichment
… lacking nutrients 140
… of processed foods 52
enzymes 47
exercise
… beneficial effects 158
… effects of 109
… recommendation 158
… recommendations 150

F

fast foods
… fats from 143
fats
… content of nuts and seeds 143
… fast foods, source of 143
… recommendation 142
fiber 37
fight or flight 44
flashers 68
flour. See also white flour
… avoid refined bleached 150
food
… forming habits 179
… shopping 144
food additives 64
… adults, effect on 64
… aspartame 73
… caffeine 71
… FDA approval of 73
… MSG 72
… Nutrasweet 73
food allergies
… common 59
food habits
… influenced by commercials 181
… moderation in revising 181
… peer pressure and 180
… school’s influence 182
… television’s influence 181
food industry 75
… sugar, addition of 76
food processing
… nutrients lost during 79
food sensitivity 157
foods
… natural 140
… recommendations 144
… recommended 140
fresh fruits and vegetables:
… low consumption of 92
Freudian theories 187
fructose 37
fruits
… recommendations 147

G

“ghost in the machine” 187
glucose 35
Glucose Tolerance Test 108, 116
glycogen 36
… conversion to glycose 63
grains
… recommendations 148
Graphoanalysis 115
grocery store 144
Growing Mind 171

H

habits
forming food behavior 179
hair
… storage of toxic metals 121, 122
Handwriting Analysis 115
headaches
… vitamin B deficiency and 81
Health Evaluator questionnaire 104, 111
… evaluation 106
… source 106
high-protein drink 152
Hinkley, John Jr. 32
Hoffer; Abram 189
Hoffer Osmond Diagnostic test 108
hope 199
human potential
… diet effects on 198
hyperactivity 64
… and criminality 64
… orthomolecular approach and 173
hyperinsulinism 118
hypoglycemia 35. See also Low Blood Sugar
… adolescents and 84
… adrenaline and 63
… allergies and 63
… “Rat curve” 118
… reactive 119
… signs of 118
… speed of onset 61
… systems 41
hypothalamus 63

I

illegal drugs (case study) 167
illness
… treating by diet 131
indecent exposure 162
indigestion 156
indoles 55
insomnia
… vitamin B deficiency and 81
insulin 40
iron 66

J

junk food
… addiction, case study 88
… adolescents and 84
… diet, changes when discontinued 170
… prison population, use by 85
… ultimate child abuse 76
juvenile delinquency
… causes of 136
juvenile detention centers
… costs 132

K

ketones 142

L

L-Glutamine
… recommendation 156
… reducing sweet cravings 156
labels
… reading 146
lead 66
… exposure 66
… poisoning, symptoms 124
… symptoms 67
… zinc and 66
learning difficulties
… case study 164
learning disability 64
… and criminality 64
… misdiagnosed 68
lecithin 50
low blood sugar. See also hypoglycemia
Low Blood Sugar (booklet) 106
lunch 151

M

macrobiotic foods
… effects on juveniles 171
macronutrients 47
magnesium 66
Maimonides
… diet to treat illness 131
maladaptive reaction 59
malnutrition
… definition 101
… in America 102
… psychological effects of 102
margarine 143
Maryland
… use of orthomolecular approach 172
meat
… serotonin level effects 49
“memory pill” 156
mental illness 193
mercury
… symptoms 67
metabolic disorders
… assessing 104
metabolic dysperception 53
metal poisoning
… actions of 67
… case study (drug felony) 68
… case study (learning disability) 68
metals 66
… toxic 66
micronutrients 47
… minerals 66
… source of 153
milk
… high consumption by probationers 92
… recommendations 149
… ulcers, and 60
mind
… chemical function 47
… concept of 187
mind/body connection 135
minerals 47, 66
… brain function and 155
… metals 66
… supplementation 155
… toxic metals and 155
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 108
monosodium L-glutamate. See MSG
Montgomery County Detention Center 172
MSG (Monosodium L-glutamate) 72
… effects 72
muscle function
… sodium and 66

N

“Natural flavoring”
… on food labels 146
natural foods 140, 145
nerve function
… sodium and 66
neurochemistry 188
neurons 48
neuroses
… orthomolecular approach and 173
neurotics
… allergies 58
neurotransmitters 48
… acetylcholine 50
… dopamine 50
… norepinephrine 50
… serotonin 48
… sugar consumption effect on 50
… tyrosine 50
niacin 51
… deficiency 53
… pellagra 51
… RDA 53
niacin-responsive schizophrenia 53
norepinephrine 50
Nutrasweet 73
nutrients
… depletion and white sugar 56
… individual needs 54
… lacking in processed foods 77
… recommendations 140
… supplementation, animals vs. humans 19
nutrition
… parents’ responsibility 179
… training needs for doctors 192
nutritional test groups 171
nutritionist
… orthomolecular 178
nuts 143

0

oil
… recommendation 143
olive oil 143, 149
omega-3 148
oriental cooking
… MSG used in 72
orthomolecular approach
… advantages over other programs 158
… alcoholism and 173
… for crime prevention 136
… founders 189
… hyperactivity and 173
… neuroses and 173
… psychiatric patients and 193
… psychiatric professionals’
…… opinions 185
… resistance to 173
… returning to 190
… schizophrenia and 173
… success in correctional institutions 170
orthomolecular diet
… incentives 157
… reaction to 157
orthomolecular nutritionist 178
orthomolecular program
… exercise and 158
… inexpensive 160
… safety of 158
… successes of 161
Orthomolecular Psychiatry 186
orthomolecular psychiatry 108
… opposition to 185
orthomolecular treatment center 171, 172
Osmond, Humphry 189
oxygen
… delivery to cells 66

P

pancreas 40
papaya enzymes 156
parents
… changing food habits 199
… nutritional counseling for teens in trouble 184
… responsibility for nutrition 179
Pauling, Linus
… brain chemistry 47
… orthomolecular approach 136
peaches, canned 79
peer pressure
… food habits and 180
pellagra 51
… sub-clinical 53
… symptoms 52
petty theft 165
poisons 65
pop. See soda
Portugal 196
prevention of disease 131
primary treatment 193
prison population
… junk foods, use by 85
probationers
… diet patterns of 90
processed foods
… addictive qualities of 92
… additives 83
… cake mix, ingredients in 83
… carbohydrates, consist of 79
… chemicals in 4
… corn in 49
… corn sweetener, use of 62
… crime and 85
… economic implications 198
… enrichment of 52
… food additives in 64
… heat destroys vitamins in 78
… high consumption by probationers 91
… high in sugar 56
… low in nutrients 56
… nutrients, lack of 77, 79
… problems with 76
… vitamins lost during heating 79
… water-soluble vitamins lost 79
… white flour used in 78
protein
… low consumption of 91
… recommendations 148
… source (recommended) 142
psychiatric patients
… orthomolecular approach and 193
psychiatric professionals
… orthomolecular approach, opinions on 186
psychiatry
… chemical intervention approach 189
… modem training 192
… orthomolecular 186
psychoactive drugs, use of 189
… psychoactive drugs 189
… lack of cure 189
… profits 189
… quick results 189
Purple Heart Homestead 172

Q

Qolla 45
questionnaire
… Health Evaluator 104, 106, 111
… Schizophrenics Anonymous 104, 110

R

Rat curve hypoglycemia 118
RDA
… intention 53
… levels 53
RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance)
… niacin 53
reactive hypoglycemia 119
recidivism
… reducing 197
… sugar and 195
recipe
high-protein drink 152
recommendations
… avoid substances 150
… beverages 149
… bread 148
… diet 146
… exercise 150, 158
… fruits 147
… grains 148
… L-Glutamine 156
… milks 149
… omega-3 148
… proteins 148
… snacks 148
… vegetables 147
reduced-sugar diet results on teens 170
rehabilitation 197
repeat offenders 134
rotation diets 153

S

San Luis Obispo Juvenile Probation Department 196
schizophrenia
… low levels of NAO 55
… niacin-responsive 53
… orthomolecular approach and 173
… zinc and treatment of, 66
schizophrenics
… allergies 58
Schizophrenics Anonymous Questionnaire 104, 110
school
… influence on food habits 182
seeds 143
selenium 66
… aging process slowed by 66
serotonin 48
… deficiencies 49
… meat’s effect on 49
shoplifting 163
shopping
… nutritious foods 144
sickness
… reduction with orthomolecular approach 173
Smith, Lendon
… improvement is possible 177
snack 151, 152
… required for hypoglycemic 152
snacks 152
… recommendations 148
social history
… evaluation 105
sodas
… reducing use of 150
sodium 66
soft drinks. See sodas
starches 36
Stitt, Paul
… Beating the Food Giants 77
… margarine 143
… refining of whole wheat 77
… sugar in processed foods 77
stress
… adrenaline production 63
… reaction during hypoglycemia 44
sub-clinical pellagra 53
sucrose 36
sugar
… allergies 61
… avoid in diet 150
… in processed foods 39
sugars 36
supermarket 144
supplementation
… mineral 155
… need for 154
sweet cravings
… reducing 156

T

teeth
… boron and 66
telephone harassment 168
television
… influence on food habits 181
test
… Glucose Tolerance Test 116
thiamin 55
… deficiencies 55
… deficiency 87
… deficiency in presence of high carbohydrate diet 88
Thorazine 159
tin
… symptoms 67
tomato soup, canned 79
toxic metals 66
… minerals and 155
… poisoning, case study 123
… preventing absorption 71
… sources 69
… stored in tissues 121
toxic substances 65
training
… children and teens on nutrition 184
tranquilizers 158
tryptophan 49
… indoles (may change into) 55
… meat a source of 49
… niacin 51
… vitamin B₃ 51
tyrosine 50

U

U.S. Naval Correctional Center 173
ulcers
… milk, and 60

V

variety
… in diet 153
vegetables
… recommendations 147
violence
… causes of 80
… controlling 80
vitamin 47, 51
… A, supplementation 155
… B deficiency, symptoms 80, 81
… B, “enrichment” 80
… B vitamins 55
… B₁₂ 56
… B₃ 51. See also niacin
… C, deficiencies 56
… C, prevent absorption of toxic metals 71
… C, stress, during times of 154
… C, supplementation 154
… destroyed during food processing 79
… E 66
… E, aging process slowed by 66
… E, supplementation 155
… pills, no substitute for nutritious diet 153
… supplementation 154
… water-soluble 79

W

water
… drinking 151
… toxic metals in 69
… when to drink 151, 152
white flour 77
… “enriched” 78
… falsely named as wheat flour 145
… uses of 78
white sugar 36. See also sugar
… average annual consumption 39
… body’s reaction to 38, 40
… effect on neurotransmitters 50
… nutrient depletion 56
whole wheat
… nutrients of 77
… refining of 77
wholistic approach 192

Y

Youngman, Tamara 172
Youth Consultation Service 191

Z

zinc 66
… brain processes, importance in 66
… schizophrenia, treatment of 66

The Experts Acclaim Barbara Reed Stitt

“At last! Here in Barbara Reed Stitt’s own words is the story of her celebrated discovery of the strong links between criminality and diet. Her story is a fascinating one ... “
— Bernard Rimland, PhD, Director, Institute for Child Behavior Research

“Barbara Reed Stitt has provided invaluable information on the links between diet and behavior to myself and the entire profession.”
— Lendon Smith, MD, Author, Feed your Kids Right

“I have seen the positive results of Barbara’s dietary program and I’m pleased with the very low rearrest rate. I’m a wholehearted supporter of her program!”
— Judge James M. Bierce, Municipal Court of Cuyahoga Halls, Ohio

“This volume is an eye-opener for those professionally involved in law enforcement.”
— Marshall Mandel, MD, Author, Dr. Mandel’s 5-day Allergy Relief System

“I have read Food and Behavior – in fact, I could not put it down. I cannot speak strongly enough, nor can I say too strongly to parents, health professionals or those in other helping professions – Read This Book!”
— Mary L. Friedel, Former Director Guardian Angel Home, Joliet, Illinois

“Barbara Reed Stitt is one of the pioneers in studying the relationship of malnutrition to crime and in bringing this to the attention of the medical and scientific world.”
— A. Hoffer, MD, PhD, Editor, Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry

“Our staff is sold that there’s a tie-up among diet, emotions and behavior. Barbara’s approach has not only helped clients, but several staff members, to live healthier, more effective lives.”
— Robert E. Golden, Former New York State Probation Commissioner

“I was amazed at the dramatic results in persons who were placed on probation to her through my court.”
— Judge William B. Pike, Municipal Court of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Food & Behavior —
A Natural Connection

By Barbara Reed Stitt

A Natural Press Paperback
First edition Copyright © as Food, Teens & Behavior
by Natural Press

Second Edition 1997
All Rights Reserved

Parts of this book may be copied or used in any way to help people, without the usually required permission of the publishers.

Printed in the United States of America
Natural Press
P.O. Box 730 Manitowoc,
WI 54221-0730

Library of Congress
Catalog card number 82-063-208
Cover by Teresa Leifer, Art & Soul Design
Writing with Scott Knickelbine
Proofing by Jeanie Rosenthal

ISBN 0-939956-09-8

Table of Contents

Forward .................................................................………….…..9
Enlightenment ......................................................…........…13
The Biochemistry of Crime ......................................…..…33
Detecting Malnutrition ..................................................101
Healing the Delinquent Mind:
The Orthomolecular Complimentary Approach ....…131
Implications ..................................................................…177
Appendix ....................................................................….…203
Index ............................................................................…...212
[Original page numbers are noted below, in brackets, in order to find items listed in index.]

[Page 9]

Foreword

Barbara Reed Stitt and I arrived at our conclusions about the biochemical connection between diet and noncompliant behavior through different routes. She got the message from her own biochemistry; she knew she wasn’t crazy (she’s not) but why did her brain fog up one day? She also had enough sense to realize that others might be trying to operate using a brain on “tilt.”

My path to the truth that biochemical abnormalities will alter behavior was via the confusion surrounding the cause and treatment of hyperactivity. I realized that not all hyper kids had been brain damaged during birth or the neonatal period. I began to ask about hereditary factors. I found that 60 percent of the members of families containing hyperactive children had diabetes, obesity, or alcoholism - all sugar based problems. I decided to ask a question: “What do you eat for breakfast?”

Barbara was doing the same thing 2,000 miles away. We were finding a universal truism. If the neocortex of the brain is not nourished optimally, the conscience, the humaneness and perceptions of reality are not operative or are distorted.

We all have a “selfish, mean and I’ll get-what-I-want” department ready to take over when the “nice” [page 10] brain is not functioning.

Research indicates that 75 percent of prisoners were hyperactive as kids. So the children I am trying to help are the same ones Barbara may get later on. I have the feeling that if we don’t help these children when they are children their parents, the school, and their peers will put them down and they will get the bad self-image, the sine qua non of crime.

Barbara’s follow-up indicates that these probationers will not go back to crime if they stick to the program. I like that. I want the program to work.

We have waited too long for other theories – bad seed, social problems, psychogenic factors – to be tested and found wanting.

Her book and the cleverly intertwined case histories with research findings of all the bright people in the health field are very persuasive. No more testing or studies are necessary; we must simply implement the diet in pregnancy as a preventive; in infancy, childhood, and adolescence as a control for hyperactivity, allergies and infections in adulthood before they slip into crime. Most of these children I saw because of school failure simply did not feel good. This is exactly what Barbara is telling us. We must be better skilled at reading the bodies of these children. One question gives them away: “Is he a Jekyll and Hyde?”

There is no psychiatric condition that makes a person such a changeling. These mood swings are a result of the victim operating under the control of different layers of the brain – sometimes the human brain, sometimes the animal brain. I can’t count the number of times [page 11] a mother has told me, “He had murder in his eyes!” And the child was only three years old!

Keep the neocortex fed and the rest of the body will conform. The brain and the body are connected.

This book should be required reading for all parents, criminologists, psychiatrists, social workers, police people, judges, wardens, or anyone who takes care of other people.

Can we get state legislatures to vote a three-bean salad, whole wheat bread, fresh fruit and nuts as snacks for their state prisoners? Barbara and I would guarantee fewer riots.

Lendon H. Smith, M.D.

[Page 13]
Chapter 1

Enlightenment

“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil at the dawn of day. “
— Thomas Jefferson

This case was different. As chief probation officer for the Cuyahoga Falls Municipal Court, I usually handled misdemeanor offenses – nothing more serious than shoplifting or disorderly conduct. I wasn’t used to this kind of crime.

Murder, after all, is the ultimate crime.

I received a call from one of our police officers that morning. “Barbara,” he said, “I think we have a case for you. Kid tried to kill his girlfriend last night. He missed, luckily, but he ended up shooting her in the hand. He seems like a bright young guy, but he’s pretty messed up. Maybe you can do something with him.”

The officer filled me in on the hard facts: At 11:40 the previous evening, a 23-year-old man, whom I’ll call Raymond, had been arrested for wounding his girlfriend with a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. Apparently he [page 14] had tried to shoot her in the head; at the last second she deflected the gun, and the bullet went through her left hand. In the light of day, both Raymond and his live-in girlfriend insisted that the shooting was an accident, so the most that Raymond could be charged with was discharging a firearm within the city limits.

But we knew the shooting was no accident. In the first place, a .357 Magnum is the second deadliest – and the second heaviest – handgun in existence. One does not lift the heavy pistol and trip the cumbersome firing mechanism by accident. Secondly, Raymond was no stranger to firearms. He had been a champion marksman for several years, and was qualified to handle any type of pistol with the utmost accuracy. There could be no doubt – this was a clear case of attempted murder. And had Raymond succeeded, there might have been a grisly aftermath: there was another bullet in the gun, possibly for himself.

The police records revealed only confusing glimpses of what happened that night. This is Raymond’s disoriented account:

After I came home from work and we had supper, Ruth (not her real name) said she wanted to go visit an old friend and I was going out to a friend’s house so she told me where she was going and I told her where I was going ... I felt that our relationship wasn’t what I thought it was and decided I was going to leave for a while ... Just then Ruth came home and saw I was leaving. We sat down to talk for a few minutes and I wanted to leave. I got up to go and she wanted me [page 15] to stay. I said no I want you to stay here, and we were struggling and the gun went off only 5-10 seconds later. My friend came in and helped us to the hospital.

But the picture Raymond’s girlfriend gave us was quite different. She revealed that the friend she went to visit was actually an old boyfriend, and that Raymond had called his place several times that night. They didn’t answer the phone, so Raymond thought the worst.

When Ruth arrived home, Raymond’s bizarre behavior began, she said. He began by pulling her jeans down around her ankles and loudly accusing her of making love to her ex-boyfriend. After some verbal abuse, Raymond left the room and retrieved his pistol, loaded with two rounds of ammunition. As he headed out the kitchen door, Ruth thought he intended to kill himself. She ran out to the yard to try to dissuade him; they fought, and Raymond pointed the barrel of the big gun at Ruth’s head. He pulled the trigger. She deflected the barrel at the last moment, but the bullet tore a one-inch hole in her left hand. Doctors predicted the hand would be permanently crippled.

Despite his attempt on her life, Ruth refused to believe the man she loved wanted to kill her. She didn’t want to see him go to jail, and she was resisting her parents’ attempts to get a settlement from Raymond. “I know this was an accident, and I know Raymond loves me, because he does nice things for me and spoils me,” she said in her statement to the police.

Of course, Raymond’s parents were even more upset at the incident. For them, it was yet another new low [page 16] in the decline of their son’s mental and physical health, a decline they had been helplessly witnessing for nearly 20 years.

Raymond was a bright, vivacious baby, and his parents had high hopes for him. He seemed interested in everything, and it seemed he went directly from crawling to running. About age four, however, Raymond’s parents noticed he suffered from sudden spells of weakness. At times he would tire out so quickly that he had to take food along when he went out to play, in case he needed a sudden pick-up. In grade school, Raymond was a creative child, but his grades were mediocre. He needed special help learning to read, and his mother recalls he seemed to “tune things out.”

It was in his early teens, however, that Raymond’s behavior became truly disturbing. From around age 13 he began to experience radical mood swings. His grades in high school dropped to C’s and D’s. He started dating girls a lot in his senior year, and was away from home most of the time. His eating habits – which were never very good – got even worse. His moodiness and de pression increased, and in the last half of his final year in high school his grades were abysmal.

After graduation Raymond met Ruth, and eventually the two moved into an apartment together. Although Raymond’s physical and emotional decline ceased briefly when he adopted the strict diet required for his competitive shooting, he soon returned to a steady consumption of fast food and snacks. His mood swings were almost manic-depressive: vivacious and self-confident one [page 17] minute, bitter and depressed the next. Raymond had at tempted to kill himself three times before he was arrested. Now that their son had hit rock-bottom, his agonized parents could only wonder, “What went wrong?”

When Raymond was brought to my office the following afternoon, he had just finished making a preliminary court appearance after spending the night in jail. That would be enough to rough up anybody’s looks, but I could tell something else was the matter with Raymond. Though polite and cooperative, he seemed detached, as if he had awakened in a strange and shadowy world. He sat bolt upright in his chair, his hands stiffly locked in his lap, his brown eyes and haggard face displaying little emotion save for an anxiety to which he seemed to have grown oddly accustomed. During the course of our first interview, he even called his girlfriend at the hospital, warmly assuring her he would visit as soon as he could. But I could see Raymond was showing an empty, hackneyed paternalism with no real affection behind it. Somehow I sensed that I had to reach Raymond, and reach him now. I felt that, in a very real way, the rest of his life was hinging on this three-hour interview.

If Raymond had ended up in any of the vast majority of probation offices in this nation, or if he had been one of the thousands of adolescents and other young people sent to correctional institutions or mental hospitals because of chronic behavior problems, he might have been referred to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, with the aid of ink blots and pointed questions, would have attempted to discover the developmental deficiencies in Raymond’s mind which led to his antisocial behavior, [page 18] and would have suggested some treatment – probably rap sessions or drugs.

Or perhaps Raymond would have been placed on the rolls of a social worker, one paid by the county or state to help him improve his social lot. Maybe Raymond would have spent several years in prison. If he had received this typical treatment, Raymond would most likely have become one of the seven out of every ten typical probationers who end up in court again, usually charged with a more serious crime.

I didn’t treat Raymond that way. I asked him what he ate.

In fact, I asked him a number of questions about his general health, and discovered that he was a physical and emotional wreck. Raymond suffered from mental confusion, uncontrollable emotions, abdominal pain and a variety of other symptoms – to say nothing of the suicidal tendencies which had led to the incident for which he had been arrested. But I discovered that he was killing himself in a more gradual manner: he ate nothing but processed junk foods. He and his girlfriend were living on donuts and pastry, cheap white bread and pasta, processed canned goods, candy and gallons of coffee. Raymond and Ruth had, in fact, been eating junk a short while before the shooting occurred.

I didn’t tinker with Raymond’s mind or try to change his social situation. Instead, I and Dr. Baron at the Baron Clinic in Cleveland modified his diet. As a result, far from being another dismal statistic, Raymond is today a healthy, productive member of society, as are over 80 percent of the probationers who appeared before me from [page 19] 1970 through 1982 after I started the dietary therapy program.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “Where did this Barbara Reed learn to be so successful, if most probation programs throughout the country are so terribly ineffective?” The answer may surprise you: I didn’t learn it anywhere from anyone. The fact is that if I had not myself experienced the same kinds of physical and psychological problems which beset my probationers, and learned on my own how to overcome them, most of the more than 5,000 men and women who have had their lives transformed by our program would likely have wound up where they were headed when I first met them – in a hospital, in prison, or dead.

A lucky coincidence? Therein lies the paradox. In the sixties, when I was learning my profession, no one ever mentioned the idea that diet could have any bearing whatsoever on delinquent or antisocial behavior, except perhaps in instances of extreme starvation. We were told that every behavior had its roots in the social history of the subject. Likewise, psychiatrists learned that the cause lay in developmental deficiencies, and doctors were taught either to ignore such problems or prescribe a tranquilizer.

Yet the arrival of the late sixties and seventies heralded the birth of a tiny group of doctors, psychiatrists and others dealing with behavior problems who proposed a link between America’s ubiquitous diet of processed foods and the enormous increases in crime, schizophrenia, hyperactivity, learning disabilities and a range of other emotional disorders which had hitherto been [20] assumed to exist in the mysterious realm of the mind. Many of us labored in isolation, never realizing that there were others out there who had made the same discoveries and were having the same successes. In almost every instance these professionals, despite a dismaying lack of academic or clinical research into human nutrition, achieved their enlightenment from personal experience. By solving their own diet-related problems and those of their patients, they saw the obvious link between the way a human body is nourished and the way it behaves.

Surprisingly, in 1910 (!) The Medical Review of Reviews published an article written by George M. Gould, M.D. which stated:
It has lately been urged, and from a medical stand point, that everyone could eat any amount of sugar, saccharine foods, candy, and starchy foods, not only without harm to health, but with positive physiologic advantage. In view of the five hundred million dollars said to be expended annually in sugar by the United States, and in view of the little known - probably more suspected – as to the evils and causes of the prevalence of diabetes, such nonsense should need no argument to make its fallacy evident. Almost every second store and shop in our villages and cities is a candy store, and common sense and common observation knows well enough the morbid results. Out of the American debauch in candy and sweets, breakfast-foods and sugar, white wheat-cakes and molasses, we shall later have to win our way to health and good dietetic sense with painful experience. The exacting questions, of course remain: As to long-continued morbid habits of diet, especially in the case of children [21] and city-dwellers; with the sedentary, in those with weakened nervous and nutritional system, when coexisting with other diseases, or in the cases or active and cooperating causes of disease.

For several years it has been growing clearer to me that many patients do not get well because they live too exclusively on sugary and starchy foods. (And this was written in 1910 I) With greater activity and the resisting power of youth, children exhibit the morbid tendency by excessive “nervousness, “ denutrition, ease-of-becoming ill, and by many vague and warning symptoms. I have asked the parents of such children to stop them in their use of all sweets, and most starches and almost immediately there was a most gratifying disappearance of the “nervousness,” fickleness of appetite, “colds,” and vague manifold ailments.

In another class of patients it was this way: There was only an incomplete disappearance of those symptoms generally due to eyestrain or back strain. With the correction of eyestrain, for instance, there was a sudden disappearance of the chief complaints, but followed by a provoking return of some of them. There was only, say, a three fourths cure, the one-fourth of non-cure remaining to torment. In such cases I exact a promise that, for one or two months, sugar and sweets shall be absolutely discontinued, and of the starches the least possible use (no potatoes, surely) – a little toasted brown bread only, for instance.

How many patients have blessed me for the suggestions, and have traced to the continued rules their reinstated health and enjoyment of life. Those who have [page 22] learned to recognize the value of such hygienic preventions of disease will test the suggestion; those who observe only the organic end-products of disease will continue to neglect the distant causes in aberrant physiology and morbid function. Fashionable pathology concerns itself only with terminal disease, apparently oblivious of pathogenesis, and most of all, careless of the early and slight origins which led to mortem and post-mortem. It is left to chance to make scientific the infinitely more important function of prevention.

But the evil effects of sugar-drowning will sometimes be recognized as still more important and varied than I have said. Among others, I have had two cases in which it was clear that a too exclusive or an exaggerated diet of sugary foods was a cause of epilepsy. The first was that of a boy nine years of age in which correction of eyestrain brought no relief of both petit and grand mal attacks.

Then by diligent inquiry I learned that the boy (who was morbidly nervous – almost insanely active) ate no meats, eggs, vegetables, etc, and lived, practically, on “cakes,” a little breakfast food, etc. with enormous quantities of sugar, syrups, etc. Recovery followed a diet-list which excluded the sweets.

Another patient, aged fifty-five, had been having many petit mal attacks for thirteen years, with occasional, typical grand mal seizures. I found that he ate sweets inordinately, which, upon giving them up, the attacks immediately grew less in number and severity, with no major ones, and the rare minor ones scarcely notice able, until they disappeared and there was a return of [23] hope, a zest in life; as he enthusiastically says, he ‘’feels like a new man now.”

It is amazing that Dr. Gould described hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder so accurately 86 years ago in 1910! The refining of wheat flour had only reached the U.S. in the late 1800’s!

This article has very special interest to me because I had been diagnosed as epileptic at age 32. The symptoms disappeared after changing to fresh whole foods, and eliminating sugar products.

This book is not written primarily for professionals, but for the millions of parents who fear that they are losing control of their children and who don’t know which way to turn. A distorted personality and a criminal record need not be the unavoidable legacy of growing up in the last years of the twentieth century. You don’t need a library of child-care books or a live-in psychiatrist to avoid these problems, either. Just as personal experience has enlightened a growing body of professionals, your own personal experience can show you the devastating effects of the typical American diet, as well as the enormous benefits of the proper diet.

Let me tell you my story.

In 1963, the same year in which I became a probation officer in Akron, Ohio, I became seriously ill. My illness was the sort of thing doctors have trouble diagnosing. I developed extreme fatigue and lethargy; and regardless of whether I slept or how much sleep I got, I woke up feeling dead tired. I experienced violent mood changes, going from giddy heights to bleak lows.

Sleeplessness wasn’t my only nocturnal problem. [24] I had horrifying nightmares, and would bolt from my bed in a cold sweat. My physical health was also deteriorating. I contracted streptococcus infections in my throat three times in 1962 and 1963.

But perhaps the most frightening symptoms were the memory lapses. I forgot the names of friends, and locations of familiar buildings, and words I had just read. In Akron, my office was located on the ninth floor of the City Building and the criminal court was right next door, on the second floor of the old police station. One morning, as was my routine, I left the City Building, descended to an underground corridor which joined the buildings, crossed to the police station, performed some minor tasks at the criminal court, returned and took the elevator to my office. What made this morning so unusual was that I was halfway up the elevator, in the midst of a conversation with an attorney, before I realized I had even left my office in the first place! I had carried out my tasks in a complete trance; I could not remember what I had just done, nor even what I had been saying to my lawyer friend, although I saw by the look on his face that I had not been completely incoherent. It was a total blackout. I knew nothing except that I was in one place one moment and in another the next.

This kind of experience scared me into seeking a doctor’s advice. My general practitioner gave me the usual examination.

“What is it you do again, Barbara?” he asked.

“I’m a probation officer.”

“Oh yes ... and you have that little boy to take care of, too. I think your problems stem from the stress of [25] working too hard. I’m going to prescribe a tranquilizer.”

I didn’t want a tranquilizer. If I had problems, I wanted to work them out, not cover them up. I ignored the prescription, but the symptoms I suffered got worse. I sought a second opinion, and the second opinion was more tranquilizers.

I was at a loss, so I decided to play it the doctor’s way. But one experience with phenobarbital was enough for me; the dizziness, lethargy and confusion I felt seemed worse to me than the original symptoms. I flushed the remainder of the pills down the commode.

In desperation I even asked my gynecologist during the course of a routine exam what he thought the problem might be. His face turned grim.

“Barbara,” he said, “I’m afraid you’re going through the beginning stages of menopause.” I was 33 years old at the time! The gynecologist prescribed tranquilizers.

Needless to say, I had just about lost all faith in the medical profession by that time, and was about to give up any hope of finding a cure for my ills, when I found a copy of Look Younger and Live Longer by Gaylord Hauser. Hauser had one piece of advice for a wide array of physical ailments, from wrinkles to rickets: stop eating “dead foods.” By dead foods Hauser was referring to refined and processed foods, refined sugar, white flour, coffee and chocolate. His dietary regimen involved eating lots of live foods, such as fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grain breads and cereals and wheat germ, and drinking herbal teas and water.

I could easily recognize myself as a “dead foods” addict. As a girl, I had prided myself on my cake [26] decorating ability, and I was always making and eating pastry, fudge and other desserts. Our family meals had two or three starch dishes at a time. The coffee pot and the plate of sweet rolls are common sights in police stations, courthouses and offices, and ours in Akron was no exception. I learned later that I have a brain allergy to caffeine; in 1963 I was· drinking 10 or 12 cups of coffee a day. The idea that my bizarre symptoms could be caused by dietary deficiencies or excesses seemed to make sense – at least, more sense than anything I heard from the medical community.

I decided to take Hauser’s advice. I gradually began to get off caffeine by cutting my regular coffee with decaffeinated until I could do without it entirely. I stopped eating white flour products and sugar, and replaced them with natural foods which Hauser recommended. It was not an easy transition to make at first, especially with a small child in the house. But I stuck to it and made the change. It worked – and how it worked! I began to get a good night’s sleep every night, and woke up feeling refreshed. My nightmares disappeared, as did my cold sweats and mental lapses. I found I had an unlimited store of energy to draw on, and I was able to get more work done and more enjoyment out of play. My health improved more than I could have expected. And the best thing was that I didn’t have to wait – in a matter of weeks I felt like a completely different human being, a brand new creature!

As with anyone who is the recipient of a miracle, I began to feel a bit apostolic. I felt that if a mere change [page 27] in diet could make such broad and significant changes in my life, the nutritional approach should be able to help anybody. I started to pay attention to the eating habits of the probationers who came through my office. That’s when I made the real breakthrough.

I discovered that a huge proportion of the people who were getting into trouble were junk food junkies and consuming 50 to 150 teaspoons of sugar daily. Many were alcoholics or heavy drinkers, and were simultaneously living on booze and sugared snacks. The connection seemed obvious to me: If these men and women were living on processed foods and snacks, how could they get any nourishment? If they were undernourished, how could their central nervous systems be functioning properly? Finally, if their brains and nerves were malfunctioning, how could one expect them to behave sanely in society?

I came across a little booklet which seemed to confirm my suspicions. Entitled Low Blood Sugar, it detailed the disorder known as hypoglycemia and gave a list of its symptoms. I immediately recognized many of them as problems common to my probationers: irritability, uncontrollable thoughts and emotions, a “short fuse,” depression and suicidal tendencies, insomnia and phobias, violence and aggression. I copied the list and began giving it as a questionnaire to my subjects. Out of a list of 93 symptoms, I discovered that most of my subjects complained of 30 or 40, and sometimes as many as 60 to 70. The minimum score needed to pinpoint hypoglycemia is 25. I did not have many restrictions placed upon me in [Page 28] my work; I was expected by the judges to keep my charges out of the courtroom, and any legal way I could find to do that would be fine with them. So I began using the diet and encouraging people. At that point I was just testing isolated individuals whom I knew to be in particularly bad shape. But before too long I was using the techniques on everybody.

Instead of sending my subjects off immediately to a psychiatrist, I placed them on the diet I found in the Low Blood Sugar booklet. It consisted of a total ban on sugar, white flour products, chemical additives, caffeine and alcohol, and emphasized the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and such lean meats as chicken, fish, and plenty of water. I also discovered that many of my subjects had dangerously high levels of toxins such as lead and cadmium in their blood, and I learned that these toxins could cause emotional and behavioral disorders. These people I referred to the Baron Clinic for testing and chelation therapy. The personal counseling came later.

My success surprised even me, not to mention my probationers. They could hardly believe how good they felt, how calm, how energetic and alive. An incredible number of them managed to stay on the straight and narrow and out of the courtrooms. By this time, I had become head of the Cuyahoga Falls Probation Department, and a common refrain in the courtroom was, “Your honor, I really believe I won’t be getting into trouble anymore. Mrs. Reed has me on this diet...” It wasn’t long before the judges began to sense the effectiveness of this approach, of getting the body healthy before working on [Page 29] delinquent behavior. By 1973, one of the judges I worked with got into the habit of saying “I’m going to send you down to Barbara Reed, and you’re going to stay on the diet she gives you. If you don’t, you’ll be back in trouble – and next time you’re going to jail!”

Word of our success began to spread. One day I received a call from Timothy Shellhart of the Wall Street Journal. Shellhart was working on an article about the connection between diet and criminal behavior. He had gotten in touch with the Huxley Institute for Biosocial Research in New York, which had just sponsored a seminar at which I had presented the results of my program. Huxley Institute referred Shellhart to me. I spoke with him for awhile, and he seemed enthusiastic. But months passed, and no article appeared.

Finally, on June 2, 1977, the piece hit the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and my life has not been the same since. The next day I was contacted by CBS News, which wanted to do a story on my work. The folks I worked with in Cuyahoga Falls knew that I was an effective probation officer; but when those camera crews rolled into the building, heads turned! Of course, my newfound celebrity status was very flattering, but more exciting were the contacts I made. Dozens of people in various professions had made the connection between diet and behavior, but they had never been taken seriously until my story appeared. I even learned a name for our discipline – orthomolecular psychiatry, which meant concentrating on the biochemical and electrical molecular processes in the central nervous system.

Since then, I have made many talk show appearances [Page 30] and news of my work has been published in many periodicals. Perhaps the most rewarding experience, though, was my opportunity to testify before Senator McGovern’s Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. The senators were very interested in what we all had to say; they could see the implications for the federal courts and penitentiaries, not to mention the health and well-being of all Americans. The committee included my suggestions in its report and recommendations. I also testified before a legislative committee in Los Angeles County. As a result, all junk and processed foods were removed from the Los Angeles juvenile correctional facilities.

My message everywhere has remained the same: A simple diet of whole foods, eaten as fresh, unprocessed and pure as possible, is absolutely necessary in order to give the brain and the rest of the central nervous system what it needs to function properly. On the other hand, ignoring the nutrition of the body is the most dangerous mistake one can make. A malnourished central nervous system will inevitably lead to serious physical and behavioral problems, problems which no amount of medication or psychiatry can touch. I urge parents of delinquent youngsters, or those who want the children of today to avoid becoming the criminals of tomorrow, to read this book carefully, and pay heed to its advice.

I don’t want to claim that a whole foods diet is the cure for every type of emotional, psychological and behavioral disorder. Certainly all that mainstream psychiatry and counseling have to offer must be taken into account. But trying to correct a person’s misbehavior before he or she has an adequate diet is very much like [Page 31] trying to ride a bicycle without filling the tires with air, or driving a car without first putting in gasoline – it won’t, it can’t, work.

It is especially the parents of young people who ought to be concerned with this. Almost every parent wants a better world for his or her children than the one we find ourselves in today. The rise of crime and violence, the abuse of women, children and the elderly make us all wonder if there will be a world for the young generation to inherit. What is important for parents to know is that by doing something very basic and simple – by making sure that your kids are well nourished – you can make progress toward solving the problems of criminality, delinquency, violence and mental illness, and even help reduce the tremendous toll that crime and the at tempted rehabilitation of convicts takes on the resources of society.

Raymond and Ruth are a good example of how young people respond to this simple therapy. I advised them both to go on the diet. Raymond responded enthusiastically. His girlfriend’s response was less impassioned. She stayed on the diet a little while, cheating constantly, and finally let it lapse altogether. She became so resentful of Raymond’s progress that she actually refused to prepare the whole foods his diet required. Their relationship ended soon after, and she was arrested three times within a year.

Raymond, on the other hand, was in much better shape. His parents noticed an improvement in his behavior and attitude within a week after he started the diet. Raymond was amazed at his own new energy level, which [Page 32] increased so that he could pursue many projects. He found it easier to do his job, and his fellow employees have commented on his dedication and enthusiasm. His crying spells, once an almost constant occurrence, gradually lessened and stopped, and his self-destructiveness ended. Instead of feeling suicidal, he had a positive zest for life. Raymond bears little resemblance to the would be murderer I first met.

The future is not nearly so bright for all those who have been so morally and emotionally decayed that they try to kill somebody. Another would-be slayer, more notorious than Raymond, is a case in point. Twenty-five-year-old John Hinkley Jr. is sitting in a Washington, D.C. mental institution as of this writing, convicted of the attempted assassination of the President of the United States – an act he thought would impress a young and famous actress. Friends of Hinkley say he was a junk food addict, that his apartment was littered with debris from fast-food restaurants. Testimony from the trial shows that Hinkley had been eating at a McDonalds a short while before he tried to kill the President. While Hinkley no doubt received a full battery of mainstream psychiatric treatments, the chances that his metabolic and nutritional background were evaluated are slim. Right now, it appears John Hinkley will spend the rest of his life in a mental institution.

[Page 33]
Chapter 2

The Biochemistry of Crime

The functioning of the brain is dependent on its composition and structure, that is, on the molecular environment of the mind. – Linus Pauling¹

No twisted thought without a twisted molecule. – R.W. Gerard²

“You are what you eat.” The phrase is so common to us now that we overlook its deeper truth. Human behavior is rich, complex, and often mystifying; but when we trace an action down – down through organ systems to organs, to cells, to the dizzying array of amino acids, enzymes, neurotransmitters and even beyond we arrive in the end at a basic denominator: the action and reaction of molecules.

The chemical & electrical components of our bodies, substances as familiar as oxygen and as obscure as 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid, are responsible for every function and action. Molecules make up the cells which are the building blocks of organs; molecules provide the fuel [Page 34] which the cells need to carry out their work; molecules help the energizing process take place. The beat of the heart, a twinge of pain, a loving touch - all are, at their root, molecular reactions.

And there is only one source of these molecules or their building blocks, the interactions of which make up our very lives: our diet.

Every protein in the body, every bit of fuel in the blood, every enzyme necessary for the thousands of reactions that take place every second, come directly from or are derived from what we eat. When we understand this, the equation becomes simple: If, through diet, we provide our bodies with the proper molecules in the proper amounts, our bodies will function normally. If, on the other hand, our diets do not provide the cells with the substances they need, our bodies will malfunction in one way or another.

In this chapter I will discuss the role of improper diet in the malfunction of one organ in particular: the brain.

It is the human brain which has placed our species at the top of the evolutionary ladder. It is indeed an amazing piece of equipment. It is built of thousands upon thousands of components, arranged in complex patterns whose importance in the thought process we are only beginning to understand. Each cell communicates with the others with electrical and chemical signals of incredible delicacy. The brain is able to monitor and to some extent control a vast number of metabolic functions, while at the same time enjoying (or composing) a symphony, reading a book, following an argument or making sense [Page 35] of a recipe. It is the most important organ in the body; every other part may be removed or replaced, but shut off the brain and you have killed the organism.

Paradoxically, perhaps, the brain is not only the most important organ, but the most vulnerable as well. Because of the precise specialization of each cell, the brain lacks many of the self-defense mechanisms present in the lesser organs. It can store no energy, it can survive only a few minutes without oxygen and it decays very rapidly under adverse conditions. When something is wrong with the body, the brain suffers first.

Because the brain is so vulnerable to its molecular environment, it is the most directly affected by diet. Thus, we would expect that the visible consequence of brain function – behavior – will be strongly influenced by diet. In the rest of this chapter, we will explore this diet/ behavior link in greater detail.

Hypoglycemia
Energy, of course, is what makes the body run. This is true for the brain as well. Energy is not only required for the electrochemical signals that pass from cell to cell; it is also needed to keep the cells alive, to build new cells and to record the information which continually bombards the senses. Without a steady supply of enough energy, the brain cells stop working and soon they begin to die.

The fuel used by brain cells is called glucose, or blood sugar. In order to work properly, the brain cells need a steady supply of blood sugar. The body makes glucose out of carbohydrates from the food we eat. There [Page 36] are two kinds of carbohydrates: sugars (or simple carbo hydrates) and starches (or complex carbohydrates). If the body has used up its supply of carbohydrates, it can make blood sugar out of glycogen, an energy storage product kept in the liver and muscle tissues. Furthermore, if the body’s store of glycogen runs out, it can even convert protein and fat into glucose. The fact that the body has all these fail-safe devices is a sign of how important a stable supply of blood sugar is for the brain and the rest of the body’s cells.

Many Americans however, can’t count on this stable supply of glucose. Instead, their blood sugar levels are too low to meet the brain’s needs. They have chronic low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia.

For a minority of these people, the low blood sugar state is caused by damage to, or cancer in, the glands which produce the hormones which regulate blood sugar. But by far the majority of hypoglycemics are reactive or functional hypoglycemics: In other words, their blood sugar drops as a reaction to the food they eat.³

This is not a normal reaction. It is so widespread because of a radical change in the diet of Western society, a change which has taken place just within the last eight decades of human history. I’m talking about the revolutionary increase in the consumption of white sugar.

White sugar – sucrose is its chemical name – is a simple, very highly refined carbohydrate. It is extracted from sugar cane or sugar beets. While sugar is still part of a plant it is combined with other nutrients like vitamins, minerals, enzymes and fiber. In the refining process, however, all these other things are simply thrown [Page 37] away. White table sugar is more than 99 percent pure sucrose. This is a much higher concentration of sugar than is found in fruits, vegetables, grains, or any other food in nature. The “purity“ of white sugar means it delivers nothing but calories – no other nutrition of any kind.

This purity also means that white sugar enters the blood very quickly. Sucrose is a simple carbohydrate. It’s simple because it has just a few atoms in its molecule, so the body doesn’t have to do much to break it into glucose and fructose, which are even simpler. As a result, much of the sucrose a person eats gets into the bloodstream shortly after reaching the intestines. Starches, on the other hand, have many more atoms in complex arrangements, so these complex carbohydrates must be broken down more slowly.

Secondly, unlike the sugar found in fruits and vegetables, white sugar is not combined with fiber. Fiber is a tough, chewy plant substance which does not break down in the stomach. This means two things. In the first place, large quantities of white sugar can be consumed much faster than sugar in the natural state. For instance, you would have to eat four large apples – more than a pound – in order to consume the quantity of sugar found in two ounces of peppermint candy.⁴ Few people are ravenous enough to eat that many apples in a sitting, yet it is easy to eat a handful of mints without even thinking about it.

Furthermore, in the digestive tract, fiber remains intact and helps digested food move without becoming sluggish and compacted. Fiber limits the amount of sugar [Page 38] that can be absorbed in the intestine by keeping some of it from touching the intestinal wall. Fiber-bound sugar is absorbed more slowly than refined sugar in the same way that a bowl of peanuts in the shell are eaten more slowly than shelled peanuts – you have to get the shells out of the way. Nothing stands between refined sucrose and the intestinal wall, so it is absorbed quickly.

Because our bodies have not adapted to the fast absorption rate of refined sucrose, we cannot use it properly. When you eat white sugar, or a food rich in sucrose, virtually the entire sugar load enters the blood stream within a few minutes. The blood glucose level jumps very quickly. The body isn’t expecting the jump – instead it’s looking for a gradual gentle rise in serum glucose. Consequently it responds by producing insulin in the pancreas. Insulin acts to take the excess glucose out of the bloodstream and store it in the liver as glycogen. But because the climb in blood sugar is so great, so swift, the pancreas over-reacts and floods the system with more insulin. More and more glucose is taken out of the blood until the sugar level is drastically low. The most obvious symptom of this low blood-sugar state is hunger; the body calls for food, desperate to raise its glucose levels back to normal. Unfortunately, this often means the individual craves something sweet. If the person eats something with sugar in it, the reactive hypoglycemic cycle starts all over again. This rocketing/ plummeting blood sugar syndrome is an insult, a shock, to the entire system. If it were a rare occurrence, however, the body would be able to recover and eventually establish a normal glucose level. [Page 39] But for most of us the hypoglycemic cycle isn’t a rare metabolic crisis; it is a way of life.

At the beginning of this century, the average consumption of white sugar was about four pounds per person per year. Some researchers have suggested that, even at this level, our young love affair with sucrose was beginning to take its toll on our mental and emotional health.⁵ But today our sugar intake has increased 2,500 percent to over 129 pounds per person per year!⁶

Every time I mention that ghastly statistic, I am met with disbelief. People simply can’t imagine how they could eat 100, 200, even 300 pounds of sugar a year. “How can that be?” they ask, “I only use a few teaspoons a day!” But the truth is that only a small proportion of our daily sugar consumption comes from the sugar bowl. The majority of it – 70 percent, in fact – comes in prepared, processed foods.⁷ Over the last several decades the food industry has been steadily increasing the amount of sugar it puts in foods - primarily to encourage over consumption.⁸ The sugar content of the foods we eat every day is truly staggering. Del Monte canned peaches in heavy syrup are 12 percent sugar by weight, General Foods’ Tang and Jello are 13 percent sugar, Morton’s Coconut Cream Pie is 24 percent sugar and many kids’ breakfast cereals contain nearly 60 percent.⁹

When figures like these are converted into more common measurements the results are truly amazing. We may limit ourselves to a teaspoon or two of sugar in our morning coffee, but do we realize that the 16-ounce Coke we have for lunch contains twelve teaspoons? Similarly, two ounces of Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, a doughnut, a [Page 40] chocolate bar or a cup of chocolate milk contain about four to seven teaspoons of sugar. Even a diminutive stick of gum can contain ½ teaspoon of sugar – about equivalent to one sugar cube.¹⁰

Even many foods which we don’t think of as “sweet” can contain a lot of sugar. Gerber Plums with Tapioca baby food contains more than 13 percent sugar, tomato catsup may contain up to 29 percent sugar, Shake ‘n’ Bake is 39 percent sugar, and even the salt used in some fast food restaurants contains 30 percent sugar. Many medicines are heavily laden with sugar: Hold 4 Hour Cough Suppressant is 62.4 percent sugar, Regular Flavor Listerine is 69.9 percent, and Chewable Chocks vitamins are 55.9 percent sugar.¹¹ Since our consumption of products like these is rising steadily, it’s not hard to see where our massive sugar intake comes from.

Because we eat so much refined sucrose, then, our endocrine systems are constantly shocked. The pancreas produces more and more insulin as soon as it senses sugar in the blood, because it comes to expect an overload. The blood sugar lifts get higher, the drops get lower. When the endocrine system is always operating on this sugar-stress hair trigger, the inevitable result is frequent low blood sugar – or reactive hypoglycemia. And with most of us packing away well over a hundred pounds of sucrose a year, it is not at all surprising that as many as 50 percent of all Americans may be hypoglycemic.¹²

This lack of blood sugar starves every cell in the body, leading to a general feeling of weakness. But the cells of the brain are especially starved. As the blood sugar drops, the cerebrum – the area of the brain [page 41] responsible for thought, learning, and moral and social behavior – starts to shut down, and the brain diverts its dwindling energy resources to the brain stem, which controls the more primitive responses: the drives for food and sex, aggressive/defensive instincts, basic bodily functions, etc. Individuals in a hypoglycemic state thus exhibit apprehension, trembling, sweating, vertigo, loss of coordination, irritability, confusion and amnesia.¹³ In severe hypoglycemia, these symptoms may be a prelude to complete blackouts - long periods of time in which the person walks and talks and may appear perfectly normal, but from which they awake with no memory of what went on.

Hypoglycemics may also experience bizarre hallucinations and other severe sensory distortions. One probationer of mine, a hypoglycemic, aggravated his condition on the night of his arrest by drinking alcohol; which functions in the body as a sort of super-refined carbohydrate to provide a faster lift – and a sharper plunge – than even sucrose. Within minutes of taking a drink, this man got the sensation that the people around him were very tiny. At the same time they seemed very close to him, and yet somehow oddly distant. Frightened, he ran from the bar. Two people noticed his alarming behavior and tried to stop him from roaring off in his car. He almost ran them over.

The average psychiatrist would diagnose these mental dysfunctions not as hypoglycemia, but as neurosis, psychosis or schizophrenia. Indeed, the connection between low blood sugar and mental illness is fairly well established. As early as 1935, researchers like Dr. M.S. [page 42] Jones, then assistant physician at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Nervous and Mental Disorders, were noting the drastic emotional effects of low blood sugar and stating, “Such complaints ... may easily be diagnosed as being due to an anxiety neurosis, hysteria or neurasthenia (a neurosis characterized by chronic abnormal weakness).” ¹⁴

Jones related the case of one 36-year-old woman who was hospitalized after five years of vomiting after every meal. The woman was subject to “hysterical at tacks, during which she became extremely weak, somewhat incoherent, emotionally unstable, and would throw articles at her husband.” She was given a Glucose Tolerance Test (see Chapter Three) and found to be hypoglycemic, a diagnosis confirmed by the fact that her violent spells were nearly always accompanied by a craving for sweets.

Since the thirties, the coincidence between hypoglycemia and mental illness has been thoroughly documented. Doctors Wendel and Beebe noted in 1973 that neurotics and schizophrenics who tended to suffer anxiety were more likely to be hypoglycemic than were normal subjects.¹⁵ The same workers reported that of 133 studied psychiatric patients, fully 74 percent were hypoglycemic.¹⁶ Similarly Robert Meiers estimates the prevalence of relative hypoglycemia among schizophrenics to be about 70 percent.¹⁷ The hypoglycemia/mental illness connection is further confirmed by the fact that dietary correction of hypoglycemia very frequently lessens or reverses neurotic, psychotic and schizophrenic symptoms (see Chapter Five).

[Page 43]

The relationship between low blood sugar and mental illness has a direct bearing on the diet/crime link. Many of the probationers I see have long histories of medication and/or hospitalization for psychiatric disorders. When a schizophrenic commits a crime, it is frequently quite bizarre, because the act springs from perceptual changes and delusions far removed from the real world.¹⁸

Mental illness, then, is one intermediate factor linking diet to crime. Another is alcohol abuse. As we noted before, alcohol affects the metabolism much like a highly refined carbohydrate – it has fewer carbon atoms per molecule than sucrose, so it enters the bloodstream quickly, often directly through the stomach lining. It is thought that hypoglycemics may turn to alcohol as a way of lifting blood sugar levels more quickly. While the relationship is difficult to recreate in a laboratory, collected evidence strongly supports the contention that alcohol addiction can be a symptom of hypoglycemia. For instance, researchers at Loma Linda University, working under Dr. U.A. Register, have been able to induce craving for alcohol in rats by feeding them a diet high in sucrose.¹⁹

Further evidence is provided by the fact that the majority of alcoholics are hypoglycemic. Researchers Poulos, Stoddard and Carron began a study of 200 alcoholics in 1973. Ninety-seven percent of this group were found to be hypoglycemic, as opposed to 18 percent in a control group.²⁰ Dr. R.O. Brennan quotes one psychiatrist who proclaimed, “I have examined hundreds of patients, and found that every alcoholic tested had hypoglycemia.²¹ [Page 44] I can only add that my own experience with hypoglycemic probationers has been very similar. There is of course a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma here, since high alcohol consumption usually causes changes in dietary habits which in themselves aggravate hypoglycemia. Yet the exciting success that physicians report when they treat alcoholics for hypoglycemia (as high as 71 percent sobriety, as compared to 25 percent for groups like Alcoholics Anonymous²² ) seems to demonstrate that low blood sugar is at the root of this insidious chemical dependency.

Once again, the alcohol/diet connection is of interest in this discussion because of the high rate of alcohol abuse among criminals.²³ Criminologist Alexander Schauss reports that in his study of over 1000 juvenile defendants, over half were arrested while under the in fluence of alcohol.²⁴ The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimates that 29 to 40 percent of all accident, homicide and suicide fatalities are indirectly caused by alcohol²⁵ - and even this figure may be too conservative. If diet can drive you to drink, then it stands a good chance of driving you to crime as well. If the only adverse effect of low blood sugar were increased alcohol consumption, that alone would be enough to make it an important contributor to crime and delinquency.

But hypoglycemia has another symptom which far more directly contributes to aberrant behavior: increased aggression. Recall that in times of stress we show two different kinds of reactions. There are the primitive “fight or flight” reactions, and, at a higher level, more reasoned [page 45] and socially-formed stress responses. For example, if we argue with someone, the “gut level” messages being sent from the brain stem may tell us to hit the person. The higher brain, on the other hand, may, as the seat of our social conscience, caution us that violence is an un acceptable method of resolving conflict, and prompt us to seek a more peaceful outcome. But in a hypoglycemic state, it is precisely these “socially responsible” areas of the brain which have shut down because of lack of energy or are otherwise malfunctioning. Only the more primitive, more aggressive brain stem is in operation. Thus the person in a low blood sugar state cannot respond to a stress situation in a constructive, socially acceptable manner.

As we’ve already seen, aggressive or violent behavior has long been associated with the symptomology of hypoglycemia.²⁶ Yaryura-Tobias and Neziroglu have noted that low serum glucose is associated with brain dysrhythmia and aggressive behavior in certain patients.²⁷ Dr. Robert E. Buckley has also noted this hypoglycemia-aggression link, especially in those who already show temporal lobe dysfunction.²⁸ University of Nevada researcher Dr. William Hudspeth has indicated that extremely antisocial acting-out behaviors may accompany low blood sugar, and other workers have obtained similar result.^{29 30 31}

Perhaps the most notorious example of low blood sugar and aggressive behavior is that of t he Qolla Indian tribe, which makes its home around the Lake Titicaca region between Peru and Bolivia. California ethnographer Dr. Ralph Bolton has called the Qolla the “meanest [page 46] and most unlikeable people on earth.” Bolton reported that most of the Qolla are continually involved in extremely antisocial behavior, including murder, rape, arson and stealing. Over half the heads of households in one village had been directly or indirectly implicated in a homicide. Their diet? It was high in refined carbohydrates, low in protein and included plenty of alcohol and adrenal stimulants like caffeine. Bolton found that 55 percent of the Qolla were hypoglycemic.^{32 33}

The Qolla are simply an extreme example of hypoglycemia-related aggression. Thousands – maybe even millions -of Americans show similar behavioral effects of sugar consumption. We witness it dozens of times every day-the overemotional argument, the pushing, shoving ticket line, the barroom brawl. As someone who works with those in trouble, I see low blood sugar violence constantly. Often an individual will be extremely violent when arrested, and several officers are needed to restrain him. During the first interview, the probationer will often confess that he remembers nothing about the incident.

These people are almost always hypoglycemic or diabetic, and at the time of their arrests they are in a severe sugar low, often made worse by alcohol consumption.

I have dealt with hypoglycemia first in this discussion of the biochemistry of crime because I believe it is the single most important link between diet and delinquent behavior. As we have seen, hypoglycemia is wide spread. Its effect on the body – and especially on behavior is drastic. And, as we’ll note later in this chapter, [page 47] sugar consumption is linked with other nutritional distortions. I am convinced that if we could eradicate hypoglycemia, many other mental illnesses and behavioral disorders would take care of themselves.

Nutrient Deficiency
Besides energy, the brain needs other nutrients. The macronutrients serve major functions: Carbohydrates provide fuel, as do fats; proteins are the building blocks of cells, and the components of protein – amino acids – play other important roles, as we shall see. However, there is another class of nutrients which, until recently, have been almost entirely ignored— the micronutrients. These are the vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Although they are present in smaller quantities than are the macro nutrients, they too have a crucial part to play: they enable every one of the thousands of chemical reactions which take place in the brain to proceed normally. Without them, it doesn’t matter if your diet is loaded with carbohydrates, fats and proteins. You will die. If the nutrient supply to the brain is distorted, behavior is distorted.

The range of nutrients with psychochemical importance is broad. According to Dr. Linus Pauling:

“The proper functioning of the mind is known to require the presence in the brain of molecules of many different substances. For example, mental disease, usually associated with physical disease, results from a low concentration in the brain of any one of the following vitamins: thiamin (B_l), nicotinic acid or nicotinamide (B₃), pyridoxine (B₆), cyanocobalamine [page 48] (B_l2), biotin (H), ascorbic acid (C) and folic acid. There is evidence that mental function and behavior are also affected by changes in the concentration in the brain of any of a number of other substances that are normally present, such as L( +) glutamic acid, uric acid, and y-aminobutyric acid.” ³⁴

The specific actions of these substances are still poorly understood, and there’s no room to discuss them all here. But let’s take a look at a few of the most important nutrients, and how they influence behavior.

Amino Acids and Neurotransmitters
The main functional units of the brain are called neurons, and these function interdependently by exchanging electronic signals. Behavior and other body functions are controlled by the way these signals move through the complex arrangements of neurons. Each individual neuron releases its electron signal in response to chemical stimulation; these chemicals are called neurotransmitters. When a neuron sends its signal, it also releases neurotransmitters that stimulate other neurons to fire. Thus the primary functioning of the brain is a complex of chemical and electrical signals. In fact, mental and mood changes can be detected by monitoring the activity of certain classes of neurotransmitters. What are these neurotransmitters, and how are they produced?

One crucial neurotransmitter is serotonin, which appears to play a role in maintaining a positive emotional environment. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have demonstrated that individuals with low [Page 49] levels of serotonin may suffer from depression, insomnia and unusually aggressive behavior.³⁵

The body manufactures serotonin from the amino acid tryptophan – a nutrient present in protein foods. Research indicates that many of the symptoms of low serotonin can be reversed by tryptophan injections.³⁶

How can serotonin deficiencies come about? Two principal ways concern us here. First, serotonin deficiencies can be caused by a diet that is poor in tryptophan.³⁷ There is one tryptophan-deficient food that is becoming especially prevalent in our diet: corn. The American consumption of corn has skyrocketed over the past century. We now consume it in hundreds of ways -corn flakes for breakfast, corn oil in margarine, corn bases in bourbon and beer, corn flour or cornstarch in many processed foods. Corn, in fact, has replaced much of the wheat in our diet,³⁸ even though the latter grain has a more reasonable tryptophan balance. Chronic consumption of a tryptophan-deficient diet could conceivably lead to lowered serotonin levels and consequent depression or antisocial behavior. Fernstrom and his associates have discovered that the quality of a single meal can influence serotonin levels significantly.³⁹

A normal serotonin level can be distorted through another dietary practice, a somewhat paradoxical one: the consumption of high amounts of meat. It is true that meat is a rich source of tryptophan, and eating meat does elevate levels of tryptophan in the blood. But scientists have discovered that blood tryptophan does not necessarily translate to brain tryptophan. Transport of amino acids to the brain is competitive; that is, several kinds of [page 50] amino acids use the same pathway – and they can’t all go at once. The more kinds of amino acids in the blood stream, the less chance that any single one type of them will get to the brain in sufficient quantities. Meat provides tryptophan, but it also provides a range of other competing amino acids. Therefore a diet high in meat does not raise brain tryptophan levels. Diets with balanced amounts of meat and carbohydrate foods like grains and vegetables do contribute greater amounts of tryptophan to the brain.⁴⁰

Another important amino acid which acts as a raw material (or “precursor”) for neurotransmitters is tyrosine, which is metabolized into the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine. Both are important in maintaining proper mental function, and imbalances of both have been linked to schizophrenia and other mental illness.⁴¹ Tyrosine has been used to treat depression.

Yet another important neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. Its precursor is not an amino acid, but a vitamin choline. Doses of choline or supplements of lecithin (a good source of choline) have been helpful in combating senility and other types of mental decay.⁴²

These are just a few of the neurotransmitters that scientists have analyzed. It is interesting to note that sugar consumption may have an impact on the production of neurotransmitters. Too much insulin in the blood stream reduces amino acid levels, thus eradicating the precursors of neurotransmitters like norepinephrine. It’s postulated that this is another way in which a diet high i sugar can aggravate depression.⁴³

[Page 51] Vitamins
Vitamins are substances that help chemical processes along. While several of these have been found to be extremely important in maintaining proper brain function, it’s a bit misleading to talk about the actions of a single vitamin. When we talk about the “action of’ or the “function of ascorbic acid” (for instance), we have to remember that no vitamin works in a vacuum. Vitamins operate together in complex relationships, many of which we still don’t fully understand. We do know, however, that if all essential vitamins are not consumed in balanced amounts, the effectiveness of any single vitamin is greatly reduced, if not nullified entirely.⁴⁴ This fundamental point becomes important both as we try to understand how vitamin deficiencies affect behavior and also as we discover how to correct these deficiencies.

One of the most important – and certainly the most talked about – psychoactive micronutrients is niacin, or vitamin B₃. Niacin is used by the body in the form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). The body can make NAD from niacin in the diet, or it can metabolize it from tryptophan through a complex series of steps in volving several enzymes.

One of the reasons that we know so much about niacin and brain function is that the niacin deficiency disease – pellagra – is usually accompanied by psychiatric symptoms. Pellagra was a widespread disease in the southern United States around the end of the last century, especially among those consuming large amounts of refined white flour, which contained very little niacin. It is also prevalent in areas where a great [page 52] deal of corn is eaten. Corn is deficient in the tryptophan from which NAD can be made.

The symptoms of pellagra are known as the “Four D’s”: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death.⁴⁵ The “dementia” include such things as visual changes, hallucinations, vertigo, hyperacute sense of smell, dulled sense of taste, parasthesias (abnormal sensations, such as a burning feeling or feeling as if insects are craw ling on the skin), disorientation, confusion, memory lapses, depression, anxiety and fatigue.46 These mental disturbances almost always respond rapidly to niacin treatment.

Although “enrichment” of many processed foods has guaranteed that few people in this count r y die of advanced pellagra, doctors are beginning to question whether the emotional and mental malfunctions might appear in people with niacin deficiencies which aren’t severe enough to cause the more visible symptoms of pellagra. Such a disease is called subclinical pellagra. One of the first researchers to note the disease was Dr. T.D. Spies, who mentioned subclinical pellagra in his 1938 paper ‘’The Mental Symptoms of Pellagra.” He pointed out that:

Subclinical pellagrins are noted for the multiplicity of their complaints, among which are many that are usually classed as neurasthenic. The most common of these are fatigue, vertigo, burning sensations in various parts of the body, numbness, palpitations, nervousness, a feeling of unrest and anxiety, headache, forgetfulness, apprehension and distractibility. The conduct of a pellagrin may be nominal, but he feels incapable of mental or physical effort, even though he may be ambulatory.⁴⁷

[Page 53] The startling thing about these symptoms of subclinical pellagra is that they are very much like those of schizophrenia – a widespread disease, the victims of which occupy one out of every four hospital beds in the United States.⁴⁸ As a matter of fact, the symptomologies are so close that some clinicians don’t distinguish between subclinical pellagra and niacin-responsive schizophrenia. They call both metabolic dysperception.⁴⁹ Can the sorts of deficiencies that lead to metabolic dysperception actually exist in this society? Are not most Americans consuming the government’s Recommended Daily Allowance for niacin (about 20 milligrams)? If they are, how can any of them be suffering from psychiatric disorders because of niacin deficiency?

The answer to these questions is twofold. In the first place, the levels of nutrients set in the USRDA are intended to prevent fatal deficiency diseases. There is no claim that the USRDA provides optimum nutrient levels; in fact, many nutritionists and biochemists claim the USRDA for several nutrients is too low. The fact that the recommended allowance for most vitamins has frequently been revised upward seems to justify this view. But there is a more fundamental explanation for deficiency diseases in our “well-fed” nation, an explanation which revolutionizes almost everything we know about human nutrition. It is the concept of biochemical individuality. Simply put, it means there are no “average” human beings. Instead, each of us is biologically unique. Dr. Roger Williams of the University of Texas, a pioneer in the field of research into biochemical individuality, has demonstrated that virtually everything [page 54] about us – the size and shape of our organs, the speed of our metabolisms and our requirements for nutrients – can vary enormously from one healthy individual to the next. As Williams has written:

Each human being possesses a highly distinctive body chemistry. While the same physical mechanisms and the same metabolic processes are operating in all human bodies, the structures are sufficiently diverse and the genetically determined enzyme efficiencies vary sufficiently from individual to individual so that the sum total of all the reactions taking place in one individual’s body may be very different from those taking place in the body of another individual of the same age, sex and body size.⁵⁰

Williams’ own analysis makes this very clear, especially in the realm of nutrition. He cites evidence that the normal level of potassium in the blood, for instance, can be four times as great in one normal, healthy person as it is in another. The nutritional requirement for calcium can vary over a five-fold range; the need for various amino acids can be twice as high in one person as in another. Even the need for “popular” vitamins like A, C, D and the B-complex can vary over a four-fold range or wider. Especially interesting for us is the fact that the dosage of niacin needed to prevent pellagra can vary even between individuals of the same body weight.⁵¹

Given these findings, we would expect certain individuals to have a need for psychoactive nutrients such as niacin that is far greater than would be satisfied by the [page 55] average American diet; indeed, it is likely that some could have nutritional needs that could not be fulfilled by any diet without the aid of food supplements. In such in stances, a person eating a “normal” diet and getting 100 percent of the USRDA for niacin would still suffer a deficiency and would begin to show the behavioral symptoms of subclinical pellagra. This hypothesis has been put forward by many physicians besides Dr. Williams, and certainly the fact that niacin supplementation has helped both pellagrins and schizophrenics back to health seems to lend support.⁵²

In certain schizophrenics, low levels of NAD in the brain may be due to something other than dietary deficiency, however. Research suggests that some schizophrenics are not able to turn tryptophan into NAD, because one or more of the enzymes which control this process are blocked. This blockage may have two harmful consequences. In the first place, one major supply of NAD is blocked off. Secondly, all that unused tryptophan does not remain stable; it may change into one of a number of chemically similar compounds called indoles, some of which resemble hallucinogens.⁵³ For such individuals, simply consuming more tryptophan won’t help to reverse NAO-deficiency symptoms, and may aggravate them. Only niacin therapy will help restore the balance.

While niacin is one of the most popular of the psychoactive B vitamins, it is by no means the only one. Deficiencies in vitamins B₁, B₂, B₆ and B₁₂ have been linked to depression and other mental problems. Thiamin (B₁), for instance, is necessary for turning carbohydrates into energy in the brain. Deficiencies can lead to [page 56] general debilitation and personality disturbances.⁵⁴ Similarly, dietary deficiencies of vitamin B₁₂ can lead to a host of psychotic conditions.⁵⁵

Other vitamins play important roles in brain function. Among the more noteworthy of these is ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. Its function in the brain is not fully known, but it seems to participate in many reactions. Schizophrenics often show vitamin C deficiencies, and are frequently helped by megadoses of this nutrient.⁵⁶

There’s one more thing we ought to cover before we end this discussion of micronutrient depletion and abnormal behavior: the sugar connection. We have already seen how sugar consumption leads to hypoglycemia and thus to aberrant and often violent behavior. But sugar consumption can also cause nutrient depletion. How? The most obvious answer is that foods that are high in sugar – processed foods – are often low in vitamins; of course, sugar itself contains no micronutrients. Thus a high sugar diet is usually a low-nutrient diet.

But there is another factor involved. Sugar contains no nutrients, yet in order to be turned into energy it must use up a wide range of nutrients. If the meal itself is nutritionally poor, the body must remove what nutrition it can from its own stores to metabolize the sucrose. Thus a meal high in refined sugar not only provides little or no nutrition, but actually robs nutrients from the body. So sugar consumption can damage brain function both by causing hypoglycemia and by contributing to nutrient depletion. (We might add that what is true for sugar goes double for alcohol; it not only crowds more nutritious [page 57] foods out of the diet, but it strips nutrients from the body as it is metabolized.)

Allergic Reactions
We normally associate allergies with rather harmless symptoms: rashes, sniffles, runny eyes, etc. Yet, as clinicians have known for many years, allergic (also known as “hypersensitive”) reactions can bring on a number of disturbing behavioral effects as well. Dr. Theron G. Randolph has demonstrated that food allergies can provoke lethargy, stupor, disorientation, paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, distraction, agitation, rage, panic, convulsive seizures and coma.⁵⁷ And these sensitivities need not be to rare or unusual foods; in fact, some of the most common foods in our diet can cause allergic reactions, and researchers have argued that the more common a food is, the more likely it is to cause an allergy!

The mechanisms for allergy formation, and how sensitivities lead to antisocial behavior, are still something of a mystery. Allergies may develop in any individual, to virtually any substance. They can appear and disappear at any time. Nevertheless, instances of allergy-induced abnormal behavior have been well-documented. Doctors David S. King and Marshall Mandel showed in 1978 that adult subjects were more likely to exhibit central nervous system complaints such as depression, inability to concentrate and anger when exposed to allergy-producing substances.⁵⁸ The emotional reactions to allergens are by no means limited to vague feelings of discomfort. Dr. Doris Rapp found that patients with a history of compulsive [page 58] stealing stayed out of trouble when their allergies were treated, and that when the treatment was discontinued many began stealing again.⁵⁹ In one random sampling of more than 50 patients hospitalized for schizophrenia, more than 92 percent were allergic to one or more common substances.⁶⁰ Mandel tested a group of neurotics who had not responded to standard psychiatric treatments, and learned that 88 percent were allergic to wheat, 60 percent were allergic to milk and 50 percent were allergic to com.⁶¹

Moreover, allergic reactions often work together to distort behavior. Mandel relates the case of a 40-year-old man who had become a wreck; he had a history of continual fatigue, confusion and nervous tension. A wide range of allergy testing revealed that the man was hypersensitive to a number of substances. For instance, wheat made him nervous and tense, coffee made him lightheaded, chicken made him confused and eggs made it difficult for him to concentrate.⁶² It is likely that many people have more than just one allergy with psychiatric consequences; these would be difficult to isolate without careful testing, and that is perhaps why the link between allergic reaction and unusual behavior is so frequently ignored by physicians and psychiatrists.

Most people don’t realize that allergies are often marked by an addiction to the reaction-causing food. In some instances a craving for a food may in fact be a signal that one is indeed allergic to it. As the individual consumes a lot of [Page 59] food, allergens build up in the blood stream and body tissues. The substances may disturb body function – yet the body has a remarkable way of adapting to such environmental challenges. For some people, this adaptation may go so far that their bodies become accustomed to the offending substance; they must have it, or they develop withdrawal symptoms. This kind of dependence is called a maladaptive reaction the body learns to “need” a substance which is actually harming it. So people suffering from allergies are in a double bind. Either they consume the substance, often in large doses, and experience the tension and hyperactivity exposure can bring, or they go “cold turkey,” and suffer depressive symptoms as the body cries out for the allergen to which it has developed a maladaptive addiction.⁶³

Since all allergic reactions to food often require the build-up of allergens in the body, it follows that the more frequently a person eats a certain food, the more likely that person is to develop a sensitivity to it. So it’s no surprise that the most prevalent foods in a society’s diet are the ones which produce the most allergies. In the United States, for instance, the most common allergies are to milk, wheat, and corn, followed by coffee, egg, potato, orange, beef, pork, yeast, beet, cane, tomato, peanut and soy. While our diet once contained a wide variety of foods, most of our meals now are made up exclusively of selections from the above list. You’ll notice, by the way, that the list contains not a single green or leafy vegetable while it does contain the two sources of white sugar, cane and beet.

One dramatic case of mine illustrates how such allergies work. This man had threatened to murder almost everyone he knew – his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s parents, [page 60] even his parents. I met him after he had been arrested on a firearms violation and was put on probation.

This individual showed symptoms of depression, and had suffered from bleeding ulcers since age 15. His aggressive behavior, depression and ulcers were telling signs. “Do you drink a lot of milk?” I asked him. “Sure,” he said, “about a gallon a day.”

I told him that his frequent consumption of milk probably meant he was allergic to it. He said he didn’t think so; if he didn’t drink milk, especially in the morning, he suffered severe stomach pain and retching. He was sure that it was the ulcers that caused his pain, and that the milk somehow soothed them. He didn’t relate his aggressive behavior to the pain/milk drinking cycle.

I suspected that the pain and retching in the morning were not caused by nagging ulcers but were withdrawal symptoms which came from spending the night without milk. I convinced him to try doing without the milk for a while.

He experienced some discomfort at first, but after four days his condition improved, and he began to realize that the milk was causing his gastric problems, not curing them. After six days I urged him to try a little experiment – he drank two glasses of milk. As I expected, the pain and vomiting returned shortly after the re-introduction of milk. After three weeks the man had an experience which overcame the last of his skepticism. He tried a bowl of natural ice cream for the first time and his pain returned. He was a little surprised; this had never happened to him after eating ice cream before. The reason? The natural ice cream contained real cream [page 61] unlike most other commercial ice creams. After getting this unexpected evidence, he got off the milk for good, convinced that he was allergic. His stomach problems ceased.

But the change in the man’s behavior fascinated me more than the relief from his physical ailments. He became a transformed person. After giving up milk he changed from a threatening, vindictive, aggressive menace to a relaxed friendly young man. Today he needs no complex biochemical explanations to convince him of the link between allergies and aggression. He is himself living proof.

We noted above that cane and beet can very frequently cause allergic reactions. For some people, then, cane and beet sugar can do more than bring on hypoglycemia; sucrose can also quickly cause sharp allergy symptoms. One can usually tell the difference between the two kinds of sugar reactions, because hypoglycemia usually takes at least about an hour to set in while sugar allergies can happen almost immediately.

Another case study will illustrate the sort of behavior sugar allergy can bring on. I once worked with a woman, a former dancing instructor and mother of two, who was showing some disturbing psychiatric symptoms. She was growing very absent-minded, sometimes putting a jar of mayonnaise away with the detergents, sometimes leaving the toaster in the refrigerator. But not all of her behavior could be lightly dismissed. She sometimes screamed wildly and became hysterical with her children. She began to shoplift. Worried about his wife’s disintegrating personality, her husband came to me and [page 62] said, “Something’s wrong.”

When I suggested there might be problems with her diet, the husband objected. “You’ve got it wrong,” he said, “she’s a real health nut. Every night, while I’m eating my steak and potatoes, she’s nibbling on this fruit plate she always makes.”

It sounded to me as if the woman was eating a lot of sugar – in this instance, fruit sugar. In my interview with her, I showed her a list of foods that were high in natural sugar, and asked her to put a double check mark over the foods she ate frequently during the day. She checked raisins and bananas. I told her that her continual consumption of these foods was overloading her body with sugar, and that to deal with her physical and emotional problems she ought to avoid the fruits and eat a more balanced diet.

She lasted four days on the program, but then broke down and ate a single banana. Within ten minutes she had broken into a sweat, began trembling badly, and felt herself slipping back into one of her semi-hysterical spells. A half-hour later she began to feel better (another sign that her symptoms were not hypoglycemia, but allergic) and she called to tell me she now really believed that it was the high-sugar fruits which were responsible for her problems. She didn’t need to try the raisins.

There’s another common allergy producing food that finds its way into sweetened foods: corn. Corn sweetener is replacing sucrose in hundreds of processed foods. While com sweetener will produce hypoglycemic reactions, just as sucrose will, it is possible that those allergic to corn will also display an allergic reaction to [page 63] corn-sweetened foods.

There is yet another relationship between sugar, hypoglycemia and allergy. Several researchers have noted that an allergic reaction can cause or worsen a state of low blood sugar.⁶⁴ How this happens is not yet completely clear, but there is one possible mechanism which I believe explains the connection, and which also provides a further reason for the extreme addictiveness of allergy-causing foods. The answer may lie in the adrenal glands.

The adrenal glands, located just above the kidneys, are responsible for producing the substance adrenaline. They are triggered by signals from the hypothalamus which is located at the base of the brain. In times of stress, adrenaline helps to convert stored glycogen into glucose, thus raising the blood sugar and producing a burst of energy. An allergic reaction is a stress, and so the adrenals respond by secreting adrenaline. If the body reacts to the resultant blood sugar rise with too much insulin, low blood sugar develops. The individual may wish to raise his or her blood sugar by eating something sweet. On the other hand, the body may remember that eating the allergy-producing food caused an adrenaline rush, and so the person may choose that path to raise blood sugar. If the over-stimulation of the adrenal system continues, the result may be adrenal exhaustion, in which the body can no longer effectively call on its glycogen stores in times of stress, thus leading to a more pervasive hypoglycemic state. While further study of this hypothesis is needed, it seems likely that the allergy adrenaline-hypoglycemia cycle may explain many puzzling things about the behavior of people suffering from [page 64] food allergies.

A person can develop allergic reactions not only to foods themselves, but also to the chemicals added to processed foods. There is evidence that such sensitivity to food additives can have a noticeable impact on behavior. The most famous worker in this field was the late Dr. Ben Feingold, who believed that sensitivity to food additives could cause hyperactivity in children. One study conducted by Dr. C. Kenneth Connors indicated that children given an “average” daily dose of food additives in a cookie showed significantly worsened behavior, while children given a similar cookie without additives did not.⁶⁵ Many other studies of the behavioral effects of food additives have yielded similar results, although rigorous diet and behavior experiments involving young children are difficult to carry out. The studies showing that children can be allergic to food additives are of vital interest to any parent, but they also concern those of us in the criminal justice system. Research indicates that a high percentage of children judged hyperactive or learning-disabled in elementary school later go on to get in trouble with the law.⁶⁶ And in 1996 it has been estimated that up to 50% of our male children are hyperactive/attention deficit!

We should not rule out the behavioral effect that allergic reactions to food additives can have on adults, however. Although not as much work has been done in this area, at least one study indicates that adults with allergies to some of these chemicals show markedly worsened scores on personality inventories.⁶⁷

Allergies, then, can develop to very common foods, [page 65] can cause violent behavior, and can interact subtly with our carbohydrate metabolism and with other allergies. With all this in mind, who can truly say how much of the abnormal, aggressive, violent, psychotic or criminal behavior (which some attribute to the decay of our society) might not in fact be due to hidden allergic reactions? I urge you to read any of the books written by Dr. Doris Rapp and referenced in the Appendix of this book.

Toxic Substances
So far we have talked about some dietary influences on behavior with which many readers may have been unfamiliar: distortions in the way the body handles sugar, missing psychoactive nutrients, allergic/addictive reactions. There is a more direct way in which our chemical environment – and especially the chemical components of what we eat – can impact on the human mind. This is through exposure to poisons.

Each day we come in contact with hundreds of thousands of substances. Most of these have been around as long as the Earth itself. Some elements, although they are basic, are now present in our environment in higher concentrations than ever before in the history of the planet. And some are entirely new, artificial substances, the toxicity of most of which is simply not known, and to which our bodies have had no time to adapt. As humanity manipulates its environment more and more drastically, our exposure to chemicals changes in radical and unexpected ways. Let’s take a look at just a handful of these substances, and see how they influence behavior.

[Page 66] Toxic Metals
Vitamins are not the only micronutrients; minerals also play an important role in the molecular processes which shape our lives. We already know about many of these minerals, such as boron, which is used in the construction of bones and teeth, or sodium, which is necessary for nerve and muscle function.

One group of minerals are the metals: iron, which helps bring oxygen to the cells; selenium, which, along with vitamin E, helps to slow the aging process; magnesium, which plays a vital role in converting blood sugar into cell energy, and many others.⁶⁸

However, some metals are toxic. They are poisonous because they are antagonists to beneficial minerals; that is, they take the place of nutrients in biochemical functions, thus ruining them. Zinc, for instance, is known to be extremely important in certain brain processes, and recent studies show it is beneficial in the treatment of schizophrenia.⁶⁹ Lead, on the other hand, is a zinc antagonist. If there is too much lead and not enough zinc in the bloodstream, lead will take zinc’s place in neurochemical functions, with disastrous results. Population studies show that people with a high exposure to lead, either because they live near lead smelting plants, eat lead-based paint, drink water from lead pipes, or live near highways and inhale a lot of automobile exhaust, show increased learning disabilities, increased hyperactivity, and even psychosis in some cases.⁷⁰

Here are some of the more common metals, and the physical and mental symptoms they are known to cause:⁷¹

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Aluminum: Speech disturbance, uncoordination, paralysis, psychiatric disorders, tremor.

Antimony: Loss of appetite, dizziness, fatigue, headache, irritability, abnormal skin sensations, nerve inflammation.

Arsenic: Loss of smell, dizziness, lethargy, abnormal skin sensations, peripheral nervous system disorders, nerve inflammation, weakness.

Cadmium: Inability to smell, fatigue.

Lead: Convulsions, uncoordination, mental retardation, peripheral nervous system disorders, psychiatric symptoms, tremors, visual disturbances, weakness.

Mercury: Appetite loss, speech defect, fatigue, headache, uncoordination, mental retardation, abnormal skin sensations, nervous system disorders, psychiatric symptoms, tremors, visual disturbances and weakness.

Tin: Speech impairment, headache, abnormal skin sensations, nerve inflammation, visual disturbances.

The actions of a person with toxic metal poisoning are often quite bizarre. I once had several probationers who had been arrested for indecent exposure. Their records indicated that they all worked at the same factory – a plant that did a lot of work with metals. Hair analysis (see Chapter Three) revealed that all had acute lead poisoning. Although the connection between lead poisoning and these sorts of sexual misdemeanors is not well-defined, stories like this lead us to question whether [page 68] the notorious “flashers” have dirty minds, or simply poisoned ones.

A 19-year-old probationer of mine provides a classic case of how an undetected case of metal poisoning can ruin an entire life. The young woman had been arrested for shoplifting, but her problems started much earlier. She was classified as learning disabled as early as the second grade, and had a history of behavior problems. Although she was strikingly beautiful, she saw herself as grotesque. She was a psychiatric mess.

She received a battery of tests at the Baron clinic, from which we learned she was extremely hypoglycemic and had toxic levels of lead and arsenic in her body. Biochemists believe that the highest concentration of lead the body can safely tolerate is 15 parts per million. This woman’s lead levels were more than twice that – 37 parts per million!

She was put on a dietary regimen and was given treatments to remove the toxins from her tissues. The woman was extremely uncooperative in the treatments, but still showed encouraging progress. After just a few treatments her lead levels were down to just 11 parts per million. In less than a year her 1.Q. scores increased about 30 points. She could drive again, continued her education, has stayed out of trouble and -best of all she finally realized she is a very lovely person.

The depths to which metal poisoning can throw a person is illustrated in another case. This man was a Cleveland dock worker who had been arrested for a drug felony, but managed to get off on probation for a lesser charge.

[Page 69]I have seen few human beings in worse physical condition. When he came to my office he was so weak he could not hold his head up. His hair looked like straw, and I found out he had been losing it by the handfuls for three months. He looked fatigued and uncoordinated. Laboratory analysis of his hair revealed that the man had shockingly high aluminum levels – more than 300 parts per million. Suddenly his poor health and his criminal behavior no longer seemed a mystery to me. The wonder was that he could still walk!

I called the man and his wife into my office, and they sat opposite me holding hands as I told them the news: aluminum poisoning was contributing to the man’s personality decay. In our conversation it developed that he had been working at an aluminum smelting plant for the past year, and he began noticing his physical and mental problems after getting the job. He and his wife broke into tears of happiness. The weight of guilt he had been carrying for months slid off. “You see, honey,” he sobbed to his wife, “I told you it wasn’t me!’

Where do toxic metals come from? Some may come from diet; foods stored in metal containers often pick up contamination. One Consumer’s Digest study showed that a majority of canned fruit juices contained high levels of toxic metals.⁷² Especially dangerous are foods stored in lead-soldered cans.

Drinking water can be another source of toxic metals, especially copper. A study of the copper content of drinking waters in 27 locations in the Eastern United States revealed that five were at or near the level of copper considered dangerous by the U.S. Public Health [page 70] Service.⁷³ In addition, water run through lead pipes is often a source of lead poisoning, as we mentioned above.

There are many other sources of toxic metal expo sure: auto exhaust, pollution from smelters and other industries, batteries, fungicides, extra-dry antiperspirants, cigarette smoking (a source of cadmium, lead and arsenic poisoning), soft-drink dispensers and hundreds of others.⁷⁴ Dr. Alexander Schauss has discovered more than two dozen common objects or environments that can be sources of lead.⁷⁵

Another common source of toxic metals in the environment is the burning of coal - something which becomes a greater health hazard as more coal is burned to reduce dependence on foreign oil, while at the same time environmental standards are relaxed. As toxicologist Bernard Weiss so eloquently warns:

If these issues (involving metal toxicity) seem remote, I urge you to acquaint yourself with recent surveys on the impact of acid rain. The unrestricted burning of fossil fuels, especially unscrubbed high sulfur coal, is accelerating the deposition of toxic metals into soil, waterways and fish at an alarming rate. Vitriolic opposition to environmental controls by electric utilities and local politicians in the midwest may provide temporary financial relief, but it may also spawn many new toxicological and environmental casualties.⁷⁶

It ought to be remembered that, in one sense, toxic levels of lead and other metals in the body can be considered a deficiency disease. Absorption of many kinds [page 71] of toxic metals can be prevented by sufficient intakes of beans and apples⁷⁷ as well as vitamins like ascorbic acid (vitamin C),⁷⁸ which help remove toxins from the tis sues. Furthermore, in many instances toxic metals can only masquerade as their nutrient counterparts when there is not enough of that nutrient present. Even though the toxic metals in your body may be coming from the plant down the street, how they affect you still depends on your diet.

Other Toxins
We have already mentioned the fact that the hundreds of chemical additives we consume in processed food every day can be the cause of allergic reactions, and that such reactions can influence the mind. But some of these additives are dangerous to all consumers. And the ironic thing is that we voluntarily eat several pounds a year of the most harmful of these substances.

A prime example is caffeine. The “lift” that we get from this substance, an ingredient in coffee, tea, cola, chocolate and many over-the-counter drugs, is due to the fact that caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline. Adrenaline, as we saw, raises the blood sugar level. People who over-consume caffeine, like the young probationers I see who drink a gallon of cola or more every day, are constantly stimulating their adrenal glands. It is only a matter of time before they simply cannot respond to the stresses placed upon them. This adrenal exhaustion means the body can’t raise blood sugar when it needs to and hypoglycemia results.

But caffeine has other psychoactive properties. In [page 72] large single doses it can produce headache, jitteriness and nervousness, and can even lead to delirium. Research indicates that long-term consumption of caffeine in excess of 600 mg. a day (the equivalent of about eight cups of coffee, which is not at all unusual for some of the coffee or cola-guzzling probationers I handled) can cause chronic insomnia, persistent anxiety, paranoia and depression.79 While some of these symptoms are similar to those caused by adrenal exhaustion, it seems that caffeine has some negative psychoactive properties apart from the havoc it wreaks on carbohydrate metabolism. Monosodium L-glutamate (MSG) is another common food additive that can adversely affect behavior. Most famous for its use in oriental cooking (the toxic reaction to MSG is known as the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome), this flavor enhancer is appearing in more and more seasonings, almost all fast foods, as well as refined and processed foods under the guise of “natural flavorings.”

There is much concern about MSG’s effects on the central nervous systems of embryos and infants. Writes researcher Charles Nemeroff,

“The use of sensitive and specific measures of biochemical constituents in the retina and brain of MSG-treated animals has in almost every case confirmed the deleterious effects of high-dose MSG treatment in the neonatal period. MSG given to embryos and weanling rats causes marked inhibition of neurotransmitter activity, as well as central nervous system damage. When rats receive doses of M SG starting at the first few days after birth, they show less spontaneous psychomotor activity than controls, [page 73] and do significantly more poorly on certain kinds of behavioral tests.” ⁸⁰

In sensitive human subjects, oral doses of MSG can cause headache, sweating, nausea, weakness, thirst, abdominal pain and other distressing symptoms.⁸¹ While clinical studies have not yet indicated any adverse behavior caused by MSG in adult human subjects,⁸² one wonders whether the additive, with its ability to damage the central nervous systems of the very young, ought not to be considered guilty until conclusively proven innocent; there is, after all, absolutely no nutritional justification for the addition of MSG to processed foods.

A brand new additive now on the market is Aspartame (also known as Nutrasweet™), an artificial sweetener being used in some “low sugar” breakfast cereals and pre-sweetened soft drinks. Although Aspartame’s producer, Searle, has brought forth a number of studies to show that the sweetener is harmless, Doctors Olney and Reynold have reported that Aspartame can produce lesions in the central nervous systems of young rats. Such evidence was enough to convince the Aspartame Board of Inquiry of the FDA to recommend in September 1980 that this additive not be marketed.⁸³ However, there was an ominous “new climate” in Washington, and Aspartame was cleared for human consumption. It has been added to hundreds of foods and carbonated drinks leading to a billion dollar industry by 1995.

These are just three of the possibly toxic additives which have found their way into our diet. There are thousands of others, and several new additives are developed [Page 74] every year. With the exception of a mere handful, none have been given rigorous testing to determine if they have any long-term impact on the health of the human body and mind. While most are in the “Generally Recognized As Safe” category, one must remember that this judgment is based not so much on medical evidence as on tradition. Claiming an additive is “Generally Recognized as Safe” is tantamount to saying “we’ve always used it before, and no one’s complained yet.” Often an additive has been declared safe simply because it was used for many years before the creation of the FDA. Caffeine is a good example. Although it is present in many foods and beverages, and is considered safe by the food industry, many researchers agree that if caffeine were to be developed today, it would be available only by prescription.⁸⁴

So the state of our knowledge about the behavioral effects of food additives is largely a state of ignorance; in some quarters, even willful ignorance. Are these additives necessary? Certainly not. As we shall see in Chapter Four, thousands of probationers, prisoners, mental patients and hyperactive children are right now on diets which completely forbid the consumption of artificial additives – and not a single one has starved; not a single one suffers nutritionally from a deficiency of synthetic chemicals. It occurs to me that glibly condoning the use of worthless additives simply because there is not yet conclusive evidence of their danger is a little like nonchalantly playing Russian Roulette simply because you don’t have any proof that the chamber is loaded.

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Our Junk Food Diet
Recipe for Madness & The Ultimate Child Abuse
We have seen so far that, for the brain to function properly, it must have the proper molecular environment. The right molecules must be present in the right amounts before those delicate and still mysterious electrochemical reactions, the precursors of thought, may proceed normally. If something happens to disturb the delicate ecology of the brain; if energy supplies are distorted by consumption of sucrose or adrenal overstimulation; if the needed nutrients are missing; if toxic metals are replacing their beneficial counterparts; if the brain is being poisoned – the mind will be disturbed.

The proper molecules – as well as the improper ones – come largely from what we eat. If our diet contains the substances needed for proper brain function, then the brain will work normally; behavior will be rational and constructive, lives will be full and fruitful. If, however, the diet does not supply the proper nutrients, and if it contains harmful substances as well, then the brain malfunctions – and anything from irritability to lunacy may result.

And the alarming point I must make is that the American way of eating is precisely the sort of diet which will cause brain malfunction.

What sort of diet am I talking about? I’m talking about a diet high in processed foods, foods that have been altered, sweetened, refined, stripped of nutrients, over cooked, chemically treated. Although the industry which carries out this tinkering with our food supply was almost nonexistent at the beginning of this century, today [page 76] it is one of the world’s largest enterprises, claiming all but 10 cents of our grocery dollar. Thanks to the processed food conglomerates, with their squads of biochemists and millions of dollars earmarked for “research,” our diet today bears little resemblance to what we ate just 50 years ago, or indeed to what the human race has eaten for thousands of years.

What is wrong with processed food, and how does it contribute to mental and behavioral disorders?

In the first place, processed foods contain a great deal of sucrose or Nutrasweet™, consumption of which contributes to hypoglycemia, allergic reaction and nutrient loss. Earlier we saw that many foods prevalent in our diet are high in sugar - even those we don’t normally think of as sweet. All this hidden sugar means that most of us consume hundreds of pounds of sucrose every year. And this in turn means that we are constantly punishing our endocrine systems, which eventually lose t he ability to regulate our metabolism of carbohydrates, and thus to keep the brain well-supplied with glucose. Little wonder that Doctors Cheraskin and Ringsdorf maintain that candy wrappers ought to have the warning “This product can be dangerous to your mental health” stamped on the label, and that an excise tax be placed on junk foods to support the inmates of penal and mental institutions!⁸⁵ Junk food is the ultimate child abuse as it abuses their physical, mental and emotional health!

The food industry adds sugar to its products in or der to increase consumption. Sugar is a very addictive substance; the low blood sugar state which you get from eating it makes you crave more. As biochemist and [page 77] former corporate food scientist Paul Stitt writes in his book Beating The Food Giants, the food industry has noticed that increasing the sugar in a product also increases the amount a person will eat – and that means increased sales.⁸⁶ Thus the corporate craving for profits has meant a continual increase in our sugar consumption, so that today sugar provides more calories in our diet than any other source.⁸⁷

Processed food contributes to mental disorder in another way; it is stripped of vital nutrients. The most notorious nutrient-robbing process is the refining of white flour. Whole grain wheat is rich in many vitamins, minerals and other important micronutrients, especially the B-complex vitamins. In the refining process, however, the outer layer of the wheat berry (called the bran) and the vital heart (called the germ) are discarded, leaving nothing but the starch center (or endosperm). In one process, then, wheat is reduced from one of nature’s most nearly perfect foods to one which is nutritionally bankrupt. More than half of each of the most essential nutrients are missing. As Stitt summarizes:

The milling process destroys 40% of the chromium present in the whole grain, as well as 86% of the manganese, 89% of the cobalt, 68% of the copper, 78% of the zinc, and 48% of the molybdenum. By the time it is completely refined, it has lost most of its phosphorus, iron and thiamin, and a good deal of its niacin and riboflavin. Its crude fiber content has been cut down considerably as well. White flour has been plundered of most of its vitamin E, important oils and [page 78] amino acids.⁸⁸

So nutritionally poor is refined white flour that the food industry feels compelled to add something to help it masquerade as a food - so they “enrich” it with a handful of synthetic vitamins. Of course, “enrichment” is a cynical term; no attempt is made to restore the full range of nutritional value once present in the whole grain. If someone stole $24 from you, and then, in a fit of re morse, returned $6 or $7, you would hardly feel enriched. Similarly, when the white flour producer removes scores of nutrients· and puts back eight, the only thing being enriched is the food industry.

Even after enrichment, white flour contains comparable amounts of only half the nutrients tested for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that are found in whole wheat bread. Whole wheat contains more than five times the magnesium, three times the phosphorus, twice the copper, three times the zinc and five times the vitamin B6 of white bread. In addition, enriched white bread contains substantially less iron, potassium, pantothenic acid and folacin. 89

Yet this white flour, as nutritionally poor as it is, is used in a great number of foods – breads, of course, and buns, rolls, tortillas, cakes, many kinds of candies, gravies, crackers, noodles, pastas, etc. This nutrient-depleted sub-food has been given a prominent place in the American diet.

Processed foods are only pale imitations of the fresh, whole, natural foods our ancestors ate.90 Many are cooked or prepared under extreme heat, which destroys [page 79]

many delicate vitamins. Others are boiled at some point in their processing, a step which washes out the water soluble vitamins, including the B-complex vitamins. Almost all processed foods have skin, seeds, pulp or bran removed – and usually these are the parts of food with the greatest concentration of nutrients. What is left of almost every processed food is carbohydrates: either the simple carbohydrates from refined sugars, or highly-refined fiber-free starches, which themselves break down very quickly into glucose.

A quick glance at government nutrition figures tells the whole tale. Canned peaches in heavy syrup, for instance, have just 40 percent of the protein of fresh, raw peaches, and only half the calcium, three-fifths of the iron, about a third of the vitamin A, and around 40 per cent of the thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and vitamin C.⁹¹

Refined cereal products also rate far below their whole-grain counterparts. Sugar-coated corn flakes have only half the protein, 63 percent of the calcium, 42 per cent of the iron, 50 percent of the riboflavin, and none of the vitamin A found in whole-grain corn meal.⁹²

The more processing done to a food, the more its nutritional profile is degraded. Thus canned tomato soup has just a third of the iron, only three quarters of the thiamin, 59 percent of the vitamin A and 29 percent of the vitamin C found in whole, fresh tomatoes.⁹³ Vitamin specialist Earl Minden reports that processing can destroy pyridoxine (B₆), cobalamin (B₁₂), orotic acid (B₁₃ ), pangamic acid (B₁₅) biotin, pantothenic acid, choline, vitamin E, folic acid, inositol, para-aminobenzoic acid, iodine, selenium and zinc⁹⁴ all directly or [page 80] indirectly vital in maintaining a healthy mind. Little wonder that Brennan found that the most popular adult diet in the United States was deficient in calcium, vitamin A and the B-complex vitamins.⁹⁵

Violence In America⁹⁶
Dr. Bruce West points out that while people argue over the cause of violence in America’s streets, schools, and homes, one major factor goes completely overlooked: the trash most people put into their bodies. For what we consume can easily induce violent and irrational behavior. Here are some thoughts that must be examined if we are to get a handle on violence in America.

1. A deficiency of B vitamins can create serious psychological disorders.

2. Many people with B vitamin deficiencies are being treated by psychiatrists when what they are more in need of is a nutritional supplement.

3. Many children eat a diet that is devoid of vitamin B and loaded with processed “non-foods” that in duce a further depletion of vitamin B stores in the body.

4. The “enriching” of processed foods with synthetic vitamin B fractions like thiamine does little to re solve the vitamin B deficiency crisis in most people.

5. The single most common emotional symptom of vitamin B deficiency is a recurring feeling that something dreadful is about to happen.

6. Other emotional symptoms associated with vita min B deficiency are: [page 81]
• moods of depression (were, e.g., the McDonald’s and Post Office mass killers depressed?)
• insomnia (are psychotic people well-rested?)
• finding it harder and harder to cope (feeling ready to explode)
• chronic headaches (this experience speaks for itself)

Vitamin B Deficiency Causes Violence
Are you getting the picture? The following is a comparison of the symptoms of a vitamin B deficiency and those of psychiatric problems. Take a hard look at this comparison which came out of a biochemistry textbook. It is truly frightening:

Symptoms of …………………… Symptoms of
Vitamin B Deficiency ……. Neuropsychiatric Disorders

fears ……………………………………. morbid fears
fatigue ………………………………… severe fatigue
depression …………………………. depression
paranoia …………………………….. paranoia
confusion …………………………… confusion
hostility ……………………………… anger
rage …………………………………….. suicidal tendencies
anxiety ……………………………….. anxiety

It is time something be done about this! Predictably, this will be a hard pill for government bureaucrats to swallow. After all, they are committed to the edict [page 81] that nutritional deficiencies don’t exist. And according to most medical “experts” (many of whom are emotional wrecks themselves), we get all the nutrients we need from our diet.

Ideally, wholesome foods rich in B vitamins should be what’s served up to everyone. But since that’s not likely to happen soon, let’s at least become more socially responsible about what’s served in schools, health care facilities, jails, corporate cafeterias, and other institutions. Let’s get nutrient-rich whole foods and/or effective nutritional supplements [whole food concentrates] into these settings.

Be sure to take special care in your own home as well. This is especially true if you have a teen. Taking B-Complex vitamins daily can help, especially when added to a good whole foods diet.

Personally and professionally, Dr. West stated he is completely convinced that nutritional action would solve many problems of today’s society. And even if it saved the life of only one suicidal teenager, it would be worth it. After all, many of the brilliant individuals whose ingenious works bring us such aesthetic and artistic joy were actually semi-starved, emotionally unbalanced and even suicidal human beings. But I for one am very happy that such people – including Mozart, Beethoven, and Van Gogh –survived to create such splendor that would still be treasured by generations to come.

We must take responsible action now if we are to ensure a sane society for the future. It’s easy to say, “It’s too late” and think the effort isn’t worth it since changes don’t happen overnight. But several decades will come and go anyway; so why not act now to create a more [page 83] peaceful world? Isn’t that one definition of love? And where do you find these important vitamins? B-vitamins are found in whole grains containing the germ and bran, and in brewer’s yeast, the part of the grain that’s extracted when making beer and other alcohol. B-vitamins are also in vegetables, seeds and nuts.

Besides their high sugar and low nutrient content, processed foods provide a poor brain environment in yet another way – they contain non-nutritive chemicals which may cause allergies or may be toxic. Every year, each of us eats a total dose of about four pounds of additives; a huge dose, when you consider that the amount of an additive in a particular serving of food may be just a milligram or two. As we said before, the cumulative effect of all these chemicals is simply not known. Who can predict the behavioral consequences of a lifetime of eating chemical congregations like the following?

bleached flour, sugar, dextrose, corn syrup solids, shortening (with antioxidant), leavening, nonfat dry milk, propylene glycol monoesters, mono- and diglycerides, wheat starch, glycerol, artificial vanilla flavoring, guar gum, citric acid and artificial flavoring⁹⁷

The culprit? A popular cake mix.

Too much sugar, too many possible allergens or toxins, too little nutrition – these are the characteristics of processed food which endanger the ecology of the brain. Inasmuch as almost all of us consume such products every day, each of us stands to suffer from their harmful effects. But there is one group that is more endangered [page 84] than any other, because this group consumes huge quantities of mind-wrecking junk foods. I’m talking about adolescents.

Adolescents in modern American society are in an unprecedented position. Like all teens everywhere, they face deep changes in the workings of their own bodies and in their relationships with the world around t hem. But unlike children of other times and other cultures, today’s western adolescents wield a great deal of personal power. They have more money, and consequently more advertisers vie for that money. They are more mobile than ever before, many of them owning their own cars. Moreover, they are more independent, eating away from home two or even three times a day. And more than ever, they are eating processed junk foods: donuts and cocoa for breakfast (if they eat breakfast at all); soda, pizza or sandwiches on white bread for lunch; a fast food burger, fries and cola for supper; candy all through the day. In one survey of 100 teenagers in Ohio, nearly 40 percent said they did not eat breakfast, 54 percent favored sugared soft drinks over fruit juice, and 71 per cent liked corn more than peas or broccoli.⁹⁸ In a study of Michigan high schoolers, 13 percent showed clear signs of hypoglycemia, and those with family histories of diabetes or hypoglycemia were significantly more likely to drink cola and other soft drinks daily, and to crave sweets, cakes and pastry.⁹⁹

According to a study by the New York Academy of Science, these are the favorite foods of adolescents listed in order of preference: candy, potato chips, popcorn, sweetened Kool-Aid drink, dry presweetened cereal, [page 85] carbonated beverages, cupcakes, doughnuts, pies, milk, hamburger, pizza, spaghetti, macaroni, fried chicken, hot dogs, and white bread.

Little wonder that the government’s National Nutrition Survey revealed that among a sampled population of adolescents, more than 60 percent were deficient in iron, more than 57 percent did not get enough vitamin A, upwards of 43 percent were deficient in vitamin C, 39 percent deficient in thiamin, 33 percent deficient in calcium, nearly 30 percent deficient in protein, and 16 percent deficient in riboflavin.¹⁰⁰ And while we look at such figures, we ought to recall that they do not tell the whole story. While the diets of most teens (and adults) are deficient, the nutrient consumption of some is so awful as to make sickness inevitable.

To sum up, then: we know that incorrect nutrition can upset the delicate ecology of the brain, thus leading to neural malfunction and possible antisocial, delinquent or violent behavior. We know as well that processed foods contribute to this chemical brain imbalance. Finally, we have seen that adolescents are eating huge amounts of these junk foods. The argument as I have presented it leads to an alarming conclusion: the rise in crime among teens is, at least in part, due to their consumption of processed foods. Is there any direct evidence to suggest such a link?

There certainly is. Scientific studies and personal observation by myself and other workers in the field indicate that the juvenile delinquent, the convicted probationer and the prison inmate all tend to eat a lot of processed and junk foods, that a great number of these people [page 86] have hypoglycemia, nutrient deficiencies or allergies as a result of their diet and, most importantly, a majority of them improve and are made healthy, productive members of society when these biochemical imbalances are corrected through proper diet.

The evidence of the diet/behavior link is ample. A study reported in the February 1980 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition provides such stark proof of what our children’s diet is doing to their minds and bodies that it deserves to be quoted at length.

The study described the symptoms of a group of 20 youths. They exhibited abdominal or chest pains, sleep disturbances, restlessness, walking or talking in their sleep, personality changes, insomnia, recurrent unexplained fever, diarrhea and constipation, chronic fatigue, excessive perspiration, lack of appetite, headache, nausea and vomiting, depression, nasal congestion, coughing, dizziness, difficulty in swallowing, recurrent night mares, blurred vision and sore throat.

Some of these kids were in remarkably bad shape. One young boy, 13 years old, was the victim of violent, unpredictable mood changes for seven years prior to the study. His stomach cramps were so painful that they were at first thought to be symptoms of appendicitis. In addition he had occasional diarrhea, severe episodes of depression, insomnia and nightmares. Another of the children, a seven-year-old girl, experienced enlargement of the lymph nodes, fever, vomiting and fatigue. She fell asleep at school, sweated excessively and had suffered abdominal pain and constipation since infancy.

What was the link between these children, all of [page 87] whom had serious physical, mental and behavioral problems? The link was B-vitamin deficiency. They showed the classic signs of beriberi, the thiamin deficiency disease. The vitamin shortage was no mystery, when you consider what the kids ate. They consumed plenty of sugary soft drinks, pastries, candy and snack foods, and got little protein, despite an occasional hamburger or processed meat sandwich.

According to one of the researchers conducting the study, Dr. Derrick Lonsdale, the children’s junk food diet was producing a state of marginal malnutrition. “I am referring particularly to what dietitians and nutritionists call naked or empty calories – highly refined carbohydrate foods which don’t contain any vitamin or mineral supportive qualities at all.” Lonsdale pinned much of the blame on soft drinks: “I really believe the most dangerous aspect is the high calorie drinks they’re taking, the carbonated beverages, things like powdered sweet drinks, the fruit drinks. All of these things are being taken by a number of children and adolescents in absolutely fantastic amounts. I think the record I’ve seen was 98 gallons of cola in two months.”

Lonsdale fully affirms the diet/behavior link, based on what he’s seen. “Scientifically, we have reason to believe that this approach to diet is changing the balance of neurological transmission which is the hallmark of the function of the brain and the central nervous system. It means that the quality and quantity of nutrition can change your behavior. That’s the bottom line.”

Lonsdale and his colleague, Dr. Raymond J. Shamberger, found that the combination of refined [page 88] carbohydrates and thiamin deficiency could have a doubly dangerous effect. “This fact constitutes a difference between our patients and those that might be expected to contract beriberi in a deprived population. It has long been known that a high carbohydrate diet is most dangerous in the presence of a thiamin deficiency ... Access to easily assimilable sweet beverages could represent a modern danger which is insufficiently emphasized in American society and may well be responsible for personality traits and symptomatology that are regularly overlooked and considered to be ‘the normal personality of a growing child or adolescent’.”¹⁰¹

A 14-year-old male observed by Dr. Alex Schauss and Dr. Clifford E. Simonsen vividly illustrates the junk food addiction of many adolescents who get into trouble with the law. This boy had been arrested for vandalism, but it was not his first offense; he had committed two second degree burglaries in two years. The composite of this young man’s diet, which Schauss and Simonsen present, defies belief – and turns the stomach. For breakfast he often ate five cups of Sugar Smacks with ½ teaspoon added sugar, a glazed donut and 20 ounces of milk. For lunch he ate two hamburgers, french fries, two slices of white bread, 24 ounces of chocolate milk, and topped it off with two-foot-long ropes of red licorice; he might even eat a small serving of green beans. Supper consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, a can of tomato soup and ten ounces of Kool-Aid. Throughout the day he snacked on high sugar foods, and foods with plenty of preservatives and other additives: more red licorice, three beef jerky sticks, a large bowl of [page 89] ice cream and a very large candy bar.

No one could eat this way and stay sane and healthy. Little wonder, then, that this young man complained of sleeplessness, headaches, nightmares, fainting spells, restlessness, indecision, nervousness, explosive temper and crying spells. Computer analysis confirmed what anybody could have guessed: even though the food he was eating had too many calories and refined carbohydrates, it was woefully deficient in vitamins E, C, B₁, B₂, B₅, B₆, B₁₂, para-aminobenzoic acid, biotin, bioflavinoids, selenium and vanadium.¹⁰²

The boy in the Schauss-Simonsen study was eating 36 teaspoons of sugar a day, hidden in the various processed foods he consumed. This may seem amazing to some, but it is a common average dose for kids in trouble. I’ve seen probationers who consume more than 70 tea spoons of sucrose a day!

In studies of hundreds of young people, the diet behavior pattern constantly emerges. A study by Dr. Lyelle L. Palmer, for instance, noted that of a group of high-achieving high school seniors, only 2.5 percent consumed high levels of caffeine and sugar, while 37.5 per cent of the low achievers were considered caffeine and sugar abusers.¹⁰³ A study of 166 women college students showed that 48 percent showed at least two symptoms of vitamin B6 deficiency, 28 percent showed at least two symptoms of vitamin A deficiency, and 21 percent showed two or more symptoms of vitamin C deficiency. All in all, 81 percent showed symptoms of deficiencies in at least two vitamins. Those students who ate the worst were significantly more likely to show psychiatric [page 90] disturbances than those who ate better.¹⁰⁴

After reviewing the diets of thousands of probationers, I have seen the following patterns emerge:

1) No breakfast. The majority of people I saw simply did not eat breakfast. This is a very bad first step, especially for those with distorted metabolism. The body – brain included – needs a good rich source of protein, as well as a good supply of complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients after six to ten hours without food. Breakfast primes the entire metabolism for the whole day-eating better later won’t make up for skipping breakfast. For hypoglycemics in particular, trying to get through the morning on what’s left of the blood sugar after several hours’ fast can have troublesome behavioral consequences, as studies with misbehaved schoolchildren indicate.¹⁰⁵

2) High consumption of sugar and other refined carbohydrates: Almost invariably the first thing an offender puts in his or her mouth upon arising is some high sugar food – cola or other carbonated drinks, cocoa, sugared coffee, donuts, etc. By this time, the blood sugar is often disastrously low, and the hypoglycemic must eat something, anything, to get it back up again. Eating sugar sets the individual back in two ways, of course: it starts his or her blood sugar level on the hyper-hypoglycemic roller coaster once again, and at the same time it forces the body to remove nutrients from storage to process the naked calories, thus putting the individual in an even worse nutritional state.

Other refined carbohydrate foods are big favorites with offenders as well. These include white bread, French [page 91] fries, shakes, spaghetti and macaroni.

We have already noted Dr. Lonsdale’s adamance about sugared drinks; I can only add my own. For many of the people I see, Kool-Aid and cola are staples. It’s not unusual for some of my probationers to be consuming as much as a gallon of Kool-Aid a day; after all, it’s cheap and tastes fruity, and of course it’s high in sugar and artificial coloring. The consumption of sugared soft drinks contributes greatly to the high sucrose intake of people in trouble with the courts.

3) High consumption of other processed foods: Even when an offender isn’t eating refined carbohydrates, his or her diet is still largely confined to processed foods: canned vegetables (especially corn), processed meats (bologna, hot dogs, etc.), prepackaged entrees, TV dinners and the like. Thus the diet is high in chemical additives and can only do a poor job of replacing nutrients lost because of refined carbohydrate consumption.

4) Low consumption of lean protein: As mentioned, the juvenile offender seldom gets the protein needed for proper mental and physical development. What protein foods offenders do eat are generally high in fat: hamburgers, hot dogs, bacon, pizza. In the rare instances in which they eat chicken or fish, it is almost always deep fried. Such high consumption of fat, much of it artificially saturated fat, stresses the entire body and leads to clogging of the arteries which feed blood and oxygen to the heart and brain. It is estimated that every American over the age of 18 has at least one important artery completely blocked with placque.¹⁰⁶ [page 92]

5) Low consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables: Offenders, especially juveniles, turn up their noses at fresh, raw fruits and vegetables. There seem to be two reasons for this. American culture still presents whole foods as unglamorous and inferior to pizza, cola and hot dogs. When young people reach for something to eat, they reach for the product that’s more highly advertised, more excitingly hyped - and these are the addictive, high profit processed foods. Certainly no one is going to spend a lot of money to make some non-patentable food like celery or carrots look flashy.

Secondly, fresh whole foods simply don’t have the addictive qualities of processed foods. They don’t contain sucrose, salt, fat or chemical flavor stimulants, so they don’t satisfy the junk food junkie’s cravings. In this high-tech era in which we’ve been alienated from our own taste buds, natural foods are something one has to learn to enjoy.

6) High milk consumption. We talked about milk allergy/addiction and its behavioral consequences earlier in the chapter. It is true that many of the probationers I’ve seen drink an amazing amount of milk – sometimes a half-gallon or more a day.

Apparently, allergic reaction to milk may be a bigger problem than anyone has yet suspected. The 1978 Schauss-Simonsen study compared the diets of 30 chronic juvenile offenders to the diets of kids who had behavior problems but no criminal background. The comparison revealed one glaring dietary difference: milk consumption. Children who got in trouble with the law drank a lot more milk than those who did not. As Schauss [page 93] described the results:

The male offenders consumed an average of 64 ounces of milk a day, while their comparison group only drank an average of 30 ounces daily. Similarly, the delinquent females drank an average of 35 ounces of milk a day while the comparison group of nondelinquent girls consumed only 17 ounces daily. Among the delinquent boys, five reported drinking more than 113 ounces of milk, or over 14 eight-ounce glasses daily.¹⁰⁷

But even probationers are not yet at the end of the line when it comes to biochemical degradation. We see the most severe illnesses among the prison inmates. Here a lifetime of poor eating habits is compounded by a state supplied diet which is definitely less than ideal. Thus we find prisoners, many of whom may well have been arrested for dietary-induced behavior in the first place, now becoming even more nutritionally twisted. Studies at the Morristown, New Jersey, Rehabilitation Center found that prison inmates consume much more refined sugar and caffeine than non-inmates. They discovered that many prisoners were outright sugar addicts, eating the stuff at every opportunity. Little wonder that hypoglycemia rates among inmates run as high as 85 percent.¹⁰⁸

I have tried to show in this chapter the exorbitant price we pay by ignoring and abusing the molecular environment of the brain. Hypoglycemia, nutrient deficiency, allergic reaction, toxicity; the growing science [page 94] of neurochemistry demonstrates that all these disorders can affect the way the brain operates, and the way we behave. Further, broad studies and a great deal of clinical evidence indicate that many people who show abnormal, antisocial, delinquent or violent behavior are in fact suffering from brain malnutrition or brain poisoning, possibly brought on by a high consumption of processed food and junk foods. Our rising crime rate must be seen as just another of the earth’s consequences of our love of processed food. Others have documented the links between processed food consumption and cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other killers. I believe, in light of the evidence I have presented in this chapter, confirmed by my years of experience in the criminal justice system, that delinquency, crime and violence must be counted as additions to the list of diseases so miserably prevalent in our overfed but undernourished society.

The question is no longer, “Is there a diet and crime connection?” but rather, “How long will we let this tragedy continue?”

NOTES
1. Linus Pauling. “Orthomolecular Psychiatry” in David Hawkins and Linus Pauling. eds .. Orthomolecular Psychiatry (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1973), p. 2.
2. R.W. Gerald in Arieti, S., ed., American Handbook of Psychiatry, Vol. 2. (New York: Basic Books, 1959).
3. Carl C. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1975), p. 381.
4. Calculated from figures taken from A.A. Paul and D.A.T. Southgate, The Composition of Foods (New York: Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press, 1978), pp. I 94, 242 and United States Department of Agriculture Home and Garden Bulletin No. 72, Nutritive Value of Foods (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1971 ), pp. 18, 35.
5. Michael F. Jacobson, The Changing American Diet (Center for Science in the Public Interest).
6. William Dufty, Sugar Blues (New York: Warner Books, 1976).
7. Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate, Dietary Goals for the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1977), p. 48.
8. Paul A. Stitt, with Mark Knickelbine and Scott Knickelbine, Fighting the Food Giants (Manitowoc, Wisconsin: Natural Press, 1980), p. 147.
9. Jim Hightower, Eat Your Heart Out (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1975), p. 79
10. Jean Sweet, The Sugar Case (506 Woodside Terrace, Madison, Wisconsin, 1981).
11. Ira L. Shannon, Brand Name Guide to Sugar (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1977).
12. Duffy, p. 21.
13. M.S. Jones, “Hypoglycemia in the Neuroses,” The British Medical Journal, Nov. 16, 1935, pp. 945-6.
14. Ibid.
15. Otto W. Wendel and Willard E. Beebe, “Glycolytic Activity in Schizophrenia” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, pp. 279-301.
16. Wendel and Beebe, “Preliminary Observations of Altered Carbo hydrate Metabolism in Psychiatric Patients,” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, pp. 434-451.
17. Robert L. Meiers, “Relative Hypoglycemia in Schizophrenia,” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, p. 452.
18. Hotter, “Mechanism of Action of Nicotinic Acid and Nicotinamide in the Treatment of Schizophrenia” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, p. 220.
19. Cheraskin and W.M. Ringsdorf, Jr., with Arline Brecher, Psychodietetics (New York: Bantam Books, 1976), p 48.
20. Jean Poulos, Donald Stoddard and Kay Carron, Alcoholism, Stress and Hypoglycemia (Davis, California: Davis Publishing, 1976).
21. Dr. R.O. Brennan, with William C. Mulligan, Nutrigenetics (New York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1975), p. 9.

[Page 96]
22. Alexander Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency (Berkeley, California: Parker House, 1981), p. 65.
23. Russell F. Smith, “Alcoholism and Criminal Behavior,” in Leonard Hippchen, ed., Ecologic-Biochemical Approaches to Treatment of Delinquents and Criminals (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1978), pp. 20-30.
24. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, Diet (Berkeley, California: Parker House, 1981), op. cit.
25. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 64.
26. Jones, op. cit.
27. J.A. Yaryura-Tobias and F. Neziroglu, “Violent Behavior, Brain Dysrhythmia and Glucose Dysfunction, A New Syndrome,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1975, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 182-188. 2 x Robert E. Buckley, “Hypoglycemia, Temporal Lobe Disturbance and Aggressive Behavior,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 188-192.
29. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency. p. 19.
30. Brennan, Nutrigenetics, p. 122.
31. J. Kershner and W. Hawke, “Megavitamins and Learning Disorders: A Controlled Double-Blind Experiment,” Journal of Nutrition, 1979, No. 109, pp. 819-826.
32. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 20.
33. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, pp. 380-381.
34. Pauling, “Orthomolecular Psychiatry,” op. cit.
35. Stuart Berger, “What’s in Your Food Affects Your Mood,” Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1982, Sec. I, p. 13.
36. John D. Fernstrom, “Nutrition, Brain Function and Behavior,” in Sanford A. Miller, ed., Nutrition & Behavior (Philadelphia: The Franklin Institute Press, 1981 ), pp. 59-68.
37. Ibid.
38. Jacobson, The Changing American Diet.
39. Fernstrom, “Nutrition, Brain Function,” op. cit.
40. Ibid.
41. Alan H. Pressman, “Neurochemistry and Behavior,” The ACA Journal of Chiropractic, March 1979, Vol. 13, pp. 15-23.
42. Fernstrom, “Nutrition, Brain Function, and Behavior” op. cit.
43. Pressman, “Neurochemistry,” op. cit.
44. R.A. Harte and B. Chow, “Dietary Interrelationships,” in M.G. Wohl and R.S. Goodhard, eds., Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, 3rd. ed. (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1964), pp. 534-544.

[Page 97]
45. A. Hotter, “Mechanism of Action of Nicotinic Acid and Nicotinamide in the Treatment of Schizophrenia,” in Orthomolecular Psychiatry, p. 208.
46. Hoffer, “Mechanism of Action,” p. 213.
47. Spies, T. D., “The Mental Symptoms of Pellagra,” American Journal of Medical Science, No. 196, p. 4.
48. Pressman, “Neurochemistry,” op. cit.
49. Bella Kowalson, “Metabolic Dysperception: The Role of the Family Physician in its Diagnosis and Management,” in Orthomolecular Psychiatry, p. 404.
50. Roger J. Williams, Biochemical Individuality (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1977), p. 166.
51. Williams, Biochemical Individuality, pp. I 357165.
52. Carl C. Pfeiffer and Donna Bacchi, “Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Niacin and Pyridoxine in the Schizophrenias,” in Roger J. Williams and Dwight K. Kalita, eds., A Physicians Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine (New York: Pergamon Press, 1977), pp. 106-120.
53. Hoffer, “Mechanism of Action,” pp. 226-228.
54. Imgard Thiessen, “The Role of Thiamine in Research with Animals and in Humans,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1978, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 107-113.
55. Antonia J. Deliz, “Large Amounts of Nicotinic Acid and Vitamin B 12 in the Treatment of Apparently Irreversible Psychotic Conditions Found in Patients with Low Levels of Folic Acid,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 63-65.
56. Marijan Herjanic, “Ascorbic Acid and Schizophrenia,” in Orthomolecular Psychiatry, pp. 303-315. 57. Theron G. Randolph and Ralph W. Moss, An Alternative Approach to Allergies (New York: Lippincott - Crowell, 1980), pp. 138-155.
58. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 76.
59. Doris J. Rapp, “Food Allergy Treatment f or Hyperkinesis,” Journal of Leaming Disabilities, November, 1979, Vol. 12 No. 9, pp. 42-50.
60. Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, Psychodietetics, p. 130.
61. Ibid.
62. Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, Psychodietetics, pp. 128-129.
63. Wilham H. Philpott and Dwight K. Kalita, Brain Allergies (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1980), pp. 23-24.
64. Marshall Mandel, article in Journal of the International Academy of Metabiology, March 1975, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 83-87.
65. Kenneth Connors, “Artificial Colors in the Diet and Disruptive Behavior: Current Status of Research,” in Nutrition and Behavior; pp. 137-143.

[Page 98]
66. Sidney H. Slavin, “Information Processing Defects in Delinquents,” in Ecologic-Biochemical Approaches to Treatment of Delinquents and Criminals, pp. 75-104.
67. David S. King, “Food and Chemical Sensitivities Can Produce Cognitive-Emotional Symptoms,” in Nutrition and Behavior, pp. I19-130.
68. Earl Mindell, Earl Mindell’s Vitamin Bible (New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, Inc., 1979), pp. 67-96.
69. Pfeiffer and Bacchi, “Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Niacin...,” op. cit.
70. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, pp. 311-317.
71. Adapted from table in Bernard Weiss, “Behavior as a Common Focus of Toxicology and Nutrition,” in Nutrition and Behavior; pp. 95-107.
72. Consumer’s Digest.
73. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, p. 331.
74. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, p. 323.
75. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 40.
76. Weiss, “Behavior as a Common Focus,” op. cit.
77. Ibid.
78. Rhoda Papaioannou, Arthur Sohler and Carl C. Pfeiffer, “Reduction of Blood Lead Levels in Battery Workers by Zinc and Vitamin C,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1978, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 94-106.
79. Richard M. Gilbert, “Caffeine: Overview and Anthology,” in Nutrition and Behavior; pp. 147-160.
80. Nicholas Freydberg and Willis A. Gortner, The Food Additives Handbook (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), pp-556-557.
81. Charles B. Nemeroff, “Monosodium Glutamate Induced Neuro-toxicity: Review of the Literature and Call for Further Research,” in Nutrition and Behavior; pp. 177-211.
82. Ibid. 83. Ibid.
84. Gilbert, “Caffeine Overview,” op. cit.
85. Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, Psychodietetics, p. 71.
86. Stitt, Fighting the Food Giants, pp. 135-179.
87. The Sugar Film (Image Associates, P.O. Box 40106, 352 Conejo Road, Santa Barbara, CA).

[Page 99]
88. Stitt, Fighting the Food Giants, pp. 143-144
89. Tom Gonnan, “Now we know - Wheat does beat white” Bakery, June 1981, p. 53.
90. Figures from United States Department of Agriculture, Composition of Foods (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1975).
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Minden, Earl Mindell’s Vitamin Bible, pp. 24-96.
95. Brennan, Nutrigenetics, p. 55; Cecil, Textbook of Medicine ; Kleiner and Orten, Biochemistry ; White, Handler, Smith, and Stetton, Principles of Biochemistry.
96. Dr. Bruce West, Health Alert, February l994Nolume 11, Issue 2.
97. Michael F. Jacobson, Eater’s Digest (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1976), p. 3.
98. Louise Fabian, Teenage Food Survey, unpublished study (Girard, Ohio, 1981).
99. Nola A. Smith, Investigation of Hypoglycemia as a Causal Factor in Some Kinds of Emotional Distress, unpublished thesis, Eastern Michigan University.
100. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Nutrition and Human Needs, Part 3 - The National Nutrition Survey (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1969), p. 939.
101. “Junk Foods and a Vitamin B₁ Deficiency,” Today’s Living, June 1982, pp. 6-8, 61-64.
102. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, pp. 53-55.
103. Lyelle L. Palmer, “Early Childhood Caffeine and Sugar Habituation,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1977, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 248-250.
104. Robert T. Bagley, “Relationship of Diet to Physical Emotional Complaints and Behavioral Problems Reported by Women Students,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1981, Vol. IO No. 4, pp. 284-298.
105. Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, Psychodietetics, p. 122.
106. The 1977 Working Group to Review the 1971 Report by the National Heart and Lung Institute Task Force on Arteriosclerosis, Arteriosclerosis, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 781526.
107. Schauss, A.G. and Simonsen, C.E., “Critical Analysis of the Diets of Chronic Juvenile Offenders, Part I,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 149-157.
108. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 24

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Chapter 3

Detecting Malnutrition

Malnutrition: A state of impaired functional ability or deficient structural integrity or development brought about by a discrepancy between the supply to the body tissues of essential nutrients and calories, and the biologic demand for them. – The American Medical Association¹

The well-nourished American is a myth. – Dr. Carl C. Pfeiffer²

Malnutrition. It’s a word everyone knows, but few understand.

If I were to ask you to diagnose a case of malnutrition, how would you go about it? Perhaps you would describe the symptoms most commonly associated with starvation: bloated belly, spindly arms and legs, dull eyes. We have all seen the children of poor Third World nations who exhibit these signs, and our hearts go out to them. “If only we could somehow share our superior Western lifestyle with them,” we imagine, “how happy they would be!”

As we saw in the last chapter, there are many diseases, mental and physical, that are caused by the supposedly plentiful diet we Americans enjoy. Yet the [page 102] misconception persists that malnutrition exists only among the poor and deprived continues, and it has clouded the thinking of the medical and psychiatric communities. The assumption remains that only when a person is literally on the verge of death are we entitled to say that person is malnourished. Therefore we associate malnutrition with those starving children on TV, and never think that we, in one of the wealthiest nations in the history of humanity, could be the victims of a kind of starvation as well.

Hunger researcher Medard Gabel has developed a telling statistic: Ten percent of the world’s population are not able to obtain nourishing food. Twenty percent, however, can afford nourishing food but choose instead to buy something undernourishing.³ It is not as if these people are deliberately setting themselves up for starvation. But as we have seen, the diets of Westerners are providing fewer and fewer of the micro-nutrients we need to survive and function normally, while at the same time overloading us with fat, refined carbohydrates, salt and chemical additives, and adolescents are most vulnerable in this regard. Teens in America may not be succumbing to exotic diseases like Kwashiorkor or rickets, but their Western style of affluent starvation is taking a terrible toll on their lives - not just in the form of emotional and behavioral destruction, but also as a result of the obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and diverticular diseases they will begin to suffer as they get older.

The most pernicious, and perhaps one of the most widespread, of these afflictions of Western malnutrition is the psychological one. As I have described in the preceding chapter, when the body does not have the nutrients [103] it needs to combat stress and continue normal activity, or when the body is loaded down with an overabundance of toxins or refined carbohydrates, the first organs to be affected are the most delicate and complex – the central nervous system and the brain. Such an imbalance contributes to mental problems as minor as lack of concentration, chronic irritability or impulsiveness to disorders as severe as paranoid schizophrenia. And when the central nervous system is not functioning properly, can we expect anything other than abnormal, antisocial behavior?

Therefore, it is important for professionals in the fields of criminal justice, corrections, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, the general public, and especially parents and teachers to realize that our affluent malnutrition does have an incredible impact on our health and behavior. If we are to solve problems of disease and delinquency we must start at the root of those problems – the diet.

In this chapter I will describe the ways we in the Cuyahoga Falls Probation Department identified metabolic problems in the people with whom we came in contact. This is not meant to serve as a handbook for professionals (those in the counseling professions may want to consult my manual, Nutritional Guidelines for Correcting Behavior); it is meant to give professionals, parents and the general public an idea of how these problems are identified, and what some of their symptoms are. Granted, some of these tests are somewhat complicated and technical, requiring diagnostic equipment and trained personnel. [104] Others, however, are based simply on careful observation and common sense. For example, I include the questionnaires we used to find out if a subject’s antisocial behavior may be due to allergic re-actions or hypoglycemia; professionals may use them as a guide, parents and others can use them to detect these problems in their young people. I hope this description will help demystify the nutritional approach, and will demonstrate the kind of simple and direct action we can take to rectify “delinquent personalities” we once believed were beyond our control.

The Method Used
Our technique in assessing the metabolic disorders that contributed to the subjects’ antisocial behavior consisted of the following steps. We began our analysis either during the presentence investigation, or as soon as the individual had been placed on probation.

1. When the person was referred to the probation department, he or she was given two questionnaires – the Schizophrenics Anonymous form and the Health Evaluator – and asked to candidly complete all three pages. We asked that the person bring the completed form with them to their first interview. The individual was not told what the questions are meant to reveal until the questionnaires were completed. Although the probationers often believed the forms are some sort of psychological inventory, they were usually quite cooperative in answering the questions completely and honestly. I think one of the most important reasons for this cooperativeness is the simple fact that we were often the first to ask these people how they really felt!

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2. On the first appointment or interview, the person was asked to write down his or her own version of what happened to cause the arrest. This account often provided information which, while it may not have been considered relevant at the trial, gave us clues as to the underlying motivations of the individual’s behavior: mood swings, delusions, hallucinations, etc. It also gave me a sample for handwriting analysis, a technique I’ll discuss a little later.

3. We then took a complete social history of the individual, paying careful attention to the person’s health background and that of each member of the family including parents and grandparents. One of the discoveries we made is those who got in trouble with the law came from families which were plagued with diabetes, hypoglycemia, alcoholism and other metabolic disorders. Since we know that a tendency to develop such health problems can be transmitted genetically and reinforced by family eating habits and lifestyle, this observation tends to support the link between the probationers’ behavior problems and their malnutrition.

4. At this point in the first interview, the counselor and the probationer carefully reviewed the probationer’s responses on the questionnaires. Although the S.A. questionnaire was developed to spot warning signs of schizophrenia, I used it to detect the types of emotions and dysperceptions which were indicative of brain allergy. If the individual indicated a positive response to six or more of the 24 questions, I strongly suspected a brain allergy, or perhaps a severe nutrient deficiency or burden of toxic metals. If the person’s “yes” [106] answers fell into the 16-20 range, we could be certain that he or she was frequently hallucinating. In such an instance the individual was immediately referred to Baron Clinic for a complete evaluation.

The Health Evaluator questionnaire keys more directly on hypoglycemia. It is adapted from Dr. John Baron’s important booklet, Low Blood Sugar.⁴ The test is a simple tool, but it is remarkably accurate: of 5,000 persons whose response to the questionnaire indicated hypoglycemia, 96 percent were clinically confirmed to be hypoglycemic.⁵

The number of positive responses to the test’s 93 questions generally falls into three ranges. If the person indicates 12 to 15 symptoms, we know that person is having significant – although not yet clinical – nutritional problems. While these problems may be having an impact on the person’s behavior, and while dietary correction may bring great improvement in attitude, metabolic distortion is probably not the primary reason for their behavior problems. However, there is room here for interpretation. If the probationer indicates a positive response to any of the first five questions, complaints of depression, nervousness, anxiety, tension, suicidal tendencies, waking up in a sweat, allergies or rapid pulse, or reports drinking more than three cups of coffee a day, two to five colas a day or more than the equivalent of three or four beers a day, hypoglycemia may in fact be indicated, regardless of how few other symptoms are complained of.

In absence of this, however, the subject indicating 12-15 symptoms is advised that he or she may be [107] prone to hypoglycemia, and is encouraged to eliminate caffeine, refined sugar and white flour products from the diet.

If the subject indicates 16-25 of the symptoms, hypoglycemia is strongly suspected, and other nutritional problems, allergies and toxicities may also be present. In fact, a subject indicating over 20 symptoms is certainly suffering from hypoglycemia if not something more serious. Such people are placed immediately on a special fresh whole foods diet which eliminates sugar, white flour, adrenal stimulants such as coffee or cola, and chemical flavorings, colorings and preservatives. For people with severe hypoglycemia even dairy products (which are high in milk sugar, and are at any rate highly allergenic) and high sugar fruits like dates, figs, plums and grapes must be eliminated. The diet emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, soy products, fish and poultry, all eaten at maximum freshness with a minimum of processing and cooking. The diet is described in more detail in Chapter Four.

5. Those individuals who complain of 40, 50 or more symptoms on the Health Evaluator are suffering from severe metabolic problems. This high score often indicates sensory distortion on a massive scale, leading to a condition which is frequently diagnosed as schizophrenia. Such persons have usually already had some type of psychiatric treatment, perhaps even confinement in a mental institution or the psychiatric ward of a hospital. Many, tragically enough, have already spent time in jail.

When possible, these people were referred to the [108] Baron Clinic in Cleveland. Dr. John Baron is an orthomolecular psychiatrist who specializes in diagnosing metabolic disorders and treating them with a program of good nutrition, allergy prevention and detoxification. Today there are few such institutions in America, and it may be difficult for many parents or professionals in the field to obtain the kind of extensive, detailed and accurate clinical testing we came to expect from the Baron Clinic.

During the subject’s initial six-hour visit to the clinic, a battery of tests was performed. A six-hour Glucose Tolerance Test was usually given to reveal the exact nature of the person’s simple carbohydrate intolerance. Urinalysis and blood chemistry studies were performed to check sugar levels, hemoglobin counts, nutrient absorption rates, the presence of toxins, etc. A sample of the subject’s hair was taken and tested for mineral and toxic metal content.

Also at this time other personality tests were made. The Hoffer Osmond Diagnostic test and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory are often given to the people to determine if their metabolic distortions have reached the level of schizophrenia or psychoneurosis, and, if so, what varieties of perceptual and emotional problems may be present.

6. Following the analysis of the Health Evaluator, we also did an inventory of the client’s diet. I asked the probationer to recall everything he or she ate the previous day. Often this reckoning was more surprising to the probationer than to the officer; it was the first time many people made a detailed account of what they ate, [109] and they were surprised at the amount of junk food, soda, coffee, milk or alcohol they consumed!

7. The Probation Department continued to follow up on the probationer’s progress, regardless of the extent of metabolic correction required. Along with improved diet, we counseled the individual to get involved with an exercise program. The person was encouraged to spend at least 30 to 45 minutes a day walking, swimming, running, cycling, or participating in some other moderately strenuous activity. Exercise not only tones the body and improves the supply of blood to the tissues, but promotes a deeper, more restful sleep which improves a person’s ability to cope with physical and emotional stress.⁶ Brain researcher Dr. Richard M. Restak has concluded that “Exercise can ... directly affect personality. Regular jogging and physical training can lead not only to physical fitness but also to increased emotional stability, increased imagination, and increased self-sufficiency.⁷

Obviously, a diagnostic program such as the one I have outlined above requires some major changes in the way probation officers deal with their clients. The major adaptation to be made is the realization that before behavior can be corrected, before the person can learn to control the temper tantrums, impulsiveness and poor judgment which lead to delinquent or criminal acts, the central nervous system must function properly. The probation officer, and indeed anyone who seeks to help teens or adults in trouble, must get to know as much as possible about the individual he or she is dealing with: the exact details of the person’s diet, the details of the [110] person’s family life and employment, what kinds of stresses the person is exposed to. A series of rap sessions or a weekly visit from a social worker won’t do the job. The counselor must, in a very real sense, become personally involved with each of the persons they deal with if he or she is going to get the kinds of results with the orthomolecular approach which my colleagues and I have accomplished.

Diagnostic Tests
Let’s discuss in detail some of the diagnostic procedures I have mentioned above. We have already examined the origin and interpretation of the S.A. Questionnaire and the Health Evaluator; it only remains for me to list them.

The Schizophrenics Anonymous Questionnaire
Please indicate:
Y for yes, S for sometimes, N for no

1) Do you feel sick all the time?
2) Are you tired all the time?
3) Are you always alone?
4) Are you shy?5) Are you a school drop-out?
6) Did your grades drop when you reached junior high?
7) Would you rather stay inside than meet people?
8) Are you depressed, unhappy?

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9) Are you afraid of heights, bridges?
10) Do you sometimes have blurred vision?
11) Do you have frequent mood changes?
12) Do you find it difficult to concentrate?
13) Do you have trouble holding a job?
14) Do you feel that people (your family, your boss) are against you?
15) Does your family call you lazy or stupid?
16) Do you use drugs or alcohol to escape from misery?
17) Have you had thoughts of suicide?
18) Do you have a quick temper?
19) Are you fidgety or nervous?
20) Are you a chain smoker?
21) Do you have trouble sleeping?
22) So you feel tense or depressed for no apparent reason?
23) Have you ever had a so-called “nervous breakdown?”
24) Would you prefer separation from friends/family or reality?

The Health Evaluator
1) At times, does your mind go blank?
2) Do you become easily confused?
3) Are you forgetful?
4) Do you occasionally have difficulty with concentration?
5) Are you an underachiever in school or work?
6) Do you lose your temper easily?

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7) Do you have difficulty controlling your emotions?
8) Do you have excessive sexual desires?
9) (Males) Are you impotent? (Females) Are you frigid?
10) Do you neglect cleanliness and appearance?
11) Do you have difficulty in keeping jobs?
12) Are you very impatient?
13) Do you have trouble getting along with others?
14) Do certain things irritate you very much?
15) Are you depressed, blue?
16) Have you lost interest in work?
17) Are you tired of living?
18) Are you very nervous?
19) Has your life become aimless?
20) Are you anxious and afraid but do not know why?
21) Do you have a feeling of impending danger?
22) Do you feel very tense?
23) Do you have groundless fears (phobias)?
24) Do you have crying spells?
25) Do you feel very restless?
26) Do you have suicidal tendencies?
27) Do you easily become violent?
28) Do you have a desire to cause damage to others?
29) Do you want revenge on society?
30) Does your vision suddenly become blurred or double?
31) Does sunlight hurt your eyes?

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32) Do you feel dizzy or black out, especially when you stand up suddenly?
33) Do you become dizzy, stagger or weave, especially in the morning or before meals?
34) Do you have fainting spells?
35) Are you very exhausted, especially in the morning?
36) Do you generally feel very weak and tired?
37) Are you very weak both in the morning and midafternoon?
38) Do you feel best after a good meal?
39) Do you feel very stuffy or sleepy after eating sweets and other starchy foods?
40) Do you feel very sleepy during the daytime?
41) Do you have trouble sleeping at night?
42) Do you wake up and cannot go back to sleep?
43) Is your sleep deep, but not refreshing?
44) Do you have cold sweats during the night?
45) Do you have no muscular strength upon awakening?
46) Do you need the stimulation of alcohol, coffee, cigarettes or drugs? (Specify which.)
47) Do you feel well after eating candy, cakes or soft drinks?
48) Do alcohol, sweets and coffee make you feel very bad?
49) Do you have constipation?
50) Do you have alternating constipation and diarrhea?
51) Do you have abdominal distress?
52) Do you suffer from motion sickness?

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53) Have you lost your appetite entirely?
54) Occasionally are you ravenously hungry?
55) Are you overweight?
56) Do you suffer from continuous indigestion?
57) Do you have frequent bloating?
58) Does a little alcohol make you drunk?
59) Do you crave salt?
60) Do you have terrible headaches?
61) Occasionally do you feel a pain across your left shoulder in the direction of your collar bone or in the back of your neck?
62) Do you suffer from heat exhaustion?
63) Do you have swelling in your hands and feet?
64) Is your mouth very dry?
65) Do you have a skin disease?
66) Do your hands and legs feel cold?
67) Do you sweat excessively?
68) Is your skin dry and scaly?
69) Do you perspire very little except at the underarms, and the palms during stress?
70) Do your limbs feel numb?
71) Do you have a tingling feeling in your lips or fingers?
72) Do you sometimes wake up in a sweat at night?
73) Do you have allergies, asthma?
74) Does your heart occasionally beat very fast?
75) Do you sometimes tremble inside?
76) Do you catch colds easily?
77) Are you very susceptible to infectious dis-eases?

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78) Do you have aching joints?
79) Do your muscles twitch occasionally
80) Do you sometimes have cramps?
81) Do you have occasional convulsions?
82) Were you depressed after childbirth?
83) Have you had miscarriages or premature births?
84) Do you crave sweets, cakes or pastry?
85) Do you drink 8 glasses of water daily?
86) Do you drink much coffee or tea every day? About how many cups?
87) Do you drink cola and other soft drinks? About how many bottles daily?
88) Do you drink alcoholic beverages every day? How many drinks or bottles of beer do you consume daily?
89) Are you a chain smoker
90) Are your symptoms strongest in the morning before breakfast?
91) Do you feel these symptoms generally a few hours after eating?
92) Have you had the symptoms after exhausting physical exercise or work?
93) Have your symptoms followed intensive emotional upsets?

Handwriting Analysis
As I mentioned above, I have frequently done handwriting analysis on the written descriptions taken in the first interview. Graphoanalysis, which involves the study of written strokes, can provide valuable insight into the [116] individual’s personality, helping the counselor or parent establish a better rapport. While there is no space here to describe the technique, I strongly encourage counselors to look into scientific Graphoanalysis further. The address of the International Society of Graphoanalysis is given in the Appendix of this book.

The Glucose Tolerance Test
The Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) is one of the most important tools in a program of diagnosing metabolic disorders which may contribute to antisocial behavior. After we determined from the Health Evaluator that a particular probationer might be hypoglycemic, we sent them to the Baron Clinic to find out the exact extent of the problem, and this almost always involved the administration of the GTT. It precisely maps what the body does with sugar, gives us a general picture of the entire metabolism, and provides clues to what further treatment is required.

The Glucose Tolerance Test was developed in the late 1920s as a way of diagnosing diabetes. Its basic function is to reveal a patient’s blood sugar levels after the ingestion of a large amount of sugar. At that time the test was conducted for three hours; a rapid and abnormally high increase in blood sugar, which showed no significant drop by the end of the test, was considered an indication of diabetes, in which the patient is unable to produce sufficient insulin to remove glucose from the blood. But a little later in the decade, researchers like Dr. Seale Harris began to conduct the test for six hours, and discovered that some people showed a high blood [117] glucose curve which was similar to that of a diabetic for the first three hours, but which then plummeted to abnormally low levels. Thus hypoglycemia, or hyperinsulinism, was recognized as another type of simple carbohydrate intolerance.⁸

When the test is conducted, the person is instructed to refrain from food and drink from the end of his or her evening meal until the next morning. When the person arrives at the clinic, samples of blood and urine are taken and the content of glucose in the samples is measured. The amount of glucose in the blood, or serum glucose, is measured in milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood, or “mg./percent.” The glucose level of this first sample is called the “fasting level.” The urine should be free of sugar.

At this point the person is given a drink which contains 100 grams of glucose, usually flavored with lemon or as a cola. Then 30 minutes later another blood and urine sample is taken, and again at 60 minutes, and at hourly intervals for the next five or six hours. The mg./percent of serum glucose is measured for each sample, and the results plotted on a graph. Ideally, samples of blood should be taken when there is a physical or personality change.

There are four basic syndromes that are revealed by the GTT graph. If the person’s glucose tolerance is nor-mal, the serum glucose level will begin at a fasting level of between 80 and 120 mg./percent, and rise to a level no higher than 170 mg./ percent between the 30- and 60-minute points. At about an hour, the patient’s insulin production will have reached an optimum point, and as [118] sugar is taken out of the blood, the serum glucose level will begin to drop. By the third hour the glucose level will drop to a point no lower than the fasting level, and will remain there until the end of the test. At no point should sugar be present in the urine. This is the sign of a healthy endocrine system: The body reacts in time to the abnormal ingestion of glucose, keeping the blood sugar from reaching dangerously high or low levels.

The diabetic, on the other hand, is unable to produce sufficient insulin to take glucose out of the system. In the diabetic, serum glucose rises to levels higher than 170 mg./percent in the first hour. Beyond this point, known as the “normal renal threshold,” the body reacts to the glucose insult by attempting to remove sugar via the kidneys; thus glucose begins to appear in the urine (the term “diabetes mellitus” is Latin for “the sugar passes through.”)⁹ As the blood sugar levels continue to climb, the acid level of the blood rises, and the patient may experience weakness, dizziness, and difficulty in breathing, a condition which could lead to coma.10 For this reason, GTTs should be conducted only in medical facilities, where insulin can be administered if it turns out that the subject is in fact diabetic.

The other two syndromes are signs of hypoglycemia, in which the blood sugar eventually reaches a level at least 20 mg./percentage points below fasting level. Opposite of the diabetic is the patient with chronic hyperinsulinism: that is, the body constantly produces too much insulin. This is often referred to as “Rat curve hypoglycemia. “The blood sugar level at the fasting state may be abnormally low, perhaps around 60 mg./percent, [119] and after glucose ingestion it may rise only 20 to 40 mg./ percent points. After about an hour it begins to taper off to a point substantially below fasting level. By the end of the test it may begin to rise again slightly, may remain stable, or may continue to drop. Patients with hyperinsulinism are usually those who complain of constant hunger, tiredness or depression; their overactive pancreases never allow the blood to retain enough glucose.

The final syndrome is known as reactive hypoglycemia, or dysinsulinism. As we said in Chapter Two, it is the most common form of hypoglycemia. This syndrome is sort of a combination of diabetes and hyperinsulinism. The serum glucose level rises near or above the normal renal threshold in the first hour, and sugar may actually begin to appear in the urine. The subject’s pancreas is at first unable to produce enough insulin to deal with the glucose insult. But eventually the endocrine system does react, and by the second hour serum glucose is dropping. This is where the hyperinsulin portion of the curve begins; the pancreas begins to produce too much insulin, and blood sugar levels plummet to below fasting levels. This blood sugar roller-coaster can be quite steep. Serum glucose may rise to 240 mg/dL, and can drop to as low as 20 mg/dL.¹¹ It should be pointed out that this reactive hypoglycemia can be progressive. As the endocrine system deteriorates under the constant insult of refined carbohydrate consumption, the high part of the curve gets higher and longer, with the pancreas producing sufficient insulin only toward the end of the test. Such a patient is clearly prediabetic; [120] soon the pancreas will cease to function entirely.

During the high portion of the curve, the patient may experience the weakness associated with diabetic acidosis, and at the low point of the curve may suffer depression, crying spells, temper tantrums or other uncontrolled emotions, or may actually black out. Even those with mild cases of hypoglycemia may suffer physical symptoms during the low blood sugar stage.

It is imperative that the patient be carefully observed during the OTT, and given something to eat to raise blood sugar again at the end of the test if there is sign of weakness or dizziness. Failure to do so can be disastrous. I know of one individual, severely hypoglycemic, who was simply sent home at the end of his OTT. In the car on the way home he went berserk, and had to be immediately hospitalized. The Glucose Tolerance Test can be uncomfortable and even dangerous if it is not given by qualified health care professionals.

It was the characteristic response of the relative hypoglycemic which helped orthomolecular psychiatrists link the disorder to psychological problems and aberrant behavior. They noticed in their patients, as I did in my probationers, that everything from sudden stupors to temper tantrums – and even murder and suicide attempts – very frequently occurred around three hours after a meal. When we began to test such individuals with the Glucose Tolerance Test, we found that the mental difficulties, physical problems, schizoid sensory distortions and antisocial behavior corresponded closely with the abnormal dips in the individual’s blood sugar levels. In the area of nutrition, where so much information is [121] tenuous and frequently in dispute, the discoveries made possible by the Glucose Tolerance Test are a very strong demonstration to the scientific community of the veracity of the orthomolecular approach.

Clinical Tests
Two of the more technical tests the clinic did for us are blood analysis and hair analysis. Scientists established the significance of such variables as nutrient and minerals levels and the presence of toxic metals to the mental health and behavior of the individual. The blood and hair tests gave us some indication as to what levels of these elements are present in the subject’s body.

Of course, it is easy to understand that traces of nutrients ought to be present in the patient’s blood, but what of minerals and toxic metals? There was no easy way to test for the presence of these things until the advent of the hair analysis. Toxic metals and nonnutritive minerals are stored in the body’s tissues. The fact that they settle in the tissues of the brain rather readily is the reason they are so damaging to a person’s mental demeanor.

But hair is also a tissue, and the deposits of toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, aluminum and barium found in carefully-taken samples of the subject’s hair can give us a rather precise idea of the levels of these toxins we can expect to see in the subject’s body in general. If we saw a probationer whose behavior was particularly bizarre or aggressive, or whose body and physical function was deteriorating along the lines I described in the previous chapter, we immediately suspected toxic metal poisoning, and sent the subject for the [122] necessary clinical testing.

While the hair test has proved to be a very special tool in this regard, it is not infallible. Hair analysis has an advantage over blood and urine analysis, in that, while these fluids reveal only those chemicals to which the person has recently been exposed, hair analysis reveals exposure days, weeks or months after the fact. Unlike blood samples, hair samples are easy and painless to take, and can be easily transported and stored. The test itself consists of burning the hair sample at a high temperature and then analyzing the characteristic spectrum of the light it produces for certain key elements.

But there are problems with the technique. The primary stumbling block is that medical science is as yet not sure how metals and minerals are deposited in the hair. This makes establishing a ratio of the levels of contaminants in the sample to the level in the body a very tenuous process at best. The second problem is that hair samples taken from the same head can vary in the levels of materials present, and the difference in concentration of some elements can be as much as 30-fold. In the words of Dr. Paul Lazar, Chairman of the AMA’s Committee on Cutaneous Health and Cosmetics, “Present scientific knowledge does not support the use of metal levels in hair for broad, sophisticated, subtle diagnostic purposes (such as vitamin deficiencies, enzyme activity and allergic states).¹²

Yet the experts are not all so disparaging. Dr. Jeffrey Bland has demonstrated that, in the years since Lazar· made his remarks, advancements and standardizations in hair analysis techniques have greatly improved the [123] reliability of this diagnostic tool.¹³ Dr. William Walsh, Director of the Health Research Institute, Naperville, IL that specializes in identifying and treating violent children and adults to prevent future serious violent acts has said, “I think it’s only a matter of a short time before hair analysis will be accepted nationwide and worldwide. I think it’s going to be a storehouse of medical information that heretofore has not been tapped.”¹⁴ Dr. Walsh specializes in identifying and treating children and adults that exhibit violent behavior, to help prevent future violent acts. To reach the clinic, phone 708-505-0300.

I am not a doctor nor a scientist: Yet the hair analyses completed for clients have been so revealing and so consistently accurate that I cannot but agree with Dr. Walsh. While we would never consider using just hair analysis alone, I would recommend the procedure as another tool for pinpointing contributing problems.

For a graphic example of how important such clinical testing is, let us look at the test results for Raymond, the young man who was brought before me for attempting to murder his girlfriend and whose case I described in detail in the introductory chapter. We’ll go through Raymond’s report in the same way I reviewed the findings of all the people we sent for clinical testing.

The first variable we checked was the toxic metal levels, and in Raymond’s case these were quite dramatic. For instance, the maximum level of lead which is acceptable in the human body is 15 parts per million: Raymond’s hair sample contained more than 32 parts per million. As I explained in the previous chapter, lead interferes with cellular enzymatic reactions which leads [124] to such problems as the inability to learn and retain information, lack of energy, listlessness and gastrointestinal discomfort; all of these were symptoms of which Raymond complained. His hair sample also showed 1.26 parts per million of cadmium, over 25 percent in excess of the maximum the body can handle. High cadmium levels decrease the body’s ability to absorb and use nutrients, an effect which was exacerbating all of Raymond’s other metabolic difficulties. He also showed levels of arsenic, mercury and barium which approached the maximum limits.

As it turned out, we easily traced the source of Raymond’s toxic metal contamination: his heavy inhalation of gunpowder fumes, when he practiced his marksmanship, contributed to it. It is not, however, always a simple task to trace the source of toxic metal intake. The storage and effects of these poisons are cumulative, and the body has no way of quickly eliminating them. We often found that our probationers were suffering from the effects of a toxic metal contamination that occurred years before they got into trouble with the law. High levels of metallic toxins are usually treated by dietary therapy, often in combination with the process of chelation. I will explain these therapies in more detail in the next chapter.

The next findings we examined were the levels of nutrient minerals, especially copper, zinc, iron, manganese and chromium. Exceptionally low levels of a particular nutrient told us either that the subject was not getting sufficient amounts of the nutrient in his or her diet, or that some metabolic difficulty was preventing [125] the body from absorbing the proper levels of nutrients from the food consumed.

Exceptionally high levels suggest over consumption of a food rich in those nutrients, or a nutritional deficit elsewhere which was preventing the body from using the minerals.

Raymond had problems in both areas. His level of sodium was 366 parts per million, compared to the normal range of 22 to 163 parts per million. Likewise, his potassium levels were at 178 parts per million, compared to the normal rate for his sex and age of 11 to 80 parts per million. The overabundance of these nutrients was directly attributable to Raymond’s junk food diet – junk and processed foods are excessively high in salts, and people who live on them are commonly getting as much as 25 times the amount of sodium they need. Raymond’s excessive levels of these nutrients were contributing to his feelings of anxiety and his inability to concentrate and apply himself to a task.

On the other side of the coin, Raymond’s test results showed a marked deficiency in several vital nutrient minerals. His tests revealed a magnesium content of 23 parts per million, compared to the minimum normal range of 32 to 122 parts per million. Magnesium is vital to the metabolism of sugar, salt and vitamins – it was apparent that Raymond’s high carbohydrate diet was probably responsible for his magnesium deficiency. This in turn contributed to the feelings of mental disorientation and confusion and the hair trigger temper with which Raymond was beset. He also had dangerously low levels of calcium (25 percent deficient) and copper (10 percent deficient).

[126] These deficiencies probably also contributed to his mental lassitude and aggressiveness. Raymond’s mineral ratio chart pointed out that it was indeed his over consumption of sodium and potassium, as well as the massive amounts of toxic metals in his system which caused the calcium and magnesium deficiencies. Raymond’s problems in these areas were eventually corrected through the use of chelation and dietary therapy.

From this thumbnail description, it is easy to see that clinical blood, urine, and hair testing is vital to an orthomolecular approach to solving psychological and behavioral problems. As I have said above, such testing can sometimes be difficult to obtain. Right now there are only 15 hair analysis laboratories in the nation.¹⁵ Such a factor may dissuade probation departments and other professionals from using the tests, especially when they have never been required to do diagnostic testing of any sort in the past. But I hope this case study demonstrates how useful such testing is in pinpointing the exact biochemical stresses which influence each individual case of delinquent behavior. I am certain that if more professionals in my own discipline and all those who deal with delinquent teens and adults, were to start making more use of the biochemical testing services already in existence, there would be a growth and expansion of such facilities. The cost would also be reduced.

[128] This chart shows that building more prisons, using the typical counseling methods and ignoring the biochemical aspect of the body has certainly failed to reduce crime. We must pay attention to what is and is not being consumed by children and adults to begin to prevent and reverse the soaring crime problems.

NOTES
1. D.J. Kallen, “Nutrition and Society,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 1971, Vol. 215 No. 1, p. 94.
2. Carl C. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing, 1975), p. 3.
3. Medard Gabel, with the World Game Laboratory, Ho-Ping: Food for Everyone (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press, 1979), p. 28.
4. John Baron, Low Blood Sugar (Cleveland, Ohio: Karpat Publishing Company, Inc., 1971). Out of print.
5. Nola A. Smith, Investigation of Hypoglycemia as a Causal Factor in Some Kinds of Emotional Distress (Unpublished thesis, Eastern Michigan University).
6. Thomas Kirk Cureton, The Physiological Effects of Exercise Programs on Adults (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1971).
7. Richard Restak, The Brain: The Last Frontier (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1979), p. 76.
8. E.M. Abrahamson and A.W. Pezet, Body, Mind and Sugar; (New York: Avon Books, 1977), pp. 53-54.
9. “Diabetes,” in William Morris, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978), p. 363.
10. “Diabetes,” in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, Shorter Edition (Philadelphia: The Saunders Press, 1980), P. 199.
11. The foregoing discussion of GIT curve interpretation adapted from Abrahamson and Pezet, Body, Mind and Sugar; p. 55.
12. Laura A. Engleman, “Unlocking Your Medical Profile: The Inside Story on Hair,” Vegetarian Times, Sept. 1982, p. 24.
13. Jeffrey Bland, Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (Bellevue, Washington: Bellevue Redmond Medical Laboratories, Inc., 1979).
14. Engleman, “Unlocking Your Medical Profile,” p. 23.
15. Engleman, “Unlocking Your Medical Profile,” p. 25.

[131]
Chapter 4

Healing the Delinquent Mind: The Orthomolecular Complementary Approach

The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease. ~Thomas A. Edison

No illness which can be treated by diet should be treated in any other manner. ~Maimonides¹

What are we to do about crime and delinquency? Must offenders be written off as social and moral basket cases, kept as captive wards of the state for the rest of their pitiful lives? Can anything be done to prevent crime, short of caging or killing human beings in the name of deterrence?

While most Americans are beginning to view the growing crime rate as a hopeless problem, the dreariest outlook is held by those charged with seeing justice done, those within the criminal justice system itself. Listen to criminologist Alexander Schauss:

Currently, the criminal justice system is going nowhere. Instead of spending money to seek effective rehabilitation for criminals and prevention of crime, the money is being spent on larger and more secure institutions and jails. Habitual offenders are viewed as hopeless. Each such declaration costs the taxpayer from $7,000 to $25,000 a year. With over 300,000 prisoners in United States correctional institutions, this is a substantial drain on the American economy. Additionally, each year over one million children are detained for some period of time in juvenile detention centers across the country. It costs from $6 to $35 a day to hold a child in one of these facilities.²

Clearly, we are spending huge amounts to cope with our crime and delinquency problem. But where is it getting us? In the decade between 1968 and 1977, a time when expenditures on law enforcement programs, courts, prisons and rehabilitation programs climbed to record figures, the number of murders rose 38.6 percent. Forcible rape nearly doubled. Aggravated assault climbed 82.2 percent, and robbery was up 54 percent. All together, crimes of violence increased nearly 70 percent during the period.³

An interesting study appeared in the American Psychologist in 1978, a study that’s not talked about much in psychiatric circles. The study reviewed the lives of 500 participants in the famous Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study of 1939. The boys had been chosen as “difficult” or average by officials from schools, welfare agencies, churches and police departments. They were given physical examinations and interviewed, and then were rated according to the likelihood that they would become delinquent.

The boys were then put in matched pairs according to age, delinquency proneness, family background and home environment. One half of each pair was randomly placed in a treatment program for five years. The other boy received no treatment at all. One third of the boys in the treatment group received family centered therapies; over half got special tutoring in academic subjects; over 100 received medical or psychiatric attention; a quarter were sent to summer camp; and most were put in contact with Boy Scouts, YMCA and other community programs. In short, for five years the boys in the treatment group got the best that medicine and psychiatry could offer in the way of delinquency prevention; the boys in the non-treatment group got nothing.

Thirty years later, Joan McCord of Drexel University examined the life histories of these men as revealed by hospital files, court records and other documents. What she discovered should have shaken the criminal justice, psychiatric and medical professions to their very foundations if anyone had paid attention. She found that:

1) Men who had been in the treatment group were more likely to commit at least one more crime, than those who got no treatment.

2) Men who had been in the treatment group were more likely to show signs of alcoholism.

3) Men who were in the treatment group were more likely to show signs of serious psychiatric illness.

4) Men from the treatment group died younger.

5) Men who had been in the treatment group were more likely to report having had at least one stress-related disease, especially hypertension and heart disease.

6) Men from the treatment group were more likely to have a lower prestige job, and to find that job unsatisfying.

In sum, McCord’s study showed that the magic programs that social workers, psychiatrists and welfare agents swore by as delinquency prevention methods were worse than useless; they actually did more harm than good!⁴

We rely on the police, courts and prisons to bring offenders to justice and to keep them “off the streets” until and unless they are no longer a danger to society. Yet the criminal justice system seems little more than a hopeless, lethargic merry-go-round, on which the same individuals spin for a lifetime in an endless cycle of arrest, release, arrest, release. According to FBI statistics, out of a sample of 207,748 persons arrested from 1970 to 1974, 65 percent had been arrested at least twice before. Among the ten most frequent repeat offenses were murder, rape, assault and weapons crimes. Another study, this one released in 1972, found that 67 percent were rearrested within three years.⁵

All the while, the courts and prisons are increasingly flooded with cases, and those rehabilitation programs that exist are woefully unable to keep up. To an increasing extent our correctional facilities are merely warehouses in which criminals pace out their sentences, growing ever more bitter, ever more isolated from a society in which they are unable to function, ever more [135] adept in the ways of crime.

According to a growing number of researchers, this is all they will ever be. The more moderate conclude that “In seeking to make criminal justice more redemptive and less punitive, we may have asked too much of institutions that can barely hold their own, let alone develop the competence to be curers of souls.”⁶ Others are more blunt: “Wicked people exist,” says James Q. Wilson. “Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people.”⁷

In the case of the worst offenders, public reason turns to public rage. More states are reviving the death penalty, and the ranks of those waiting to die at the hands of the state are swelling. Executions have become media events, the condemned is made a household word, and shots of the pleading parents and the outraged citizenry dominate the evening news. It seems that centuries of social development have brought us at last only a very little way from the headsman and the chopping block.

In this era of pervasive hopelessness about crime and delinquency, can there be any alternatives, any untried paths, which can possibly lead us out of this dark labyrinth of violence and fear?

I believe there is such a path. It is a path along which I myself have traveled, along with thousands of probationers. Everyone who has stayed on the path has reached daylight, has never been in legal trouble again. Today they live normal, healthy, happy lives. And the first step down this path is the realization that a healthy body means a healthy mind.

We must recognize that crimes are not committed by [136] “criminal minds” or even “antisocial personalities”; they are committed by whole persons. While the quality of an individual’s upbringing and the environment in which a person lives are doubtlessly important, we must begin to recognize that one’s physical state, and particularly the molecular environment of the brain, plays a crucial role in shaping behavior. Schauss puts the biochemical connection in precise proportion:

The contributing factors to juvenile delinquency are many. For decades, the problem of juvenile delinquency has been seen as the product of only social and intrapsychic factors. Families have been seen as the cause of delinquency. Criminologists have largely ignored disturbed biochemical functioning as a possible cause of criminal behavior. It is just such an interest in our biochemical environment, as achieved by a study of diet and delinquency, which is needed to redress the balance.⁸

No one is suggesting that we ignore the psychic and social components of crime and delinquency. I am saying that we ought to spend at least as much effort in healing the body as we have in curing the soul.

The path I’m talking about is called the Orthomolecular Approach (”ortho” from the Greek for “correct” and “molecular” from “molecule”). Orthomolecular treatment simply means providing, in Linus Pauling’s words, “the right molecules in the right amounts.” ⁹

Although the orthomolecular approach to the treatment of mental and behavioral disorders is sometimes [137] pictured as unorthodox or even “flaky” by establishment physicians embarrassed at their own failures, the approach is in fact based on two very sound concepts. As we saw in Chapter Two, brain function is actually a set of thousands of complex chemical processes, each of which requires the presence of the proper molecules in order to work properly. If these molecules are not present, or if some other substance (such as a toxic metal) is preventing the molecules from taking their proper places, then the brain malfunctions, and behavior is distorted. It follows, then, that if we are faced with an individual who behaves abnormally, we ought to determine first if there are any chemical distortions in the brain, and, if there are, we ought to correct these imbalances. Certainly other influences of behavior, the individual’s ability to deal with others, conflicts which may stem from his or her upbringing, etc., should be dealt with as well. But there can be little reason to expect that such procedures alone will be of much value when the brain of the subject is malfunctioning.

This, then, is the foundation of the orthomolecular approach: the restoration of the proper molecular balance of the brain. The primary tool for this restoration is diet; however, vitamins, minerals and other food supplements may also be used, as well as certain drugs which help to remove toxic materials from the body. The orthomolecular technique is almost never used alone, but as an adjunct to counseling and other types of therapy.

What sort of molecular balance is proper for the brain? Or, put another way, what is optimal brain nutrition?

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It would be foolish to attempt to give a complete answer to a question like this. In the first place, despite the smug confidence of the government bureaus who set MDAs and RDAs, science simply doesn’t know terribly much about nutrition. We don’t even really know how many nutrients there are. As of this writing, nutritional science has isolated 47 nutrients, all of them thought to be essential to human health. Just 30 years ago, the list was perhaps half that. No one knows how many new nutrients may be discovered in the future; we do know, however, that when we try to build chemically complete mock-ups of certain foods, they do not support animal life as well as the natural foods themselves.¹⁰

We do not fully understand even those nutrients we have managed to isolate. In 1973, the USDA asked several nutrition specialists for their opinion as to the current state of our knowledge of nutrition. The scientists were questioned about 46 specific nutrients, and asked to state whether substantial progress had been made in our understanding of the nutrient, whether only fragmentary data had been collected, or whether data was poor or nonexistent. The nutritional needs of different age groups were considered. In the area of adolescent nutrition, the scientists said that no substantial progress had been made. Partial data existed for ten nutrients, and only poor or nonexistent information was available for 36 nutrients. For young adults, nutritional knowledge was only a little clearer: substantial progress had been made for 16 nutrients and fragmentary data had been collected for another 10, but little or no data existed for 20.¹¹ Clearly biochemists and nutritionists are not [139] prepared to make any definitive statements about human nutrition.

A more fundamental reason we can’t make any hard-and-fast statements about human nature stems from the concept of biochemical individuality. As we saw in Chap-ter Two, and as the work of Dr. Roger Williams has demonstrated,¹² each individual organism is unique, and each has its own nutritional requirements. Two women who are the same age and weight can have significantly different needs; one may require only 500 mg. of vitamin C a day to maintain good health, while the other may need 1,500 mg. or more. It will do little good to refer to a chart in order to prescribe a proper diet for two such women, even though they may be “identical” as far as the USDA is concerned.

What I am saying here is that, in the field of nutrition, it is useless and often counterproductive to rely on some figure which is claimed to represent someone’s “average” dietary needs. There are no average people, and in determining proper brain nutrition one has to be careful to concentrate on the specific needs and responses of each individual.

Given all of this, is there anything we can say in general about proper brain nutrition? There is. In the first place, proper brain function requires the presence of all essential nutrients. This seems a bit obvious at first, perhaps, but it’s a point which is frequently overlooked in most discussions of nutrition. Each chemical process in the body involves the interaction of scores of nutrients, and the function of these often depends on the presence of scores of others. In fact, Doctors Harte and [140] Chow have established that the absence of a single nutrient can create a metabolic “shock wave” which hinders the function of all the rest.¹³

This simple fact takes on new importance when we remember that food processing robs foods of a broad range of vitamins, minerals and enzymes, while “food enrichment” puts back only a few. No enriched food that I know of contains added zinc or choline, for instance, although both of these are removed in processing. Very frequently the food industry argues that, because the action of many micronutrients is not yet fully understood, we don’t have to worry about them.¹⁴ This sort of reasoning is extremely odd; most vitamins, for instance, were first noticed because animals or humans deprived of them become ill. Just because we don’t yet know precisely what zinc does in the body doesn’t mean we can ignore the fact that people with zinc deficiencies suffer nervous system disorders. To say that we ought to pay no attention to the less “popular” nutrients simply because scientists don’t know all about them is a little like arguing that since I don’t know the chemical difference between gasoline and diesel fuel, it makes no difference what I put in my car. Your body knows what to do with the nutrients it needs and that’s all that really matters.

From what we said about the nutritional damage done by food processing, it follows that the best way to get the full range of essential nutrients is to eat unprocessed foods-whole, fresh, natural foods. Natural foods are foods for which the processing has been kept to an absolute minimum; they have been left raw or are only [141] lightly cooked, and all edible skins, seeds, bran and germ remain. Such foods contain virtually all their original nutrient value because they have not been subjected to milling, boiling, flaking, puffing, extruding, and other nutrient-destroying processes. It should be added that whole, fresh foods not only contain a good supply of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes that we know about; evidence suggests that such foods also contain nutrients we have yet to discover.¹⁵ To illustrate, by 1995, over 1,000 compounds have been identified in fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains that help prevent cancer.

Another general requirement of proper brain nutrition is that most carbohydrates should be complex carbohydrates from high-fiber foods, and simple sugars should be kept to a minimum. The complex carbohydrates are the starches, found in whole grains, potatoes, squash and many kinds of vegetables. The starches, like sugars, provide energy for the body. Unlike sugars, however, unrefined carbohydrates break down much more slowly into glucose, and consequently don’t contribute to severe fluctuations of the glucose level affecting brain functions.

It is important that carbohydrate foods be eaten with plenty of fiber. As we pointed out in Chapter Two, fiber is a plant substance which does not break down in the stomach. It helps to move digested food smoothly through the intestine, and moderates the absorption of carbohydrates. Even starchy foods can break down too quickly into glucose and cause a hypoglycemic reaction, if fiber is completely absent.

Once again, the best source of complex [142] carbohydrates and fiber is whole, natural food. Those nutrient-rich parts of food which are thrown away during food processing – the skins, seeds and bran – are also the richest sources of fiber. So while a meal of stripped, deep-fried potatoes may distort the body’s metabolism, a baked potato eaten with the skin provides just the energy food the body needs.

Protein should be derived from whole grains, legumes, lean meats and vegetable sources. We have already noted that, while the adolescent needs a good supply of protein, this protein is very often obtained from beef (hamburger is the big offender) which is high in fat and not very well digested. Optimally, one’s protein ought to come from legumes, whole grains, brown rice, seeds, raw nuts from the shell (not peanuts), meats like organically grown chicken (not fried), eggs and fish, which have higher protein-to-fat ratios and are easier to digest. I like to refer to them as the “gentle proteins.” Brown rice and beans provide an excellent range of amino acids, as well as fiber and other nutrients lacking in meat.¹⁶

Fats ought to be kept to no more than 20 percent of total caloric intake. While a moderate intake of fatty acids is very important in human nutrition, too much fat can be damaging. The metabolism of fat creates ketones, substances which are hard on the kidneys and other organs. Also, as we said before, high fat consumption leads to increased levels of serum cholesterol, and cholesterol deposits can block blood flow to the brain.

When I criticize the amount of fat the average American eats, I am indirectly attacking the major contributor [143] of fat to our diet, fast foods. The rise in American fat consumption from about 35 grams per person per day in 1920 to 70 grams in 1976 ¹⁷ has closely paralleled the growth of the fast food industry, with its vast store of french fries, onion rings, hamburgers, fried chicken, and “thick shakes” (thick because the milk has been replaced with hydrogenated vegetable fat). The USDA has admitted that the increased popularity of convenience and snack foods, as well as hamburger joints and carry-out chicken and fish restaurants, have contributed greatly to our herculean intake of fat.¹⁸

Fresh unprocessed foods, on the other hand, are quite low in fat – with the exception of nuts and seeds, which ought to be eaten in moderation (when eaten fresh from the shell the high-fiber content of these foods helps ensure they will be eaten sparingly).

When an oil is desired for cooking or for a salad dressing, I recommend the cold pressed extra virgin olive oil or canola oil. These are called “cold pressed” because they are extracted from foods with a high natural oil content, and so require less heat in processing than com oil or seed oils do. In addition, compressors and other equipment are kept cool. The lower heat preserves the essential fatty acids intact, whereas these nutrients may be destroyed in the processing of other kinds of oils.

For bread spreads try olive oil, almond butter and all-fruit preserves. Baked potatoes are delicious with a little salad dressing added. Margarine is a completely synthetic product, made of hydrogenated vegetable fats, chemical stabilizers and artificial flavors. I like biochemist Paul Stitt’s assessment of margarine: “The taste may [144] say ‘butter,’ but the ingredients say junk.”¹⁹

Fresh, whole fruits and vegetables, beans, peas, lentils, seeds, sprouts, whole grains, brown rice, water, lean digestible meats, small amounts of natural cold pressed oils – these are what a person ought to eat in order to get the best possible nutrition for the brain. By the same token, you ought to avoid white flour, white sugar and other kinds of refined carbohydrates, fatty meats and fried foods, adrenal stimulants like caffeine and nicotine, and artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilizers and additives of all kinds. Naturally, you should also avoid any foods to which you are allergic.

How can you find the foods that best nourish the brain, and avoid those foods which cause mental mal-function? My favorite strategy is to shop around the perimeter of the supermarket. That’s where all the fresh produce is! As much as possible, avoid the center of the store, with its aisles of canned, boxed, bagged, over-sugared, nutrient-stripped, low fiber, high-chemical monstrosities. If you want to pick up a box of tissue or a six-pack of mineral water, you may go in but hurry right back out! Although this plan for surviving the supermarket is helpful, it is even better to shop at co-ops which offer organic produce – fruits and vegetables that have been grown without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides. I recommend organic produce if it is available because it contains fewer trace poisons than traditionally grown food. Shop farmers markets in the summer and always buy the freshest possible produce in your supermarket.

The watchword throughout this discussion of brain [145] nutrition has been “natural.” The best way to get the best nutrition is to eat natural foods, foods which are fresh and whole and as unprocessed as possible. Now, I’m certainly not the first person to make this prescription; the natural foods movement has been growing for decades. The result is that an ‘increasing number of shoppers are on the lookout for natural foods, and more food manufacturers are attempting to convince consumers that their products are natural. In fact, “100% Natural” is quickly replacing “New and Improved” as the most over used phrase in the American supermarket.

Some people (especially food industry flacks) have hailed this change as an example of the food giants bending to consumer demand for healthier food. Yet this “natural revolution” is fraught with charlatanism. Many so called “natural” foods have been canned, freeze-dried, flaked and puffed, hardly the sort of things that go on in the wilderness. For instance, a lot of foods billed as natural, especially natural snacks, contain brown sugar. Brown sugar is thought to be more natural than sucrose, probably because it’s brown. In fact, brown sugar is simply white sugar with a little molasses or brown food coloring added, and it can lead to hypoglycemia every bit as much as its lighter cousin. Some producers of “natural foods” don’t even bother with this bit of sleight of hand, and simply add sugar or com syrup to their products, because these at least haven’t come straight from a test tube!

White flour often called “wheat flour” to confuse the unwary, is another frequent ingredient in misnamed “natural” foods. Many “whole wheat” breads, for [146] instance, actually contain little whole wheat flour. When shopping for a whole grain bread, look for a good firm loaf. Bread calling itself “whole wheat” which is soft and squishy is usually made up of white flour, dough conditioners and brown food coloring. A recent Consumer’s Union study showed that such phony “wheat breads” are just as nutritionally barren as white breads.²⁰

The point is that just because a product may say “all natural” on the package and just because it may be brown, doesn’t mean it’s really a whole, natural food. Read the label! If it lists any of the offending ingredients we’ve talked about, or contains anything that even appears to be a chemical additive, don’t buy it. Also be wary if the label says “Natural flavoring” as this is often a cover for MSG (monosodium glutamate). If the flavoring is truly natural it will be listed as vanilla, almond, etc. (Read a marvelous book, Excitotoxins by Russell Blaylock, M.D., a neurosurgeon.) Nature puts food in gardens and farms, which is where you ideally ought to get most of what you eat. Start a garden, if you can; shop at farmers’ markets and roadside stands whenever possible.

Let’s look at how these nutritional principles trans-late into a specific dietary program.

THE DIET FOR GOOD HEALTH
We used these foods to help correct the metabolic imbalances of the probationers. As I mentioned in the last chapter, if a person complained of 15 or more symptoms on the hypoglycemia questionnaire, he or she was placed on this correctional diet. And it is a correctional diet, designed for people in pretty poor health. As a [147] result, it is also made to help prevent behavioral problems.

ALLOWED FOODS

VEGETABLES: (fresh preferred, frozen is second best, but make sure there are no added sauces, etc.) Vegetables may be eaten raw, or lightly steamed “al dente,” which means they should be crisp and not overcooked, to retain the most possible nutrients. Eat several servings of vegetables daily.

Asparagus, avocado, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, beets, broccoli, brussels sprouts, green beans, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, cress, collards, corn, cucumber, endive, escarole, fennel, garlic, all greens (beet, collard, dandelion, kale, mustard, turnip, spinach), kohlrabi, lambs-quarter, leeks, lettuce (all varieties of lettuce except iceberg, due to its low fiber and nutrient content), lima beans, okra, onions, parsley, green peas, pumpkin, radishes, rutabaga, sauerkraut, soybeans, snow peas (pea pods), sprouts of all kinds, squash, turnips, watercress. Homemade soups made with the above vegetables and legumes. Grains may be used in the soups also.

FRUITS: (fresh or frozen, no sugar added) apples, apricots, bananas, all berries, cherries, fresh coconut, grapefruit, kumquats, lemons, limes, mango, all melons, papaya, peaches, pears, pineapple, oranges, tangerines, pomegranate, etc.

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PROTEINS: Legumes (dried beans, peas, lentils) whole grains, nuts (raw almonds, pecans, cashews, etc., 6 to 8 as a snack); fresh or frozen, baked or boiled fish, turkey, chicken (organically grown if possible – check with your health food store or co-op for sources), lamb, rabbit, wild game, or eggs. Eat no more than 2-3 ounces of concentrated, non-fibered protein per day. Use meats as flavoring, not the center of the meal.

GRAINS: (whole, soak or cook) natural brown rice, rolled or steel cut oats, rolled or pearl barley, millet, buckwheat, cracked wheat, etc.

BREAD: Whole grain breads free of dairy products and sugar.

SNACKS: Raw and/or sprouted: sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, popcorn (air popped or use a little olive oil, and season with Vege-Sal for a great taste treat), Hardboiled egg, berries, cantaloupe, avocado, raw nut mix (except no peanuts), fresh fruits, or any of the natural nut butters (such as almond, cashew, or sesame) on 1/2 slice of whole grain bread.

OMEGA 3: It’s very important to supplement the diet with Omega-3, an essential fatty acid found abundantly in flaxseed and small amounts in fish, walnuts, olive oil, dark green leafy vegetables, and sea vegetables. We recommend two level tablespoons daily blended with juice (raspberry, pineapple, apple, orange, etc.) or added to other foods. Fortified flax (in a one pound box) is [149] found in most health food stores, or call 1-800-EAT FLAX (1-800-328-3529) to order. Start with one teaspoon daily and gradually build up to 2 tablespoons within 3 weeks.

MILKS: Soy and rice milk are excellent and available in natural food sections or health stores. Make delicious nut milk by adding a heaping teaspoon of almond butter, cashew butter or pecan butter to a cup of water and blend for 15 to 20 seconds. Use in any recipe that calls for milk. [Since this book was published, research found that almond and cashew milks are mostly water and typically offer a meager 1 gram of protein per cup, while cup of cow’s milk naturally provides about 8 grams of high-quality protein. https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-nutrition/in-search-of-a-milk-alternative]

NOTE: Use extra virgin olive oil for cooking or salad dressing.

BEVERAGES: 8 glasses of water daily, before, between, or after meals. Bottled spring or filtered water is best for the body. Start every day with a large glass of water. A great thirst quencher; pure water with juice from a fresh lemon or lime added, hot or cold. Herbal teas are refreshing and if you must have a soft drink, club soda is the least harmful, BUT should not be consumed very often. You will find that if you drink enough water your body will not crave the harmful, stimulating drinks.

NOTE: To get off of colas or coffee, gradually reduce the amount you drink each day. Example: Reduce by ½ cup or can each 5 to 6 days. When you are down to ½ cup you may stop completely without withdrawal symptoms.

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EXERCISE IS MOST IMPORTANT AND BENEFICIAL FOR GOOD HEALTH. Brisk walking, jogging, yoga, rebounding, bicycling, etc. Start slowly and work up to 30-45 minutes each day.

It is possible for a person to be allergic to anything. When a food causes irritability, depression, or other bad reactions, you should eliminate it from your diet immediately. Vary your foods so you do not eat the same ones every day.

NOTE: AVOID refined or processed sugar, refined bleached flour, all dairy products and drinks that contain caffeine.

Never use artificial sweeteners. Natural sweeteners, which do not seem to trigger the desire to overeat, are fresh or dried fruit, real maple syrup, blackstrap molasses, and fruit juices. Use less and less of these sweeteners to re-educate your taste buds.

What do you spread on bread? A little almond butter, apple butter or no-sugar-added marmalade. Olive oil is delicious and used for hundreds of years in Europe – especially Greece & Italy. Pour into a shallow dish & refrigerate. The olive oil will firm for an easy spread on your toast or bread.

If the people on probation were consuming several bottles of soda a day, we tried to help them replace some of the soda with fruit juice, while at the same time urging them to drink several glasses of water a day. This [151] way thirst for sugared soft drinks is diminished as gradually and naturally as possible.

Some people swear by the “cold turkey” approach,²¹ but I feel that some of my probationers would have become so violently ill if suddenly taken off caffeine or sugar that they would not have stayed with the diet.

Any good diet has two parts, of course: it contains a list of foods, and it prescribes a way of eating. In our diet, probationers were given a carefully planned eating schedule designed to provide the right nutrients at the right time, and to maintain stable blood sugar levels:

EATING PATTERN
Upon arising: drink (slowly) 8 oz. of water and 4 oz. vegetable, fruit or tomato juice (this gets the digestive juices flowing, and makes a person hungry for breakfast).

Breakfast (within 20 minutes of juice): high protein foods such as eggs and whole grains (see list). Fresh fruit or melon, a slice of whole-grain bread or toast, and a cup of herb tea would be one menu for a nutritious breakfast. You might also want to try a bowl of homemade soup, brown rice with broiled fish, etc.

One hour after breakfast: glass of water. [So that digestive enzymes aren’t diluted.]

Midmorning snack (two hours later): selection from snack list (raw sunflower and/or pumpkin seeds are recommended here).

A few minutes to an hour after mid-morning snack: glass of water.

Lunch: high protein foods (see list) with a raw vegetable salad, slice of whole grain bread.

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A few minutes to an hour after lunch: glass of water.

Mid-afternoon snack: 7 to 8 raw almonds, vegetable juice, or vegetable sticks.

One hour after snack: glass of water.

Dinner - should include protein, with plenty of lightly cooked vegetables and/or a raw vegetable salad. Fresh fruit for dessert.

One hour after dinner: glass of water.

Light evening snacks (every two hours until bedtime anything from the snack list).

You’ll notice a lot of healthful snacking is permitted, even required, on this diet. This is because a hypoglycemic’s haywire carbohydrate metabolism needs constant propping up. Frequent snacking will help maintain blood sugar levels, and fight off those light-headed, dizzy or shaky feelings hypoglycemics suffer a couple of hours after eating. We often recommend that people carry a snack mixture with them, so that if they’re ever caught away from home, they aren’t without nourishment.

The proper breakfast is crucial. The body needs plenty of high-quality protein at the beginning of the day to prepare itself for the action and stress to come. So for those who don’t have time to fix a more elaborate breakfast, I recommend this fast, high-protein drink:

In a blender at low speed add:
5-6 ounces of unsweetened juice (cranapple, apple, pineapple, orange or grapefruit juice will do) [Page 153]
1 tablespoon prepared protein powder
½ teaspoon Brewers yeast (gradually increase this to 1 teaspoon over a period of four weeks, if not allergic to yeast)
1 teaspoon cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon real maple syrup (optional)
1 level tablespoon Fortified Flax

Other optional ingredients are ½ ripe banana and a raw egg yolk.

Set blender to high and blend for 30 seconds. Drink slowly, chewing with each mouthful. [In order to mix in digestive enzymes from the mouth.]

The combination of ingredients in this breakfast drink may sound a little unusual, but give it a try. Even fitness fan Richard Simmons was surprised by how good it tastes when I first introduced it to him.

We encourage people to add as much variety as possible to their diet, with the goal of eating no single food twice within four days. We have found that this four-day cycle helps the body remove allergy producing substances. The technique is particularly effective for those persons with allergies to many different foods. For specific rotation diets (which can sometimes be quite complex), consult Dr. Doris Rapp’s books, Is This Your Child? and The Impossible Child, or Philpott and Kalita’s excellent book, Brain Allergies ²² or Dr. Marshall Mandel’s book, 5-day Allergy Relief System (see Appendix).

After the proper diet had been established, we began to explore the probationer’s need for vitamins, minerals and other food supplements. Supplements will not be effective in the absence of a well balanced diet. The variety of micronutrients needed to help metabolic [154] processes can be gotten only from food. Food supplements can help replace lost nutrients or make up for unusual needs, but they cannot replace a good diet. The point may seem a little simple, but many people today think they can compensate for a diet of the most horrifying junk simply by taking a multivitamin at breakfast. Indeed, the pharmaceutical companies which push such supplements encourage this view in their advertising. It’s okay if your kids subsist on potato chips and soda all day; just pop a One-A-Day in their mouths and things will be all right. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Once we’ve established a proper diet, however, we can begin to assess a person’s need for added supplementation. Frequently a probationer’s supplement regimen would look something like this:

● B-Complex vitamins, 50 milligrams, 1 or 2 at every meal (the breakfast drink I described provides a good supply of B vitamins, so supplementation may not be needed at that meal).

● Complex Vitamin C, 500 milligrams, 1 or 2 at each meal. The body uses up more vitamin C in times of stress, and few people are under more stress than a juvenile or adult in trouble with the law. It is important that the daily intake, some 1,500 - 3,000 milligrams, be taken in small doses throughout the day, rather than in one large tablet at breakfast, since the body tends to wash out any vitamin C it can’t immediately use. Start with 500 mg daily and gradually increase to the above amounts. If you take a lot of vitamin C over a long period of time, never suddenly stop taking it. The body becomes accustomed to a regular supply of vitamin C, and sudden [155] discontinuation may cause scurvy-like symptoms. At no time should the supplementation of vitamin C fall below 500 milligrams daily, although certain individuals (especially alcoholics and other chemical abusers) may benefit from doses much higher than 3,000 milligrams.

● Vitamin A, 10,000 units, 1 or 2 daily. This dosage should normally not be exceeded. Vitamin A is one of the few nutrients which, in excessive amounts, can cause toxicity. Because it is fat soluble, it stays in the body’s fat tissues rather than washing out readily. Prolonged overdosage (more than 100,000 units daily for adults) can lead to hair loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, skin problems, fatigue, headaches and liver enlargement. These warnings aside, however, it must be noted that vitamin A is one of the most frequently missing nutrients in processed foods, and supplementation in order to correct long-standing deficiencies is frequently required. Years ago, mothers gave the family cod liver oil.

● Vitamin E, 200 to 400 International Units, 1 with each meal. Another fat-soluble nutrient, vitamin E is frequently removed from grain in the milling process, because the volatile oils in which it is found shorten shelf life. Those who have been trying to subsist on white flour products often need supplementation of this nutrient.

● Multi-mineral supplement, take with lunch or evening meal. As we saw in Chapter Two, many minerals are very important for proper brain function. In addition, keeping levels of beneficial minerals high helps prevent toxic metals (especially lead) from taking the place of nutrients in brain processes.

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● Papaya enzymes, take as directed. Many people complain of indigestion, and anybody knows what chronic indigestion can do to a person’s emotional state. The enzymes found in papaya help break down nutrients in the stomach and digestive tract, and prevent indigestion.

● Chromium. When an individual over consumes alcohol, we frequently recommend chromium supplements to reduce the craving for alcohol.

● L-Glutamine, 500 mg. with each meal. Glutamine has been found very effective in helping to reduce the craving for sweets, alcohol, or drugs and should be taken for at least a year. L-Glutamine is a substance that is often referred to as the “memory pill,” as it also helps improve memory. These nutrients are available in health food stores.

This, then, is our diet. It is an emergency program for people with metabolisms so imbalanced that their behavior gets them in trouble. If the probationer stayed with this program, we saw a definite improvement in his or her health and outlook within four to six days, although in many cases complete recovery may take weeks or months. This is an important point to note. The orthomolecular approach is a means of helping the body recover its natural equilibrium; it is not an interventionist technique; it does not interfere with any other physical systems in order to get some short-term psychiatric benefit. It is not a quick fix. Many people are so used to the rapid effects of mood-altering drugs which are frequently prescribed for persons with behavior problems that they [157] wonder why it may take several days or even weeks before an improvement is seen. This is why it must be remembered that the orthomolecular path seeks to heal the individual, to correct the imbalance, rather than simply cover up unwanted behavior.

The diet I outline in this chapter is correctional. However, we do recommend that if people are especially sensitive to one of the forbidden foods (or even foods on the allowed list, although these are normally hypoallergenic) that they omit this food from their diet permanently.

Getting people to try this diet for good health is not always easy. The offenders I saw often had severe addictions to some of the very foods that were killing them. They usually lacked self-discipline, and, since the court had ordered them to see me, they very often resented anything suggested to them, to say nothing of the radical changes I asked them to make in the way they ate.

Some of them never followed the diet, and these are the ones who usually got back into trouble with the law. Some changed their diets for a while, until a personal crisis caused them to fall back into their old eating habits. More frequently, a probationer would try the diet for about a week, figure there’s nothing to it, and give up. But the orthomolecular diet has a built-in hook for such people: normally, when an individual goes off the diet after four to six days, their former mental, behavioral and physical problems return so fast that it was obvious even to them. They no longer needed me to convince them they need a correctional diet as they had witnessed the proof in their own bodies. They become true believers.

[158] There’s one last facet of this orthomolecular program which I must mention again: EXERCISE. We encouraged probationers to engage in at least 30 to 45 minutes of strenuous, rhythmic activity: brisk walking, yoga, jogging, biking, swimming, jazzercise; every day or a minimum of four times a week. Exercise not only tones up the entire body and builds up the ability to deal with stress; it also increases the blood and oxygen supply to the brain, and studies show it can vastly improve mental health by relieving stress.²³

The Orthomolecular Approach and Other Therapies
I feel that the orthomolecular approach to healing mental and behavioral problems has several distinct ad-vantages over the kinds of treatments normally offered in such cases:

1) It is safe. We expect safety from all healing techniques; after all, one of the rules of the Hippocratic Oath is “First, do no harm.” But the fact is that one of the most frequent types of treatment for behavioral disorders, the prescription of tranquilizers and other mood-altering chemicals can be quite dangerous. It was not unusual for some of the people to be arrested under the influence of one or more prescription psychoactive drugs, and much of the mental confusion they experienced could be linked to these drugs.

A tranquilizer never cures depression, anxiety or other emotional disorders. It only slows down the [159] central nervous system. At the same time, it can do quite a bit of damage. One common substance prescribed for psychiatric patients is chlorpromazine, packaged by Smith Kline & French as Thorazine. According to the Physicians Desk Reference, Thorazine is indicated for the management of psychotic behavioral problems, for severe or violent hyperactivity in children, to control nausea and vomiting and to relieve restlessness and apprehension in patients before surgery. The FDA has classified Thorazine as possibly effective for control of excessive anxiety, tension and agitation as seen in neuroses.

One thing is certain: Thorazine can have a number of harmful side effects. Their listing takes up more than two and a half columns in the Physicians Desk Reference! They include drowsiness, jaundice, blood disorders, infection, low blood pressure, neuromuscular reactions resembling Parkinson’s disease, uncontrollable rhythmic motions of the face and mouth (which may be irreversible in some patients), psychotic and catatonic-like symptoms, convulsive seizures, allergic reactions, discoloration of the skin and visual impairment. There have even been cases of sudden death as the result of cardiac arrest after administration of the drug, although no one is yet sure if the heart attacks were actually caused by Thorazine.²⁴

Granted, these dangerous side effects associated with Thorazine and other psychoactive drugs do not occur all the time in all patients, but anyone who takes them is at risk. And when you remember that many patients are taking two, three or more of these drugs [160] simultaneously, you begin to appreciate the risk involved.

The orthomolecular approach, on the other hand, is completely safe. It interferes with no other physical systems in order to heal the mind; in fact, it enhances the health of the entire body. I have recommended dietary correction to thousands of probationers, and my colleagues have used orthomolecular treatment in thousands of additional cases. I have yet to hear of a single serious health complication which has resulted from such an approach. How many psychiatrists who rely on psycho-active drugs or electroconvulsive therapy can make a similar claim?

2) It is inexpensive. Recall the figures that Dr. Alex Schauss cited at the beginning of this chapter: juvenile detainees cost the taxpayer more than $35 a day, and prison inmates cost up to $25,000 or more a year. For those whose violent, irrational behavior makes hospitalization or institutionalization necessary, the costs to their families or to the taxpayer are even heavier. Yet it seems that, under current methods of treatment and rehabilitation, costs only increase, while positive results are hard to find.

Because nutritional therapy is so simple, it is very inexpensive. For example, the staff at one home for delinquent boys found that when they replaced sugar and processed food with fresh, whole food, their food bills actually decreased!²⁵ While clinical tests for metabolic disorders and required food supplements are an added expense, their cost is always much lower than that of drugs and lengthy hospital stays. Best of all, people who get orthomolecular treatment often shorten [161] their probation periods or prison sentences, find jobs and live productive lives rather than remaining as economic burdens to their families or to the state.

3) It works. More and more institutions which deal with delinquent or criminal individuals have been using dietary correction as an adjunct to their regular programs. The results have been very encouraging, especially to those who had lost faith in the very notion of rehabilitation. There are so many success stories that it’s hard to know where to begin to describe them. But I think it’s best for me to start closest to home, with my own experience with the orthomolecular approach.

Success Stories
I am completely convinced that dietary therapy is one of the most powerful tools available for the treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders. Certainly, it is not the only tool; counseling and other rehabilitative techniques are also valuable. But we must remember that a person with a sick brain is fundamentally unable to participate fully in the counseling process, or to take full advantage of rehabilitation programs. Probationers who are overcoming their health problems, moreover, are much more responsive to other types of treatment. More than 80 percent of the probationers who came to me after I started using the orthomolecular approach are living full, productive lives today. After analyzing a twelve-year study we found that not a single individual who stayed with the program had been back in trouble. The connection between diet and crime, and the [162] effectiveness of the orthomolecular approach in restoring self-control to people with behavioral problems, is a simple fact.

Let me tell you the stories of some teenagers who were thought to be hopeless, people who had lost control of themselves, people on the verge of despair yet people who have rebuilt their lives. I could fill volumes with statistics, but to me the most convincing evidence in support of dietary therapy lies in the success stories of people like these:

R.S. This 19-year-old man had been receiving psychiatric treatment since his mid teens, and at the time of his arrest for indecent exposure he was on seven different psychoactive medications. He masturbated constantly in front of others, and suffered severe headaches, night sweats, depression and inability to concentrate. His mother had spent thousands of dollars trying to help R.S., and had flown him all over the country to consult respected psychiatrists, but to little avail. His condition seemed to get worse.

As was routine, we asked R.S. to fill out our hypoglycemia questionnaire. We were shocked at what we found: 58 symptoms of hypoglycemia! We sent him to the Baron Clinic in Cleveland, OH, where he was indeed diagnosed as hypoglycemic. But that wasn’t all. An analysis indicated his system was loaded with lead, and his liver was malfunctioning. R.S. was one of the worst cases of metabolic distortion we had seen; little wonder his behavior was so bizarre.

We placed R.S. on a nutritional program to correct hypoglycemia and Dr. Baron gave him treatments to [163] remove the toxic metal from his body. His recovery was dramatic. Within weeks his family noticed a marked improvement in his behavior and attitude. Six months later he took the hypoglycemia questionnaire again, and this time he showed only eight symptoms. The numbers spoke for themselves. Years later I telephoned R.S.’s mother, and she assured me he was doing fine: healthy, happy and out of trouble.

D.L. This 18-year-old was referred to the probation department after he had been caught shoplifting. His was a rather typical case. D.L. ate as most adolescents in this society eat; he consumed a lot of fast food lunches and plenty of snack foods and cola. It was no surprise when he indicated over 30 symptoms of hypoglycemia. We urged him to give up refined carbohydrates and adopt the diet mentioned in this chapter. D.L. also got involved in jogging as a part of his exercise program. D.L. has not been in trouble again since adopting the diet. And he stuck with the exercise; and became a promising marathon runner.

M.K. This young man was 19 years old when he was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and possessing marijuana. His alcoholism had reached such an advanced stage by the time of his arrest that he was committed to an alcohol/drug treatment program for nearly a month. When his time there ended, his probation began, and that’s when I saw him.

M.K.’s alcoholism was being fueled by hypoglycemia, as evidenced by the fact that he craved and [164] consumed an enormous amount of refined sugar, caffeine (from colas and coffee), candy, donuts, etc. when not drinking alcohol.

We attempted to correct M.K.’s hypoglycemia, and combined this with megadoses of certain vitamins: he got two grams of vitamin C a day in four 500 mg. doses, as well as two grams of niacinamide (a form of niacin), L-Glutamine, and a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement.

M.K.’s progress would have heartened all those who have despaired of successfully treating alcoholism. Within three weeks he was jogging up to five miles a week, and in four months he was running five miles a day. He said he felt like a new person. His self-esteem improved wonderfully, and in the five years we were in touch he had never returned to drugs or alcohol, and had not been in trouble with the courts.

Fourteen-year-old S.B. had had a tough life. He was considered a poor learner; he got D’s and F’s in everything, and required special education programs. Behaviorally, S.B. was a problem as well. He had already been arrested three times for burglary and theft. Even though he had been through child guidance, juvenile court and intensive psychological therapy, nothing had helped. His father was referred to my office and the boy was helped as a result.

When S.B. was given a Glucose Tolerance Test at the Baron Clinic, it was discovered he was severely hypoglycemic. His diet bore this out as he survived on ice cream, carbonated drinks, donuts and candy. We worked [165] with his parents to help turn his diet around.

Once again, the results were swift. Within two grading periods he was able to enter regular classes again, and got on better with friends and schoolwork. He found a part time job, and his grades improved to B’s and C’s. He graduated from high school, obtained a full-time job and played in his own band. He had not been in trouble during the ten years we were in contact.

As remarkable as this change was, S.B. said it took him three years before he was completely convinced that it was sugar that was responsible for his problems. But looking back, he realized, “Whenever I ate sugar I got so bad my friends didn’t want to be around me.” Yet today, the boy that the teachers and psychologists had given up on is a bright and alert young man.

The orthomolecular approach works with people over 20 as well:

Mrs. S: This 51-year-old woman was referred to me after she was convicted of petty theft. Her life had been a catalog of emotional crises; for the last several years she had grown continually more tense, argumentative and confused. Physicians had placed Mrs. S. on powerful tranquilizers, and these contributed still further to her inability to cope with life. She had been hospitalized eight times for tranquilizer overdose, and for months had been unable to drive or work.

When Mrs. S. and her husband first came into my office, I had to recheck my files to be sure I had her age right. This woman didn’t look 51 years old; I could swear by the way she tottered in on her husband’s arm, peering [166] dimly around, that she could have been an unhealthy 80. She was depressed, exhausted, couldn’t keep her balance, and had been losing her vision. She could scarcely pay attention during our interview.

Privately, her husband told me of his desperation. He could no longer tolerate life with this woman who was swiftly becoming a physical and emotional cripple. “As soon as she gets a little better,” he said, “I’m divorcing her.”

As the two of them left my office, N.S. clung to her husband for support. When they got to the door, the man let go of his wife for a moment to search for his car keys. She toppled over, coming to rest in a crumpled heap against the wall.

I knew this woman was a victim of something more than mere emotional stress. I sent her to the Baron Clinic for a glucose tolerance test. My suspicions were confirmed: N.S. was hypoglycemic. She was also given chelation treatments by Dr. Baron to help rid her body of a high level of lead.

Mrs. S. was placed on the corrective diet described earlier. Her recovery was almost immediate. After only one week of treatment for low blood sugar and lead detox, she was once again able to drive a car. In two weeks, she returned to work. When she made her routine appearance in court two and one-half months later, she was clearly a changed woman. Once again I doubted her official age; this time she looked younger than 51! She was bright, alert, energetic. She told the judge she hadn’t felt so good in 10 years and no one challenged her testimony.

[167] To this day, Mrs. S. has been out of trouble. For a probation officer, that is gratification enough. But there’s another happy sidelight to this success story: as N.S. regained her mental and physical health, her husband, who had been so ready to end their marriage, fell in love with her again. As she returned to her former self, her husband followed her around like a teenage sweetheart. For N.S., orthomolecular treatment saved a marriage and salvaged a life.

D.D. was a pretty, dark-haired 30-year-old who was brought to me after her arrest for driving under the influence of drugs. But D.D. was no patron of back alley dope dealers; the drugs which got her into trouble were prescribed.

D.D. had a history of emotional instability. For eight years she spent much of her time in a psychiatric ward. In 1968 she became terribly depressed over the death of her dog, and her doctors responded by putting her on seven different psychoactive drugs. In addition, in the four years from 1968 to 1972 she received over 50 electroshock treatments.

Her world was a waking nightmare. She frequently felt that she was floating in space, looking helplessly down at her own inert body. She would black out for long periods. There were days when she would simply lie in bed, struggling to maintain her tenacious grip on reality. “That is my dresser,” she would tell herself. “It really is my dresser. I am lying in bed. I am really here.”

Her doctors voiced concern over the quantities of drugs she was taking. “You’ve really got to control your [168] drug use,” they told her, but they continued to provide a steady supply of mood-altering chemicals.

At last they attempted to take her off drugs entirely, but her withdrawal symptoms were severe: she shook constantly, and could not rally the strength even to go to the bathroom. Admitting failure, the doctors put her back on “medication.” She was under the mind bending influence of these drugs when she was arrested.

When I first saw D.D., she was a mess. Her eyes were dull, her hair looked dry and brittle, and she seemed depressed, exhausted and tense. I asked her to fill out the standard hypoglycemia questionnaire, and she indicated 42 symptoms. Dr. Baron’s diagnosis confirming hypoglycemia came as no surprise.

Corrective therapy was not an easy experience for D.D. She found the diet inconvenient at first, and she could hardly choke down the vitamins which were prescribed to help correct her nutritional imbalances. But she gave the program her grudging tolerance; “I’ll stay on the diet long enough to get off probation,” she told herself. “Then I’ll do what I want.”

Things didn’t work out the way D.D. had planned. After a year on the program her physical and mental health improved so remarkably that she didn’t want to return to drug abuse. D.D. regained glowing good health, and began living a normal, drug-free life. Her long nightmare was over.

I did not meet L.R. until he was 31, but like so many of my probationers his problems started in adolescence. He had been in trouble with the police since the age of [169] 15. He had been put on probation after being charged with telephone harassment. Getting a menacing phone call from L.R. must have been a chilling experience. His voice was hollow and lifeless, as if it were coming from somewhere far away. He told me his body felt dead and I could easily believe it. He looked dead.

L.R. had a number of physical and emotional problems that were ruining his life. He suffered excruciating headaches and frequently broke into drenching sweats. His alcoholism was growing worse. Despite his 130 I.Q. he had lost several jobs, and was on the verge of losing the one he now held. L.R. had seen psychiatrists for four years before his arrest, but they had helped little.

L.R. indicated 49 symptoms on the written hypoglycemia test, and was placed on a corrective diet. He seemed to come alive before our eyes. Within two weeks the sweating and headaches had stopped. By the end of 1976 his appearance and behavior had been transformed, and he was given a promotion on the very job he had been in danger of losing. But the “new” L.R. was not content merely to hang on – he wanted to move up. He went back to school to study civil engineering, and married a legal secretary. L.R. was once again a living man.

These recoveries may seem miraculous, but at the Municipal Court of Cuyahoga Falls they were a regular occurrence. I have seen hundreds of other probationers every bit as desperate as these make full recoveries. And for every hopeless case like the ones above, there have been thousands of simple shoplifters, drunk drivers and [170] street brawlers whose lives have been similarly reclaimed through nutritional therapy. I have seen it happen far too many times to dismiss it as coincidence or fluke or as the result of some “placebo effect.” The orthomolecular approach works.

I am not alone in my enthusiasm for dietary correction. Hundreds of institutions have tried the technique and are sold on it. There is simply no room here to list them all, but let me mention some that have attracted the most attention.

Exciting verification of the nutritional path came in a 1980 study of kids in Tidewater juvenile detention home in Virginia Beach, VA. The behavior of the boys who ate this home’s “normal” menu (high in sugar and processed foods) was compared to that of a later group of boys whose sugar intake was secretly reduced. Of course, the dietary changes themselves were noticeable: Sugar syrup was washed off canned fruit, fruit juices replaced sugared soft drinks, honey replaced table sugar, and high sugar breakfast cereals, jelly and sugared cinnamon for sprinkling on toast were removed. But neither the boys nor the staff of the home were told that the aim of the menu changes was to reduce sugar intake, or that the boys’ behavior was being studied.

The results were astonishing. The 24 boys on the reduced-sugar diet showed a 45 percent lower incidence of formal disciplinary actions than the boys on the earlier diet. A separate group of eight boys who had been incarcerated before the diet change was studied as a “before and after” group. They showed a 55 percent reduction in disciplinary actions after sugar was reduced in [171] their diet, a drop which is far too large to be attributed to “learning the ropes” at the home.²⁶

In 1996 Frank Kern, Program Director stated they had evolved to just having a cook prepare macrobiotic foods. When the juveniles are brought in to Tidewater they are violent, angry and miserable and inform the personnel they aren’t going to “eat that slop.” They are told that is just fine – they do not have to eat it. By the following day they are hungry and begin to eat the very healthful, good food. By the end of the week they have quieted and are “different kids.” Each teenager is given a diet to follow when they leave Tidewater.

Alex Schauss, Ph.D., has demonstrated in a controlled study the value of the nutritional approach as a tool for probation officers. A study sample of 102 misdemeanant probationers were divided into four groups. One group received nutritional counseling, one group was shown nutrition education material, and the other two groups got conventional casework and counseling. Probationers given nutritional information were significantly less likely to be re-arrested than those who got standard counseling. In fact, the combined recidivism rate of the nutrition groups was 14.7 percent, less than half that of the control group.²⁷

Dr. Carolyn Brown is Executive Director of The Growing Mind, an institution in Berkeley, California, which provides orthomolecular treatment for violent and delinquent juveniles. Early health problems convinced her of the link between hypoglycemia, allergies, toxicities and behavior. In Congressional testimony in 1977, she told of her enthusiasm for the nutritional approach [172]:

We have seen incredible results in the last two years. The most noticeable one is the one related to blood sugar. If we give these children protein every two hours, their behavior is kept very much in better control. Compared to that first two or three months, the difference is amazing. The children are learning to read, depending on their disabilities. The children have truly moved ahead. They probably would have been the kind of children that would never have been in school again.²⁸

Another remarkable person, Tamara Youngman, ran a small group home for young people with behavioral problems in Fairmount, Illinois. The home was called the Purple Heart Homestead. Youths at the homestead were put on a vegetarian diet. In addition they were given dietary drug detoxification, as well as vitamin therapy to correct any metabolic distortions caused by past drug abuse. The orthomolecular treatment that juveniles received at the Purple Heart Homestead has proven effective in eliminating their mood swings and aggressive behavior. Youngman and the Homestead developed a reputation throughout the state for rehabilitating youths who had been kicked out of other programs, written off as hopeless. Unfortunately, due to a lack of funding, the Purple Heart Homestead no longer exists! ²⁹

The dietary approach has also proved effective in other areas of criminal justice. Officials at the Montgomery County Detention Center in Maryland found that inmates were unruly and had poor morale when continually served pre-packaged, processed meals. Their [173] behavior improved when they were given a diet containing less sugar, more fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grain bread.³⁰ Chief Warrant Officer Gene Baker of the U.S. Naval Correctional Center in Seattle, Washington, saw similar improvement in detainees when refined carbohydrates were removed from the diet and replaced with whole foods. Baker began the program in 1978, and a year later was able to write:

Since this time, the medical log shows a definite decrease in the number of confinees at sick call, a decrease of those on medication has occurred, and disciplinary reports for this year are down 12 percent from the same time frame of last year.³¹

Nor is this all. The orthomolecular approach has also been found helpful in controlling hyperactivity in children,³² and alcoholism,³³ schizophrenia,³⁴ and neuroses³⁵ in juveniles and adults.

With the repeated successes of nutritional methods, one would think that orthomolecular treatment would be revolutionizing our criminal justice system. Unfortunately, it is not. Ignoring scientific evidence and thousands of clinical reports, many in the psychiatric, law enforcement and rehabilitation communities still dismiss dietary treatment as quackery. The orthomolecular approach isn’t “high-tech” enough; it isn’t complicated and expensive; it doesn’t require powerful drugs and armies of M.D.s. How could it possibly be effective? Dr. Alexander Schauss, one of the handful of experts in the field of diet and behavior, sums up the scope of ignorance concerning the orthomolecular path:
[174] When I spoke before both the National Juvenile Court and Family Judges Association and the California Legislature’s Commission on Crime Control and Violence Prevention, members of both groups expressed a concern that criminal justice officials and schools were ill-equipped to diagnose or treat children and youths who have biochemical imbalances and break the law. They are correct. Through 1981 virtually no training of criminal justice officials existed in any English-speaking country that draws upon the wealth of medical and scientific information potentially of practical value to such officials.³⁶

America has yet to reap the enormous potential for saving lives, and saving billions of dollars, offered by the orthomolecular approach. But I believe that it is an idea whose time has come, an idea with an intrinsic power which will overcome all remaining barriers. When it does, it will have a tremendous impact on every aspect of the criminal justice system, from parent to prison guard. It is the vast implications of the orthomolecular approach to which we now turn.

NOTES
1. Moses Maimonides, quoted in William Philpott and Dwight Kalita, Brain Allergies (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing Inc., 1980), p. 3.
2. Alexander Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency (Berkeley, Cali-fornia: Parker House, 1981), p. 95.
3. Theodore B. Dolmatch, ed., 1980 Information Please Almanac (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), p. 818.

[175]
4. Joan McCord, “A Thirty-Year Follow-Up of Treatment Effects,” American Psychologist, March 1978, pp. 284-289.
5. Leonard Broom and Philip Selznick, Sociology: A Text with Adapted Readings, Sixth ed. (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1977), p. 427.
6. Philip Selznick, “Preface” in Elliot Studt, Sheldon L. Messinger and Thomas P. Wilson, C Unit: Search for Community in Prison (New York: Russel Sage, 1968).
7. James Q. Wilson, Thinking About Crime (New York: Basic Books, 1975), p. 209.
8. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 3.
9. Linus Pauling, “Orthomolecular Psychiatry,” in David Hawkins and Linus Pauling, eds., Orthomolecular Psychiatry (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1973), p. 2.
10. Scott Knickelbine, “Boy oh Boy, Do We Have Plans for You: The Food Industry,” Acres, U.S.A., September 1982, p. 9.
11. Information from the Nutrition Institute, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, quoted in “Supplementation of Foods vs. Nutrition Education,” Food Technology, July 1974, p. 58.
12. Roger J. WiIIiams, Biochemical Individuality (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1977).
13. R.A. Harte and B. Chow, “Dietary Interrelationships,” in M.G. Wohl and R.S. Goodhard, Modem Nutrition in Health and Disease, 3rd. ed. (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger, 1964), pp. 534-544.
14. Tom Gorman, “Now We Know Wheat Does Beat White,” Bakery, 1981, p. 53.
15. Knickelbine, “Boy oh Boy...”, op. cit.
16. Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet (New York: Ballantine, 1975).
17. Michael F. Jacobson, The Changing American Diet (Center for Science in the Public Interest).
18. Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate, Dietary Goals for the United States (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1971).
19. Paul Stitt, Beating the Food Giants (Manitowoc, Wisconsin:20. “Breads,” Consumer Reports, September 1982, pp. 438-443.
21. William Duffy, Sugar Blues (New York: Warner Books, 1975), p. 206.
22. Philpott and Kalita, Brain Allergies, pp. 28-49.

[Page 176]
23. Richard M. Restak, The Brain: The Last Frontier (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1979), p. 76.
24. “Thorazine,” in Charles E. Baker, Jr., ed., 1981 Physicians’ Desk Reference (Oradell, New Jersey: Medical Economics Company, 1981), p. 1691.
25. Stephen J. Schoenthaler, “The Effect of Sugar on the Treatment and Control of Antisocial Behavior,” The International Journal for Biosocial Research, 1981, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 1-9.
26. Ibid.
27. Alexander G. Schauss, Ph. D., “Differential Outcomes Among Probationers Comparing Orthomolecular Approaches to Conventional Casework/Counseling,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 158-168.
28. Testimony of Dr. Carolyn Brown, in Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate, Diet Related to Killer Diseases, V.: Nutrition and Mental Health (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1977), pp. 44-54.29. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, pp. 6-7.
30. Select Committee on Nutrition, Dietary Goals, p. 52.
31. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 6.
32. Ben F. Feingold, “Dietary Management of Behavior and Learning Disabilities,” in Sanford A. Miller, Nutrition and Behavior (Philadelphia: Franklin Institute Press, 1981), pp. 235-246.
33. E. Cheraskin and W.M. Ringsdorf Jr., with Arline Brecher, Psychodietetics (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), pp. 43-56.
34. David Hawkins, “Orthomolecular Psychiatry: Treatment of Schizo-phrenia,” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, pp. 631-673.
35. Kay Hill, “Orthomolecular Therapy Review of the Literature,” in Roger J. Williams and Dwight K. Kalita, eds., A Physician’s Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine (New York: Pergamon Press, 1977), pp. 184-195.
36. Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency, p. 15.

[Page 177]
Chapter Five

Implications

I believe that the most important pathway to mental and physical health is the conviction that improvement is possible, no matter what the condition or the age of the person may be. ~Lendon Smith¹

The paradigm that is replacing (old medical views of human sickness) is, of course, orthomolecular medicine because it ... gather(s), like butterflies in a net, all the bits and pieces of widely diversified research and crystallize(s) them into a new image of man.
~Helen G. First²

I am always surprised that so many of my colleagues are surprised that nutrition has something to do with behavior. ~Abram Hoffer³

In this book we have examined in much detail the connection between food and behavior. We have looked at the ways diet can influence the subtle chemistry of the brain, seen some of the techniques used to determine if a [178] behavior problem has a metabolic root, explored a diet which has proven enormously effective in helping to correct behavior, and looked at the great triumphs of the orthomolecular approach. With the force of current research and clinical experience firmly behind the concept that proper nutrition can prevent delinquency and crime, we too may be a little surprised that anyone still doubts the links between nutrition and behavior.

But the fact is that we live in a society whose hospitals, schools, universities, courts, prisons and mental institutions are formed around models of human behavior far different from the ones offered by the orthomolecular psychiatrist. I and others believe that the failure of these institutions to cure, educate, readjust and correct is traceable to the failures of these underlying models. Furthermore, we feel certain that the adoption of the orthomolecular model will require society to rethink the ways that these institutions are run.

The orthomolecular approach to mental and behavioral problems is revolutionary, yet the revolution it proposes need not be a bloody one. To the contrary, our experience has been that nutritional and orthomolecular approaches are tremendously liberating concepts. The orthomolecular nutritionist, far from replacing the parent, teacher, psychologist, judge or social worker, helps all of these to carry out their roles in a much more effective and successful way. And there’s nothing more gratifying than success.

What precisely are the implications of the orthomolecular approach for those who deal with juvenile delinquency and other kinds of behavior problems?

[Page 179]

Parents
Nutrition begins at home. Parents are responsible for far more than just what their kids have for supper; the food behavior habits they instill almost from the moment of birth will influence how the child will think about food for the rest of his or her life. If the child is allowed or even encouraged by the example of his or her parents to indulge in processed foods, junk foods, refined sugar, cola or coffee, cigarettes or alcohol, then that child will continue those habits after leaving home, and will in all probability join the swelling ranks of the victims of heart disease, diabetes, hypoglycemia, cancer, psychosis and schizophrenia which clog our nation’s hospitals and prisons. If, on the other hand, the child is taught to value and enjoy whole, fresh fruits and vegetables and learns to associate what he or she eats to how he or she feels, then that child will almost certainly grow up to be a healthy, happy, fully functioning adult. This is not to say that your kids will never have problems in life; they will, however, have the biological equipment necessary to deal with problems in healthy and constructive ways.

I have heard a common complaint from parents at the hundreds of seminars I have given across the United States: “My kids just won’t eat decent food!” One of the rationalizations often used to justify the processed and sweetened fare served in the school cafeteria is that children just won’t eat anything else. Sometimes this line of reasoning is taken to absurd lengths.

I remember one woman who begged me desperately [180] for some way to get her child off junk foods. “She just stuffs herself with candy and other garbage all day long,” the mother told me. “How can I stop her?”

“How old is your daughter?” I asked. She replied, “Three years old.”

If the situation weren’t so dreadfully serious, I might have laughed aloud. Surely no three-year-old is able to make the capital outlay for a day’s supply of junk food (to say nothing of being able to reach the checkout counter). Our children cannot become “sugarholics” without our cooperation. If you don’t buy this poisonous stuff for your kids, they won’t be able to eat it.

If your children are already in their teens, of course, the task of reforming their diet is more difficult. More of their food decisions are made outside the home, where supervision is impossible. Peer pressure can have a great impact on the nature of these decisions, and those who turn down cola, candy, pizza and alcohol may be ostracized as “weird.” At home, the sugar-addicted teen may be a bit more forceful than the preschooler in resisting any change in his or her diet.

And, whether the child in question is a tot or teen, any dietary change must take place in a family context. Getting rid of the cola in the refrigerator, and the cake on the table will affect all your children, as well as a wife or husband who may be far from convinced that any change is needed. (Getting the whole family exercising eases and aids the transition.)

Needless to say, no surefire method exists for “de-junking” your family. But the two watchwords for any such effort are education and moderation. Let your [181] family know how the things they eat can make them feel. This book can help in that regard; I have listed other excellent resources in the Appendix. Have them watch for their own reactions to food. You can lecture some-one about hypoglycemia all you want; it’s when they feel that weakness, hunger and irritability two hours after a meal that they really begin to catch on.

Moderation is also important. It’s probably never a good idea to run through the kitchen, throwing away all the breakfast cereal and chocolate milk. The three-year-old will scream; the 13-year-old will revolt. I’ve found it best to systematically “forget” to buy those processed and junk foods that your children crave. Forget the macaroni and cheese one week, the popsicles the next, the white bread the next. At the same time you can be replacing these unhealthy food items with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, lean unprocessed meats and cheeses and nuts in the shell.

While you are the major influence on your child’s eating behavior, you are unfortunately not the only one. Television, especially the programming aimed at children, is filled with commercials proclaiming how delicious, desirable and wholesome all those chips, sugared cereal, candy bars, cakes and soft drinks are. The Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission refuse to limit or regulate these attempts by multinational conglomerates to seduce our children into eating things that can do them no good, and a great deal of harm. The television networks simply run a couple of 30-second cheap puppet shows about the importance of vegetables and claim they’ve done their [182] best at “self-regulation.”

While we certainly ought to protest these massively funded attempts on the lives of our children, we as parents must take direct action if we are to protect kids from this kind of exploitation. Finding things for kids to do as an alternative to watching TV is a good first step, although demanding that they never watch is probably a bit too stringent. Try not to use the television as a babysitter, however; watch TV with your kids, and help them understand that something is not good to eat just because the clown on the screen says it is. One sharp mother I know makes a game of this: “What’s this commercial trying to make us think?” she asks, and her kids are getting pretty good at ferreting out the misinformation being pushed on the tube.

Another source of influence on your child’s eating behavior is school. What we learned in the elementary school classroom is, for too many of us, all we may ever know about nutrition. Even today, the quality of nutrition education in our schools gives us little reason for optimism. A 1982 review by the Center for Science in the Public Interest showed that four of the five major high school health textbooks completely ignore the important Dietary Goals issued by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, that three of them make little mention of dangerous food additives, and most contain only poor to average discussions of the dangers of too much salt, fat and cholesterol, while under stressing the need for dietary fiber.⁴ It is not unusual for the “educational material” distributed in many classrooms to be free handouts from major refined and [183] processed food companies.

The damage done in the classroom is often compounded in the cafeteria. Here the student is confronted with meals which, while they may conform to the outmoded dictates of the “Four Basic Food Groups,” are nevertheless too high in sugar, hydrogenated fat, salt and additives and too deficient in vitamins, minerals and fiber. And many schools have simply abandoned their hot lunch programs, turning the nourishment of their pupils over to vending machine companies which prefer to stock high profit, long shelf life items like candy, soda and snack cakes to fresh fruits and vegetables. Some high schools even operate in house candy stores to raise money. The teachers in such schools say that the students’ behavior is noticeably worse after the candy store opens, but nobody seems to make the connection.

The only way to overcome this sort of influence is to become personally involved. Find out what kind of information is being presented in your child’s health and nutrition classes. If you feel the material is unbalanced, make your thoughts known to your child’s teacher, to the PTA and to the school board and be prepared to back up your statements with the sort of research you have read in this book. Organize other nutrition conscious parents to get non-nourishing products removed from lunch programs and vending machines, and encourage your school to investigate the many ways they can provide food that’s both delicious and life supporting. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done. Schools all over the nation are doing it right now!⁵ One courageous fighter for better school lunch programs, Sara Sloan, developed [184] the Nutra program, a series of classes and workshops for students, teachers and parents, showing them all the value of whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables. The Nutra program is fun, exciting and effective.⁶

Do what you can to help your school teach good nutrition. In the meantime, send a bag lunch. It’s not hard or expensive to provide your child with a meal that’s much more enticing than the garbage the school may be offering.

However hard you try to limit the amount of nutritional misinformation your child or teen is exposed to, it’s impossible (and probably undesirable) to isolate him or her completely. The ultimate defense is to make sure your children understand why junk food is bad for their bodies and their minds. Let them know they’ll have better stamina, they’ll feel happier and have more energy to do the things that they want to do if they eat foods that nourish them. You might also let them know that the proper diet will help them avoid the ravages of acne, give them shinier, more attractive hair, and generally improve the way they look, something any teenager is naturally concerned with.

The nutritional approach also has many positive implications for parents with teens already in trouble. Too many theories have attempted to place the blame for delinquency, neurosis and schizophrenia squarely on the shoulders of the parents. Psychologists and social workers have taken these theories seriously, and have sometimes made families feel extremely guilty for their alleged role in the unbalancing of their child. The result has been to make families uncooperative in the [185] counselor’s attempts to help the child and the process goes nowhere.⁷

Knowing that poor diet, allergies and toxicities can be major contributors to delinquent behavior and mental illness can be a tremendously encouraging thing to parents. It removes much of the senseless mystery imposed by traditional psychiatry, and relieves the anxiety that they have somehow “made the kid crazy.” Knowing that mental dysfunction is fundamentally biochemical gives parents great hope that something can be done; moreover, it gives them something to do. They can take a direct part in bringing their child back to full health, rather than simply standing mutely by while the doctor or psychologist takes over.

In short, then, the orthomolecular understanding of the human brain means that parents shape their children’s behavior in a way perhaps more profound than teaching them right from wrong. By the way they feed their children, and the way they teach their teens to feed them-selves, they help the child develop the sort of healthy nervous system which will help them discern right from wrong, and to act in healthy and productive ways. Healthy, happy kids (and adults) simply don’t get into trouble. In a sense, parents are the biochemical managers of their children. It is a responsibility they must not neglect, and one they dare not perform in ignorance.

Psychiatry and Psychology
The orthomolecular approach must have every bit as much impact on psychiatrists, psychologists and other types of counselors as it does on parents. But unlike [186] parents, psychiatric professionals tend to be less pragmatic. Rather than exploring whatever works and discarding what does not, professionals must fit studies and techniques into the notions of human behavior they picked up in school. If a therapy or a report makes sense in terms of the latest paradigm of how people think and act, then it is accepted, or at least discussed, no matter whether there’s any clinical evidence that it works. However, if a therapy calls into question the basic models, it is frequently rejected out of hand, regardless of the amount of clinical evidence which supports it. This is precisely what is now happening in the field of Orthomolecular Psychiatry. It calls into question all the things psychiatrists, psychologists and doctors have been taught about human behavior. As a result, orthomolecular psychiatry has been reviled in mainstream medical journals, the studies which support it have been simply ignored, the publications which deal with it have been denied listings in important indexes, and the physicians who practice it have been threatened with censure or revocation of their license.⁸

To understand why orthomolecular psychiatry has met such fierce opposition, we need to know a little about the history of psychiatry. Through most of human his-tory, people have been thought of as consisting of two distinct parts: the physical, or body, and the mental, or spirit. This “ghost in the machine” model of the person makes sense in terms of our basic perceptions. We sense our thoughts and emotions directly, while we sense our bodies only secondarily (through sensations of sight, touch, smell, etc.). Thus it seems to make sense that the [187] thing that does the thinking and deciding and wanting (the mind) is a different sort of thing than that which does the moving and eating and feeling (the body).

As a result, we make a distinction between “sickness” (when something is wrong with the body itself) and “madness” (when something is wrong with what the body is doing – that is, behavior). When we are sick, we seek to cure the body. When we are depressed, frightened, unable to make decisions, or unable to separate reality from hallucination, we try to cure the mind.

But how do we cure the mind? How do we heal the ghost in the machine? Many techniques have been tried through the ages. The earliest notions of mental illness involved demon possession; the rightful ghost was being supplanted by one or more alien, evil ghosts. The solution was thought to involve prayer, or perhaps physical beating. Later it was thought that insanity was a result of some moral defect. The insane person just had a bad ghost inside, and there was nothing to do but lock both it and the machine it inhabited away. This notion led to the establishment of great warehouses for the mentally ill, such as London’s notorious Bethlehem Hospital, whose name gives us the modem term “bedlam.”

With the advent of Sigmund Freud and his theories in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, psychiatry took a new and, it must be admitted, somewhat more humane tum. Freud divided the mind into the conscious and the unconscious, and postulated that mental illness was caused by internal conflicts generated in childhood. Freud developed psychoanalysis based on his theories, in which the analyst discovered these conflicts by [188] examining the childhood memories of the patient. Once these conflicts were brought to the conscious, the patient could make progress overcoming them, and become sane.

Since Freud there have been many different psychological theories, put forward by eminent researchers like Fedem, Jung, Rogers, Meyer, etc. The theories have led to a plethora of different therapies: dream analysis, family therapy, confrontation therapy, primal scream, client centered therapy, and hundreds of variations on Freudian psychoanalysis. All are based on the notion that we must cure the ghost in the machine. Even as the science of neurochemistry grew, and researchers learned more and more about how brain chemistry influenced behavior, the psychiatric professions still clung to the notion that the path of mental health lay in dealing with a mind that was somehow disassociated from the body.

While these techniques have been sometimes useful in helping people deal with minor conflicts or “hangups,” the fact is that they simply haven’t worked in cases of serious mental and behavioral disorders. The evidence is quite clear that traditional psychotherapy has done little or nothing to cure schizophrenia⁹ or other psychoses,¹⁰ and that it is ineffective in preventing delinquency¹¹or in modifying the behavior of convicted criminals.¹² In fact, psychiatry as it has been practiced has been such a dismal failure that one author has been moved to call it “the impossible profession.”¹³

This failure has led many psychiatrists to examine the notion that indeed the mind and the body might not be completely disassociated; that the chemistry and functioning of the brain might have a direct impact on [189] behavior. Two of the founders of the orthomolecular approach, Abram Hoffer and Humphry Osmond, were at the forefront of the biochemical approach in the 1950’s as they began their treatment of schizophrenics with massive doses of niacin. Their results were promising, but something happened which forced them into the background of mainstream psychiatry: the invention and marketing of phenothiazines, tranquilizing drugs which immediately dealt with some of the more disturbing symptoms of psychosis.¹⁴

The orthomolecular approach took a back seat to this new type of chemical intervention for a number of reasons. Psychoactive drugs work within minutes; nutrients and dietary correction take days or weeks to show benefits. Tranquilizers are patentable, and the producers of them stand to make a big profit by advertising them aggressively; vitamins like niacin are inexpensive and easy to get, and so there is little money in publicizing them. There is one other reason that should not be ignored: psychoactive drugs are complex, difficult to synthesize and, of course, very risky; in short, they generate the kind of excitement that turns many doctors on.¹⁵ Vitamins are simple, mundane and harmless but not terribly glamorous.

Yet, for all the commotion generated by the mind drugs, they too are proving to be a psychiatric dead end. While they deal rapidly with symptoms, they do nothing to cure the disease that has been left to psychotherapy, which, as we have seen, does little to reverse mental illness. In the meantime, these drugs can be extremely addictive, and can create grotesque side effects such as [190] tardive dyskinesia, Thus, many psychiatrists are coming to realize that this kind of chemical intervention is not much more useful than earlier strategies for coping with mental illness.

As a result, some are returning to the orthomolecular approach. Dr. Jack L. Ward, once a traditional psychotherapist, describes his “conversion” this way:

“My practice began to have its frustrating aspects. The heady experiences of being able to communicate with some schizophrenic patients on a highly symbolic or primary level, the identification of “double binds, “ the demonstration of the workings of the “schizophrenogenic” mother, etc., seemed to have little value in the treatment of my patients. Major tranquilizers and antidepressants were useful, but large doses were necessary and had to be continued indefinitely. Too often the dose necessary to control the symptoms also kept the patient on the level of a semi-functioning zombie. And even so, there were relapses. At about this time, I learned from Hoffer and Osmond that massive doses of niacinamide and ascorbic acid could modify the LSD state ...” ¹⁶

Dr. Allan Cott describes a similar discovery through despair:

I began an assessment of my discouraging clinical results and faced the appalling reality that after 22 years of general internship, four years of specialty training, and three years of military experience in psychiatry, I had spent the fallowing 22 years treating 25-30 neurotic patients each year! When the use of psychotropics and antidepressants was introduced, [191] these added a new dimension to the treatment of schizophrenia, but the clinical results, the alarming side effects, and drugging effects patients experienced with the large doses necessary to control their illness, while less discouraging than previous treatments, still led me to continue searching.¹⁷

Both these men were brought to the orthomolecular approach, and both stayed with it because it worked.

This is perhaps the primary reason why the practice of orthomolecular psychiatry continues to grow, despite the fact that little funding is available for research, and the studies that have been done are largely ignored or suppressed by the mainstream psychiatric media: the approach is extremely successful. Many psychiatrists, frustrated for years at their inability to help the mentally ill with standard treatment methods, are overjoyed at the improvement from megavitamin therapy, dietary correction and allergy prevention. This is how Dr. David Hawkins describes the experience of one agency, the Youth Consultation Service, when they began to experiment with the “medical” (i.e., biochemical) model of mental illness:

It is expensive and inefficient to try to treat schizophrenia by dealing primarily with the difficult social situations which the patients frequently present because of their functional impairment. When this agency began to experiment with the medical model, they discovered that they could double the effective output of their organization, because the [192] previously unrecognized and undiagnosed illnesses of their clients were now being detected and adequately treated. As the patients clinically improved, the need for extensive social case work services was greatly reduced.

Following the medical model, we try to correct or compensate for a basic medical [biochemical] defect, and if the treatment method is correct the secondary signs and symptoms will disappear. Normal emotionality will then progressively return, the capacity to form interpersonal relationships will re-emerge, and social functioning will improve ... In many patients, therefore, full recovery should occur with no other treatment than strictly medical [biochemcal] help.¹⁸

This success, if it is to be obtained, however, will call for some changes in modem psychiatry. Doctors-in-training will have to be taught the basics of nutrition (something that still doesn’t happen in most medical schools¹⁹) and how diet affects neurochemistry and thus behavior. But more importantly, they will have to abandon the strictly dualistic, “ghost-in-the-machine” image of the human person, and adopt a more wholistic image, an image in which “body” and “mind” are unified aspects of the total individual. This is perhaps the crucial step, and the most difficult; one very respected and highly-placed psychiatrist has adamantly proclaimed,

“Even if every other psychiatrist in the country believed in vitamin therapy, I would not believe in it.”²⁰ Fortunately, such irrational rejection of the orthomolecular [193] approach is being overcome; in psychiatric conventions the nutritional and dietary approach is receiving more notice.²¹

It is interesting to note that in order to get research published when involving animals the protocol must include nutrient supplementation. However, for human research, if nutrient supplementation is included the results will not be published in the scientific journals.

The orthomolecular approach is rewarding for the psychiatric patient as well as the practitioner. For too long psychiatric patients have been made to feel guilty for their illness. For too long they have been told that their overpowering fears and terrifying sensory distortions were the product of some obscure “search for meaning,” were visited upon them by their mothers, or were due to deep internal conflicts over which they had little control. This medical model teaches them that mental illness is a biochemical disease, like any other, and that it can be treated biochemically. Such a revelation is nothing less than the gift of hope, and can greatly increase a patient’s cooperation in his or her own healing process.²²

All this is not to say that the orthomolecular approach will make psychotherapy and other types of counseling obsolete. Most of our behavior, and certainly all of our social interactions, are the product both of our biological equipment and our training. The orthomolecular psychiatrist restores the ability to live a meaningful and healthy life. As such, metabolic correction is the primary form of treatment. Yet some people, especially those who have suffered from physical disorders since [194] childhood, will need to learn how to interact normally with the environment and the people in it. Thus psychotherapy will still have an important place in the treatment of those with emotional and behavioral disorders.²³

The Criminal Justice System
In Chapter Four we looked at the inability of the criminal justice system to deal with the enormous workload it faces. Despite the billions of dollars spent annually to secure the blessings of justice, despite the fact that the courts are handling over 33,000 more cases a year in 1994 than in 1950²⁴, the criminal justice system seems more plagued with problems and inefficiency than ever. The rights of both offenders and victims are being abused daily by a system which, while attempting to be prompt and fair, is in actuality too overloaded to be either. The result is that justice is perverted almost as frequently as it is upheld.

And what happens after an individual is convicted? The old dream of turning prison houses into modem rehabilitation centers has decayed and crumbled in the fight of reality. The fact is that, far from being made more capable of functioning in society, ex-convicts are far more likely to become involved in new crimes after leaving prison. Instead of any sort of rehabilitation, prisoners are subjected to physical deprivation, sexual abuse, official indifference and a refresher course in crime. As a result, the return rate of prison parolees is close to 70 percent. And because the prisons are now crowded far beyond capacity, each new person sentenced to incarceration means another criminal who must be released [195] early to make room, sometimes much too soon for any realistic effort at rehabilitation to be made.

All of this inefficiency and waste carries with it a mind boggling price tag. Nearly $26 billion was spent on the criminal justice system in the United States in 1980, and over $90 billion in 1995 – the majority of it on jails and prisons. That’s not too hard to believe, when you consider that there were over a million inmates serving more than one year in state and federal prisons in 1995, and another 350,000 in county and local jails.²⁵ The story of our criminal justice system is summed up all too simply: wasted money, wasted lives.

Note: $90,000,000,000 divided by 1,3509,000 inmates (state and federal prisons and local jails) = $66,666 spent per convict, on average, for arrest, trial, and incarceration!!

According to the National Research Council there were 6,455,800 crimes of violence in 1988. Nearly one-third of the 19 million crime victimizations reported in 1990 involved violence. The homicide rates (23,000 people in 1990) far exceed those in any other industrialized nation. For other violent crimes, rates in the United States are among the world’s highest. Violence is considered to be a relationship to other social problems (e.g., mental illness, drug abuse and alcohol abuse.)

Can the orthomolecular approach do anything to alleviate these problems? This is one area where the benefits of treating delinquency and criminality with dietary correction have been convincingly illustrated. My own experience with dietary correction, in which the recidivism rate of my probationers was sharply reduced, is one example, and there are many more. When the Alameda County Probation Department of Oakland, California, cut sugar and sugared foods out of the menu of their juvenile detention centers, they found that their charges [196] became much more manageable, and at the same time there were significant savings in the food budget.²⁶

When the San Luis Obispo Juvenile Probation Department started a Clinical Ecology program, they found a large majority of their probationers had hypoglycemia and other metabolic disorders. Dietary correction was extremely successful in correcting the probationers’ behavior problems.²⁷ Several other American correctional institutions have begun examining the effects of diet on the behavior of their inmates, most with equally encouraging results.

One of the most eloquent cases of the use of the orthomolecular approach in prison reform comes not from the United States, but from Portugal. European prisons are often even worse than American ones. There are, for instance, no separations between hardcore criminals and those convicted of lesser offenses. Crime, drug abuse and the beating of prisoners are common occurrences.

In the midst of this situation, the Unimave Foundation, an organization dedicated to spreading a whole foods diet to Latin America, has begun instituting its programs in Portuguese prisons, often with impressive results. Prisoners have started demanding that sugar, chemicals and processed foods be removed from their diets, and that they be allowed to have fresh vegetables and whole grains, even if they must buy them with their own pitiful funds and cook them over tiny camp stoves. When Meg Seaker, managing editor of East-West Journal, visited Cadeia Central de Lisboa (Lisbon Central Prison) in March of 1982, she saw some inspiring [197] things: hardened criminals who had gained tranquility and self-confidence for the first time in their lives. Some of the worst prisoners in Portugal were now reporting a spiritual intensity to their lives, a far cry from the hopelessness instilled by the American prison system!²⁸

If such programs could be instituted in the prisons and jails of the United States, it would undoubtedly go a long way toward enabling the criminal justice system to do the job it is supposed to do. If the incredibly high recidivism rate could be improved by even as much as 50 percent (and some trials of the orthomolecular approach suggest this is possible²⁹), thousands of cases could be removed from the dockets of the criminal courts each year. This would not only free resources so that more people could get swift and fair treatment, it would help end the situation in which convicts must be prematurely released to make room for others.

It would, in addition, make it possible for criminals to be sent where they could receive real, positive rehabilitation. Our prisons and detention centers could become something more than warehouses for the socially outcast. The savings in money, time and resources now wasted on caging human beings would be substantial, and the possibility of transforming dangerous wards of the state into productive citizens would be priceless.

What would make even more sense would be to identify and correct the biochemical imbalances at an early age and prevent the problems as is being done by William Walsh, PhD.

Society As a Whole
We have looked at some specific areas in which a realization of the orthomolecular approach could have an enormous positive impact. But we ought to remember that diet influences the behavior of everyone, not just juvenile delinquents, mental patients and prisoners. Hypoglycemia may affect literally millions of Americans,³⁰ and malnutrition may afflict a large percentage of the nation’s population.³¹ Who can begin to estimate what this means in terms of the loss of human potential? One study has suggested that low blood sugar may actually have taken a direct and violent toll on human life, by contributing to the increase in accidental death.³²

How many lives are ruined by unrecognized alcoholism, depression, inability to learn, and sensory distortion? We have seen that all these emotional and behavioral problems have their metabolic roots, and that all can be influenced by diet. If the orthomolecular concept could be accepted throughout society, the possible benefits would be beyond estimate. I do not want to suggest that turning the world on to a whole foods diet would immediately bring the end of all human problems. But when you consider the possibility of living in a safer, saner, more productive world, a world where the tragedies of human sickness and mental illness could be radically reduced, you don’t have to be a utopian dreamer to yearn to make this kind of world a reality.

It is hard to say how such a drastic change in the eating habits of the Western world could come about, especially when one considers how entrenched the huge processed food conglomerates are in our economy.³³ One [199] must remember, as well, that the kind of nutritional decimation which processed foods undergo was devised in order to minimize costs of production and maximize profits. Thus our junk food diet has been inspired by free enterprise, and it’s a little difficult to see how the people who control our food supply could be made to change their ways short of some massive direct government action. Does this mean, then, that there is no hope?

I don’t believe so. Let me direct these concluding comments specifically to parents. I don’t know of a single parent who wouldn’t do all he or she could to make their children healthy and happy or give them a better world to grow up in. Changing the world is something beyond what can be expected of any parent; but feeding your children the proper foods, giving their bodies and their minds the nutrients they require, is the very least that any parent would want to do.

This is the beautiful part, the reason why I have so much hope. If enough parents are concerned enough about nutrition to give their kids a natural, whole foods diet, many kids will grow stronger in body and mind. It seems obvious, in light of the material I have presented in this book, that an increase in well-nourished kids will bring about a decrease in delinquency, criminality, learning disabilities, aggressiveness and a host of other behavioral problems. In short, the world would become a better, safer, saner place. So by feeding your children responsibly, encouraging exercise, insisting they drink filtered water, and spreading the word about the link between diet, health and behavior, you can actually do more about changing the world than all the politicians, [200] philosophers or soldiers who have ever lived. This, I believe, is our greatest hope for the future.

NOTES
1. Lendon Smith, Feed Your Kids Right (New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1979), p. 228.
2. Helen G. First, “Anatomy of Resistance to the Emergent Paradigm: Orthomolecular Medicine,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 1980, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 253-262.
3. A. Hoffer, “Behavioral Nutrition,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 169-175.
4. Greg Moyer, “School Daze,” Nutrition Action, September 1982, pp. 169-175.
5. Scott Knickelbine, Diet and Alcoholism, Nutritional Resource Center (P.O. Box 2107, Manitowoc, Wisconsin 54220).
6. Sara Sloan, From Classroom to Cafeteria, (Food Service Program, Fulton County Schools, 786 Cleveland Avenue, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30315).
7. Cynthia C. Bisbee, “Patient Education in Psychiatric Illness,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 239-247.
8. First, “Anatomy of Resistance,” op. cit.
9. Humphry Osmond, “The Background to the Niacin Treatment,” in David Hawkins and Linus Pauling, eds, Orthomolecular Psychiatry (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1973), pp. 194-201.
10. J. Kinross-Wright, article, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1967, No. 200, pp. 461-464.
11. Joan McCord, “A Thirty-Year Follow-up of Treatment Effects,” The American Psychologist, March 1978, pp. 284-289.
12. A. Hoffer, “Crime, Punishment and Treatment,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 193-199.
13. The Impossible Profession (New York: Viking, 1981).
14. Osmond, “The Background to the Niacin Treatment,” op. cit.
15. First, “Anatomy of Resistance,” op. cit.
16. Jack L. Ward, “Conversion to Orthomolecular Treatment,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1977, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 183-185.
17. Allan Cott, “From the Traditional Approach to Biochemical Treatment,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1977, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 178-182.

[Page 201]
18. David Hawkins, “The Orthomolecular Approach to Diagnosis of Schizophrenia,” in Hawkins and Pauling, Orthomolecular Psychiatry, p. 601.
19. First, “Anatomy of Resistance,” op. cit.
20. Ibid.
21. William H. Philpott, “Observation of the 1978 American Psychiatric Convention,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 273-274.
22. Bisbee, “Patient Education,” op. cit.
23. Ibid.
24. 1981 Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of the Census, 1989), p. 184.
25. Statistical Abstract, p. 184.
26. Alexander Schauss, Diet, Crime and Delinquency (Berkeley, California: Parker House, 1981), pp. 11-13.
27. Ibid.
28. Meg Seaker, “Fighting Crime with Diet: A Report from Portugal,” East-West Journal, July 1982, pp. 26-34.
29. Alexander Schauss, “Differential Outcomes among Probationers Comparing Orthomolecular Approaches to Conventional Casework/Counseling,” Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry, 1979, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 158-168.
30. Marilyn Light, Executive Director of the Adrenal Metabolic Research Society of the Hypoglycemic Foundation, as cited in William Dufty, Sugar Blues (New York: Warner Books, 1976), p. 21.
31. Carl C. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients (New Canaan, Connecticut: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1975), p. 3.
32. Broda 0. and Charlotte W. Barnes, Hope for Hypoglycemia (Fort Collins, Colorado: Robinson Press, 1978), pp. 41-49.
33. Louis Junker, Nutrition and Economy. Some Observations on Diet and Disease in the American Food Power System, unpublished paper delivered at the Western Social Science Association Meetings, Association for Institutional Thought, April 1981.

The index for this book is in a separate post because otherwise it would add 15 pages to this post:

The index for this book is at a separate post:
https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/food-and-behavior-a-natural-connection-6c2

[Page 203] Appendix

SUGGESTED READING

Aerobics, by Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., M.P.H. (Bantam Books).

Allergies and Your Child, by Doris J. Rapp, M.D. (Holt, Rinehart and Winston).

Allergy Recipes, Sally Rockwell (Nutritional Survival Press).

An Alternative Approach to Allergies, by Theron G. Randolph, M.D. and Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. (Lippincott & Crowell, Publishers).

Beating the Food Giants, by Paul Stitt, M.S. (Natural Press, P. 0. Box 730, Manitowoc, WI 54221).

Biochemical Individuality, by Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. (University of Texas Press).

Body, Mind and Sugar, by E.M. Abrahamson, M.D. and A.W. Pezet (Avon Books).

Brain Allergies, by William H. Philpott, M.D. and Dwight K. Kalita, Ph.D. (Keats Publishing, Inc.).

[Page 204]
Brand Name Guide to Sugar, by Ira L. Shannon, D.M.D., M.S.D. (Nelson-Hall Books).

Diet, Crime and Delinquency, by Alexander Schauss (Parker House Books).

Dr. Mandell’s 5-Day Allergy Relief System, by Marshall Mandell, M.D. and L. Scanlon (Thomas Y. Crowell Publisher).

Earl Mindell’s Vitamin Bible, by Earl Mindell (Rawson, Wade Publishers).

Eat for Health, by William Manaham, M.D. (HJ Kramer Inc.).

Eating Right to Live Sober, by Ann Mueller and Katherine Ketcham (Seattle: Madrona Press)

Feed Your Body Right, Lendon H. Smith, M.D. (Evans).

Feed Your Kids Right, by Lendon Smith, M.D. (Delta Books).

Fit for Life II: Living Health, Harvey & Marilyn Diamond (Health Warner Books).

How to Defeat Alcoholism, by Joseph Beasley (New York: Times Books).

[Page 205]
Hypoglycemia: The Disease Your Doctor Won’t Treat, by Harvey Ross and Jeraldine Saunders (New York: Warner).

Is This Your Child? by Doris Rapp, M.D. (Morrow).

Left for Dead, by Dick Quinn (R.F. Quinn Publishing Co.).

Look Younger, Live Longer, by Gayelord Hauser (Fawcett Crest Books).

Mental and Elemental Nutrients, by Carl C. Pfeiffer, Ph.D., M.D. (Keats Publishing, Inc.).

Nutrition Against Disease, by Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. (Bantam Books).

Orthomolecular Nutrition, by Abram Hotter, Ph.D., M.D. and Morton Walker, D.P.M. (Keats Publishing, Inc.).

Orthomolecular Psychiatry, Linus Pauling, Ph.D. and David Hawkins, M.D. editors (W.H. Freeman and Company).

A Physician’s Handbook on Orthomolecular Medicine, Roger J. Williams, Ph.D. and Dwight K. Kahta, Ph.D. editors (Pergamon Press).

[Page 206]
Psychodietetics, by E. Cheraskin, M.D., D.M.D. and W.M. Ringsdorf, Jr., D.M.D., M.S., with Arline Brecher (Bantam Books).

Seven Keys to Vibrant Health, by Terry Lemerond (Impact Communications).

Seven Weeks to Sobriety, Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D. (Fawcett Columbine, Health).

Sugar Blues, by William Dufty (Warner Books).

The Chelation Way, Dr. Morton Walker (Avery).

The Hidden Addiction, by Janice Phelps (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.).

The Impossible Child, Doris Rapp M.D., FAAA, PAAP and Dorothy Bamberg, R.N., Ed.D. (Practical Allergy Research Foundation).

The Prevention of Alcoholism Through Nutrition, by Roger J. Williams (New York: Bantam).

The Self-Healing Cookbook, by Kristina Turner (Earthtones Press).

The Sugar Trap and How to Avoid It, by Beatrice Trum Hunter (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin).

Tired or Toxic? A Blueprint For Health, by Sherry [207] A. Rogers M.D. (Prestige Publishing)

Tracking Down Hidden Food Allergies, by William Crook, M.D. (Professional Books).

What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You, Jane Heimlich (Harper Perennial).

Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, by F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. (Global Health Solutions).

ORGANIZATIONS TO CONTACT

Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, 2229 Broad Street, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4P 1Y7.

Huxley Institute, 219 East 31st Street, New York, NY 10016. Director: Albrecht Heyer, Phone: 212/683-9455.

International Graphoanalysis Society, Inc., Dept. 29337, 111 North Canal Street, Chicago, IL 60606.

Additional Books from Natural Press:

Nutritional Guidelines for Correcting Behavior

By Barbara Reed Stitt

Strategies for using metabolic correction to treat emotional and behavioral disorders

Barbara Reed Stitt’s work with metabolic correction as Chief Probation Officer of the Municipal Court of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, has won national attention. Now she provides educators, probation and parole officers, psychologists, social workers and all those in the counseling professions with a proven system for evaluating and correcting the physical problems which under-lie many behavioral and emotions disorders.

In Nutritional Guidelines for Correcting Behavior, Reed presents a clear, concise discussion of the links between diet and behavior, and describes how the nutritional approach has worked for others. She offers practical, detailed strategies for determining if a behavior problem has a metabolic root, and if so, what the counselor can do about it.

Included are tested screening questionnaires which anyone can use to discover if a dietary evaluation is indicated, and a thorough biography and contact list.

Just $10.00 (plus $2.00 postage and handling) from:
NATURAL PRESS
P.O. Box 730
Manitowoc, WI 54221-073
(1-800-558-3535)

Beating the Food Giants

By Paul A. Stitt

You have heard his shocking message on THE PHIL DONAHUE SHOW and on talk shows across the nation! Now Paul Stitt comes forward to reveal how the nation’s enormous food conglomerates are endangering America’s health!

In BEATING THE FOOD GIANTS, Paul Stitt, research biochemist, reveals the shocking practices he witnessed as a food scientist for some of America’s largest food corporations. He shows you how the food industry manipulates your own body chemistry to make you crave junk food, and how the country’s addiction to processed food threatens the lives of millions!

Paul Stitt draws on his years of training and experience as a biochemist to show you how you can avoid disease and early death at the hands of the Food Giants, and how you can spend less for food and still eat better and feel better than you have in years!

Included is Paul Stitt’s specially formulated Miracle Menu Plan, a seven-day program which has helped thou-sands to lose weight and feel healthier, sexier, more energetic!

So if you care about your health, if you want to jump off the upward spiral of rising food costs, or if you simply want to feel more alive, you must read Beating the Food Giants! Just $9.95 (plus $1.00 postage and handling) from:

NATURAL PRESS
P.O.Box 730
Manitowoc, WI 54221-0730
(1-800-558-3535)

Why George Should Eat Broccoli

By Paul A. Stitt

Paul A. Stitt, a research biochemist from the food industry, answers penetrating questions! Did you know that—
● Special foods can provide athletes with more endurance, faster recovery, and prevent sore muscles?
● There are over 900 compounds in whole foods that can prevent cancer and other degenerative diseases such as arthritis, heart disease and diabetes?
● Broccoli, just one vegetable, has 33 compounds that help prevent the development of tumors?

Just $12.95 (Plus $2.00 postage and handling) from:
NATURAL PRESS
P.O. Box 730
Manitowoc, WI 54221-0730
(1-800-558-3535)

Note from Lauren: The index for Food & Behavior is at a separate location because it adds 15 pages to this document, see it here:
https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/food-and-behavior-a-natural-connection-6c2

Today, artificially saturated fat, made by hydrogenating seed oils like soy, corn, canola, and safflower oil, has doubled the linoleic acid in Americans’ body fat in just 60 years since it became widely available. Soy oil alone, because of its wide use in processed food, accounts for 45% of all linoleic acid (LA) consumption!

More stats: linoleic acid is a tenth of total dietary calories, and is a fifth of total fat calories. Compare the modern tidal wave of linoleic acid to a mere teaspoon per day that Americans consumed in 1900.

Nutrition research finds that linoleic acid is a huge factor in America’s high fatality rate from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, due to replacing nutritious but expensive butter, cream, and tallow with cheap veg oil.

Butter and tallow are naturally saturated, meaning that at room temperature they are solid, so they don’t readily oxidize, which makes them the ideal building block of cell membranes.

In contrast, cell membranes made from PUFAs oxidize quickly, which slows or blocks hundreds of biological processes, such as causing poor energy production in the mitochondria. Rust is oxidation, in other words, our cells get “rusty” from today’s processed foods.

In 1948 Proctor and Gamble paid the American Heart Association $1.5 million to push Crisco as a supposedly “healthier” alternative to the fat in beef, milk, cheese, and butter. Ruminant animals such as cows, sheep, and goats, have a low linoleic content in their milk and meat because no matter what they eat, their fourth stomach contains bacteria which converts the high linoleic fatty acids they eat into saturated and monounsaturated fats.

Just as public health departments educated Americans about the hazards of tobacco, they must start educating us about the hazards of PUFAs.

Dr. Joseph Mercola’s well-cited article with many helpful charts, is available at:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/linoleic-acid-most-destructive-ingredient-your-diet/5818645

In Yolo County, we know the importance of water [because of the droughts that occur all too often in agricultural areas of California]. However, very few people here have heard about the Fourth Phase of Water. It’s also called Structured Water, because the molecules form hexagonal layers that resemble a semi-crystalline or gel-like state.

At the University of Washington, Professor Gerald Pollack and his colleagues in the Bioengineering Department have been researching structured water for over 2 decades because they sought explanations for the many mysteries of water, such as
● Why do we sink in dry sand, but not in wet sand?
● Why does warm water freeze quicker than cool water?

Tap water has lost the beneficial traits of Structured Water. For instance:

1. Structured water appears to be more readily absorbed by cells than regular water.

2. When exposed to light, particularly infrared light, structured water can store and release energy, acting like a biological battery. Professor Pollack has even likened this process to a form of human photosynthesis.

3. Research strongly suggests that a deficiency in this type of water contributes to various pathologies, including cancer.

4. Ghee, lard, tallow, and coconut oil support the body in making structured water, which would help explain why seed oils, which displaced those traditional fats in the American diet, are so harmful.

5. As Professor Pollack describes in his books, structured water even appears to have a different molecule – instead of H₂O, it’s H₃O₂.

Sooner or later, structured water will be recognized as important for human health and the people that you and I serve will benefit from knowing how to increase their intake of it.

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References
These citations were sent to the county supervisors after the April 14 meeting.

Books
For the layperson, these explain the work of Professor Pollack and his team on structured water:
1. Cells, Gels and the Engines of Life: A New Unifying Approach to Cell Function (Ebner and Sons, 2001)
2. The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor (Ebner and Sons, 2013)

Articles
1. The Fourth Phase of Water
Water plays a central role in all features of life.
Gerald Pollack, Wise Traditions, 2-15-16
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/health-issues/the-fourth-phase-of-water/

2. EZ Water – What Is It, Why Do I Need It, and How Do I Make It?
Dr. Gerald Pollack interviewed by Ari Whitten
Video of interview, 1:22:43
Note: There is also an audio version at the webpage
https://theenergyblueprint.com/ez-water/

For video URL, remove space after colon –
https: //youtu.be/XE4gFbvGwK4

3. The Forgotten Side of Water
Water’s 4th phase explains many mysteries of nature and the human body, while its neglect sheds light on the politics of science.
A Midwestern Doctor, 3-4-23
For video URL, remove space after colon –
https: //www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-is-the-forgotten-side-of-water

4. Where Does the Body’s Vitality Come From?
How liquid crystalline water creates the strength and stability of the body.
A Midwestern Doctor, 3-10-23
For URL, remove space after colon –
https: //www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-actually-happens-with-water

5. What Causes Water to Move Inside the Body?
Liquid Crystalline Water Provides the Essential Circulation Life Depends Upon
A Midwestern Doctor, 4-29-23
For URL, remove space after colon –
https: //amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/what-causes-water-to-move-inside

6. The Hidden Powers of Water That Shape Our Health
Healthy water creates the structure, solidity and circulation throughout the body and plays a critical role in preventing many common “inexplicable” diseases. Viktor Schauberger’s discoveries regarding zeta potential, crystalline water, and vortex.
A Midwestern Doctor, 8-14-25
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-hidden-powers-of-water-that-shape
An amazing 75-minute video -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOGdjWDVM4&list=PL9nSpvOadQ0XJhdwiRTkqq_71-B-jSaaq&index=1&t=14s
Also, The Vigilant Fox summarizes this topic here (for video URL, remove space after colon) -
https: //www.vigilantfox.com/p/what-if-your-body-runs-on-more-than

7. Structured Water
Dr. Marie McMahon, Ph.D. Professor of Anatomy and Physiology
Many helpful diagrams and photos
https://sdmiramar.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/Structured%20Water.pdf

8. Bioavailable Water
Jenifer Morrissey, Rural Heritage, April-May 2026
https://user-35215390377.cld.bz/Rural-Heritage-April-May-2026/24/

9. The Fourth Phase of Water
H₃O₂ the Healing Power of ‘Structured Water’
https://mandarinwater.com/en/science/h3o2

10. Structured Water
Grander Magazine, 88 pages
Johann Grander, a German researcher, devised a way to revitalize water.
https://www.grander.com/intl-en/international/service-faqs/downloads-press-promotional-material/send/20-grander-journale/475-grander-magazin-eng

Other solutions were excellent, but the 1% resisted them for a long time:
● Labor unions
● Free universal education K-12
● Health & safety regulations

In Yolo County, anyone can have our county supervisors listen to them for 2 minutes at their public meetings, usually within minutes of the start of the meeting, which is 9 am.

Below find 7 problems that I brought to our Yolo County elected officials, along with possible solutions. Our 5 elected county supervisors start their day-long public meetings with Public Comment about issues that are not on the agenda, because agenda items have time allotted for public comment when they are brought up in their turn.

The issues I shared with them all receive very little attention in our media:
● Hazards of EMFs from Wireless Tech such as Cell Phones and WiFi
● Organic School Food – Grades Go Up, Misbehavior Declines
● Violent Behavior Can Be Tamed
● Public Banking Could Save Local Government Big Bucks
● Deep Nutrition Drops Recidivism of Jail Inmates from 70% to 30%
● We CAN End Dental Decay for Yolo County Children
● Nature Provides the Best Antibiotic — Intravenous Vitamin C

Feel free to note your objections, revisions, and/or encouragement in the Comments. And add public health problems that concern you, and possible solutions as well. The Big Picture is that we can solve our problems if we work together.

Yolo County supervisors meet about twice a month, always on a Tuesday. Location: 625 Court Street, between First and Third Streets, second floor. The meeting dates of our board of supervisors are online here:
yolocounty.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/85637/639099358734970000

Or, if you want to contact Yolo County electeds in writing, scroll to the end where I’ve listed their contact info. Of course, people who live in a town also can speak at their city council meetings. (I live in an unincorporated town of Guinda, so my only elected rep is the 5th District supervisor.)

Since any complaint is always more effective if it comes with some possible solutions, I have offered suggestions for the 7 topics below.

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7-9-19

Hazards of EMFs from Wireless Tech such as Cell Phones and WiFi

By Lauren Ayers

Realizing that they have a moral obligation to stop a bad law, 20 enlightened counties and cities in California are banding together on a law suit to educate the FCC about the difference of research paid for by Telecom vs. independent safety studies. (https://www.marinij.com/2018/11/01/marin-supervisors-decide-to-join-legal-challenge-to-5g-rollout/)

We in the Weston A. Price Foundation want you to join that suit. Here’s why.

Any modern equipment that’s wireless is emitting harmful EMFs (the acronym for electromagnetic frequencies). That includes: WiFi, routers, all cell phones, cell towers, Blue Tooth gear, a wireless mouse and wireless keyboards, wireless handsets for land lines, smart meters, and even most baby monitors.

You might think, “The Federal Communications Commission says cell phones are safe, so anyone who claims otherwise is just imagining symptoms.” Yet a simple test shows that everyone is physically affected, even if not consciously aware of it. In a short video, a man hooked up to an EKG machine cannot see, hear, or feel when the smart meter behind his head is turned on, yet the EKG meter showed that his heart beat is disrupted.

7-minute video (remove space after colon) — https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-aNRQNRtaI

The Santa Clara County Medical Association published a document on 5G called “Wireless Silent Spring”:
https://mdsafetech.org/2018/11/03/wireless-silent-spring/

The author, Dr. Cindy Russell, shows the connection between microwaves and the crashing populations of birds and insects (including bees). In fact, scientists are finding that microwaves damage all life forms, right down to their DNA.

Lloyd’s of London and the Swiss Re won’t insure the 5G industry. If they don’t trust them, why should we? (https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-Fact-Sheet-July-28.pdf)

Back in 1996, the federal government declared that health concerns cannot be the reason for blocking 5G, even though their standards haven’t been updated since 1986 and are based only on heat damage, not electromagnetic harm.

Furthermore, the FCC has made a very unusual exemption for wireless technology: total legal immunity for any health effects, that’s in Section 704 of the Telecommunications Act. (https://www.gq.com/story/warning-cell-phone-radiation)

The BioInitiative 2012 report is over 1,500 pages, prepared by 29 experts (including ten MDs) from ten nations (http://bioinitiative.info/bioInitiativeReport2012.pdf) It says that public safety limits for these frequencies are set thousands of times too high in most countries, but, they conclude, “No government has instituted comprehensive reforms.” This report has been accessed by over 10.5 million people.

Years ago, fire fighters noticed the health problems from telecom equipment, due to their 48-hour shifts in one location, and they demanded and won exemptions from any mandatory antennas on or near their stations. (https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/01/25/consumerwatch-5g-cellphone-towers-signal-renewed-concerns-over-impacts-on-health/)

Shouldn’t our children get the same protection as firefighters?

Read about the alternatives to WiFi and 5G at: https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/wireless-tech-hazards-and-solutions. Yolo County residents expect you to be informed about 5G and to protect us from it.

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11-18-25

Organic School Food – Grades Go Up, Misbehavior Declines

By Lauren Ayers

In 2022 I participated with the Yolo County Public Health Department CHIP program. CHIP stands for the Community Health Improvement Plan. Then, for the past 2 years, I attended most of the meetings of the Maternal, Child & Adolescent Health Advisory Board, and also some Health Council meetings.

It finally occurred to me that perhaps their minds were closed to holistic health because they are not elected to their jobs. Which is why from now on, whenever possible, I’ll attend your meetings instead.

My main motivation is to have organic meals in the school cafeterias of Yolo County. A group of us wrote a proposal for a 1-year pilot program at one school to demonstrate that organic food protects kids from pesticide residues, provides better nutrition, and leads to a lower absence rate, better standardized test scores, and fewer visits to the principle’s office. (https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/good-school-food-in-yolo-county)

There’s a school in a low-income neighborhood of Marin County that’s been 100% organic for the past 12 years, so it can be done.

A third of voters in Yolo County – that being the third who voted for President Trump – want genuine Informed Consent for vaccines, which means that a person can decline a shot, and that means shots should not be required.

In epidemics, public health officials have always been able to quarantine sick people. But it was new territory, 5 years ago, to lock down the economy and to force healthy adults to get vaccinated.

Now, 3 years after mRNA shots were imposed on the public, various peer-reviewed studies are showing the failures of the pandemic. For instance:

• The PCR tests had a huge rate of false positives. (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.26.20080911v1.full)

• People who refused the mRNA shots had better health outcomes than those who got the shots. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7268563/)

• The All Cause Death Rate in 2022 was 40% higher for working people between 25 and 40 years old, which are usually considered healthy people. This increased mortality wasn’t from Covid but from known side effects of the shots, such as myocarditis, blood clots and turbo cancer. (https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781648210730/cause-unknown/)

People who believed the PR about the mRNA shots being Safe and Effective now have just one option, and it’s the same option that REAL scientists have when their hypothesis is wrong. Namely, they can admit their mistakes and learn from them.

Here are 6 quotations about mistakes:

1. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
~ Rita Mae Brown

2. Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
~ Aubrey De Graf

3. If a mistake is not a stepping stone, it is a mistake.
~ Eli Siegel

4. Learn from the mistakes of others, because you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
~ Anonymous

5. When you repeat a mistake, it is not a mistake anymore. It is a decision.
~ Paulo Coelho

6. Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
~James Joyce

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1-13-26

Violent Behavior Can Be Tamed

By Lauren Ayers

12 years ago, Sylvia Onusic, PhD, wrote an article titled “Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight,” which explains how school cafeterias could boost the mental health of today’s youth.

Americans are 7 times more likely to die of homicide and 20 times more likely to die from shooting than people in other developed countries.¹

The first mass school slaying in the US occurred in 1992, setting the stage for an increase in school violence each decade since.

In contrast, a dentist named Dr. Weston Price spent summers in the 1930s learning the lifeways and diets of people living as their ancestors had.

In that decade, Dr. Price and his wife Florence traveled over 100,000 miles by airplane, steamship, truck, and on foot to study 14 very isolated communities, which included a village in Switzerland, Gaelic fisherfolk, First Nation tribes in northern British Columbia, Seminoles in Florida, African cattle tribes, South Pacific islanders, Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maori, and native villages in both the high Andes and the Amazon.

Dr. Price earned the trust of these communities and permission to examine their teeth. In contrast to his patients back in Cleveland, Ohio, they all had extremely low rates of dental decay, and no evidence of infectious or degenerative diseases, nor any mental illness.

He brought home samples of their food, soil and saliva for analysis. Based on meticulous notes, lab tests, and 15,000 photographs, he wrote and illustrated his magnum opus titled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, published in 1939 and in print ever since. https://nutritioninanutshell.net/westonapricestory

The food in these traditional communities provided at least 4 times the minerals and water-soluble vitamins, and at least 10 times the fat-soluble vitamins, of American food in his day.

My 2 minutes are nearly up. If I’d had that third minute, I would have been able to summarize Dr. Onusic’s article on ending the malnutrition of modern youth and how the few schools that have improved their cafeteria food were rewarded by a higher rate of high school graduation and a lower rate of misbehavior, surely a goal that everyone in this room would support.

Dr. Onusic’s article is available at:
http://www.westonaprice.org/environmental-toxins/violent-behavior-a-solution-in-plain-sight

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1-27-26

Public Banking Could Save Local Government Big Bucks

By Lauren Ayers

Here we are, in the meeting room for our county supervisors. This is government at its most personal level. Of course, the news media tend to focus on state and national news since that doesn’t vary a lot from county to county. However, government at this level has the most direct impact on our lives.

In this room 2 weeks ago, we learned that next year’s county budget needs to cut 27 million dollars, which is a little less than a thirtieth of the total. It won’t be easy, especially since, unlike the federal government, Yolo County can’t just print more money.

A few days after that meeting, a friend told me about a town hall meeting in Sacramento because they want to start a Public Bank for the state capital. That’s tonight and I’m going.

Even though most Americans have never heard of it, nearly a fifth of banking, world-wide, is done by publicly-owned banks.

North Dakota set up their public bank during the populist movement a hundred years ago. In the height of the last national financial crisis, North Dakota consistently led the nation in lower unemployment rates and better GDP growth. Also, North Dakota had one of the lowest rates of home foreclosure in the U.S.

A key advantage of public banks over commercial banks is that any civic project can save 30 to 40%, or even more, of the total cost of the project because of a lower interest rate spread out over the years. That’s why LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Fresno are each investigating having their own bank, and regional banks are being considered in the East Bay and San Luis Obispo County.

To start a public bank, there must be valuable assets and a cash flow. This part is easy— counties own a lot of buildings, roads, and other infrastructure, and they collect tax money, and pay salaries.

I hope you will read the article I sent to you yesterday. And check out the Public Banking Institute website. It’s my estimate that a Yolo County Public Bank could save us at least 15 million dollars a year, which would cover 2/3 of the deficit the county is facing.

A public bank for Yolo County could make a world of difference in both quality of life and a balanced budget.

See the Public Banking article on my 1-19-26 Substack: https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/bring-our-public-dollars-home

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2-10-26

Deep Nutrition Drops Recidivism of Jail Inmates from 70% to 30%

By Lauren Ayers

Now that I’m retired from teaching, I have the luxury of time – time to check out lots of innovative ideas. I can even attend your meetings!

You, on the other hand, are busy managing the county, along with our highly qualified county staff, of course. I always think to myself, “I’m glad you to want this job, because most people wouldn’t!”

You were elected because voters expect you to live by the old maxim: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

In the current fiscal year, over a third of the budget goes to Health and Human Services. That’s 272 million dollars!!! For example, one budget line item is the cost of medical care for people in the county jail – that’s about 1.2 million! Which averages to over $26,000 per inmate annually.

Wouldn’t that kind of money buy a lot of nutrient-dense and organic food, both for jail inmates and for our school kids?

Research finds that incarcerated people tend to have less resilience, less empathy, and less self-control than average.

That explains the problem of recidivism. Between 70% and 80% of Yolo County inmates have a history of prior incarceration or arrests. Research finds that offenders with the highest levels of impulsivity are 2 and a half times more likely to re-offend than people with more self-control.

Another trait of lawbreakers is low empathy – they aren’t “burdened” with caring about the people they harm.

Barbara Reed Stitt was supervisor of probation in Cleveland 40 years ago. She gained national attention for applying nutrition to criminal behavior. Her program served 5000 inmates, educating them and supporting them to eliminate ultra-processed food from their diets, so they could focus instead on real food. Cleveland’s average recidivism rate went down from 70% to 30%. Think of the savings for their budget! We could have that here!

Barbara Stitt’s inspiring paperback book – “Food & Behavior – A Natural Connection” – is easy to order online.

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3-3-26

We CAN End Dental Decay for Yolo County Children

By Lauren Ayers

In Yolo County, like in every other county, a third of our children have some type of chronic physical and/or mental impairments. This problem has been growing for a hundred years, but it got worse faster in the last 20.

One early sign of physical degeneration is dental decay, which over half of our kids suffer, as do adults.

Some weeks ago, I said I’d finish telling you about the decade of world travel that Dr. Weston Price spent studying the amazing dental health of 14 isolated communities on 4 continents (and some Pacific islands) where people still ate their ancestral food. This was back in the 1930s when such communities still existed. Although they were all quite different, each of the diets provided such excellent nutrition that these communities had no cavities.

For instance, in a certain Swiss village, Dr. Price, who was a dentist, learned that when young men wanted to earn some hard cash, they’d hike over the high mountain pass to work in a lowland factory. When they came back home a year or two later, they had a lot of cavities. But, amazingly, once they were eating the super nutritious food of their village, their cavities would fill in.

On the handout I gave you, you’ll see some antique dental x-rays from a 17-year-old patient who’d been referred to Dr. Price because she had 42 cavities in her 24 teeth and her prior dentist planned to pull them all out and provide her with dentures.

The top x-rays show the fragility of the teeth because the x-rays passed right through the weak dentin, and you can see some fillings (which show white) sitting atop hollow teeth. After 7 months of consuming the cod liver oil and butter concentrate that Dr. Price provided to her, and eating the nutritious diet he prescribed, her cavities all filled in!

The secret to that young woman’s dental health was in the butter oil, which was from cows grazing on spring grass, therefore it contained a lot of a mysterious fat-based vitamin. His analysis found that it wasn’t vitamin A or D but was a there-to-fore unknown nutrient that he called Activator X. A few years later, 2 medical researchers isolated vitamin K from alfalfa and putrefied fish. They were unaware of Dr. Prices’s research, and he didn’t know about theirs. They got the Nobel Prize for their discovery.

MK-4, a special type of vitamin K, causes the saliva to donate minerals to the teeth, via the saliva, which is why traditional people, who ate foods rich in MK-4, had beautiful teeth. Of course, their food was low in sugar and loaded with other nutrients as well. This diet also made their dental arches wide so, along with being free of decay, their teeth weren’t crowded and overlapping.

See also, my substack article on this topic:
https://laurenayers.substack.com/p/why-doesnt-everyone-know-about-the
Why Doesn’t Everyone Know About the Vitamin that Prevents Cavities?

Handout provided to the County Supervisors:

Two Models for Health —
Symptomatic Relief vs. Prevention & Detoxification

The Pharma Model of Health relies on prescription drugs that treat symptoms. The Holistic Model of Health (studies of traditional cultures) looks for the source of health impairments, be it dietary deficiency or toxic chemicals / toxic energy (i.e. WiFi), and then corrects the problems. Examples below.

Functional Medicine falls into the holistic category. This “recent” addition to health care is the original approach for healing. Functional doctors and other medical practitioners are trained and certified by the Institute for Functional Medicine. Their mission is to: “Determine how and why illness occurs and restore health by addressing the root causes of disease for each individual.”

Nutritional Deficiency
These Before and After samples show the improvement in 8-year-old Joey’s printing due to taking DHA-rich fish oil (for only 3 months!) in Dr. Alex Richardson’s Durham, UK, study.

It wasn’t just Joey’s handwriting that improved. His school work got better and he was happier and made friends more easily. Since supplements are neither allowed nor appropriate in school, I offered my third graders a sardine every day and 2/3 of the children participated and benefitted in similar ways.

Avoiding / Removing Toxins The holistic approach calls for clean food, water, and air. Children in the foothills (left side of both plates) in rural Mexico, who had scant exposure to pesticide drift, drew detailed images of people; by the age of 5, most kids will include details like fingers and belly buttons.

These drawings were made by 4.5-year-olds

These drawings were made by 5-year-olds

However, valley children (right sides of the 2 plates), who were exposed to pesticide drift from the farms all around them, could only manage scribbles or, at best, rudimentary rag doll figures that look tossed aside. An organic diet is key to removing toxins. Heavy metals may require chelation. See that study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1533004/pdf/envhper00529-0083.pdf

Dr. Weston Price, DDS, sums up this approach to health: ”Life in all its fullness is Mother Nature obeyed.”

Back of handout

MK-4 Can Reduce Dental Decay for Kids to Almost Zero!

Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring brought the organic movement to the mainstream. Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, by Weston A. Price, DDS, also brings a paradigm shift, showing how ancient, self-sufficient communities achieved superior mental and physical health. This real Indiana Jones and his wife Florence traveled to very isolated villages to learn what gave them uncrowded, decay-free teeth and robust health.

The answer: low sugar, high animal fats, high omega-3s and low seed oils, fermented foods, soaked carbs and sourdough, organ meats & bone broth, raw milk products, no artificial colors or flavors, organic fruit and veggies (raw or cooked), and a low-toxin lifestyle.

Dr. Price’s years of analyzing the mineral and vitamin content of foods, especially milk, led to discovering Activator X. Study these Before and After x-rays à The upper 6 images show a teenage girl’s 24 teeth with 42 cavities. The lower set of x-rays show how her saliva filled in the cavities when she followed Dr. Price’s advice! She didn’t need dentures after all!

Dr. Price isolated Activator X from the butterfat of cows that grazed on fast growing grass. Years later, 2 scientists won the Nobel Prize for isolating vitamin K₂, yet still no one realized it was Dr. Price’s Activator X.

This butter-derived nutrient causes a person’s saliva to donate ionic minerals to teeth rather than withdraw minerals from teeth; over time cavities caused by bacteria fill in and gain a hard surface.

Besides grass-fed butter, goose fat and emu fat are very rich in MK-4, found in animal sources, is the best absorbed form of K₂ (the other forms of K₂ result from fermentation). Dr. Price’s animal experiments also showed that MK-4 moves minerals to bones and teeth rather than depositing them in soft tissue like arteries (arterial sclerosis) and joints (arthritis).

The 1^st edition of Dr. Price’s Nutrition & Physical Degeneration is online: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html

Check out Chapter 22 (which isn’t in the 1^st edition) to learn how to prevent or recover from tooth decay:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/chapter-22-of-nutrition-and-physical-degeneration-on-the-fat-soluble-vitamins/

Membership includes our quarterly journal ($35/yr). Our national website is loaded with great articles and podcasts: WestonAPrice.org. Our chapter website lists local farms: chapters.westonaprice.org/capayvalleyca/

In Yolo County, annual organic farm production is the 4^th highest in sales, after almonds, tomatoes, and wine grapes, at $56.9 million. That locally grown food goes to regional farmers markets, CSA’s, and restaurants. Plus, 65% of the produce prepared in Winters Unified cafeterias is organic! This shows a high potential in Yolo County for building health beyond average, by exploring traditional ways of preparing organic, regenerative, and pastured foods. Our mission: Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts.

Both parents and public health officials want our kids’ dental caries rate to be as low as self-sufficient traditional cultures had: < 1%. Since pasteurization severely lowers milk’s nutrients, let’s learn from Mother Nature: give kids full-fat, raw, grass-fed milk!

Unfortunately, many still believe the FDA’s claims that raw milk is dangerous. Also, the Foundation dares to provide research about the lack of efficacy and the hazards of vaccines, so we are “fact checked” (AKA censored). However, polls are showing a shift away from total trust in government, so keep an open mind while reading the journal; decide for yourself.

Anyone, whether they are members of the Foundation or not, who wants to hear about our activities in the county (films, talks, potlucks, and issues) can join the Capay Valley WAPF email group by contacting the chapter’s volunteer coordinator Lauren Ayers at 530 796-2463.

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3-24-26
(This includes a few sentences that didn’t fit into the 2-minute time allotment.)

Nature Provides the Best Antibiotic —
Intravenous Vitamin C

By Lauren Ayers

My goal in speaking to you on a regular basis is to bring little-known holistic practices to your attention, because conventional medicine gets a huge proportion of tax payer dollars in Yolo County ($3 million to Communicare-Ole’ alone), despite Alternative Medicine methods being not only safe and effective, but also usually cheaper.

For instance, starting in the 1940s, Dr. Frederick Klenner published 47 journal articles on the benefits of mega doses of intravenous vitamin C in emergency medicine. This treatment achieved astonishing recovery for patients such diverse ailments such as herpes, mumps, measles, tetanus, multiple sclerosis, polio, burns, heat stroke, schizophrenia, electric shock, heavy metals, and venomous snakebites.

Years later, his work inspired Linus Pauling’s better-known research on how this nutrient can become a powerful medicine.

Intravenous vitamin C acts as either a “flash oxidizer” or a reducing agent, often correcting a condition in minutes. The more serious the condition, the more vitamin C is required. In other instances, it can be an anti-clotting agent, or an antihistamine.

With polio patients, vitamin C acts as a diuretic, clearing the polio-caused edema of the brain. It’s that edema which cuts off the blood supply to the motor cells, causing paralysis. Among the 60 cases of polio that Dr. Klenner treated, most were well in 72 hours.

In a more difficult case, Dr. Klenner’s patient was a 5-year-old girl with paralysis of both legs accompanied by knee and back pain. After 4 days of vitamin C in the hospital, she was able to move both legs and was sent home, where treatment continued with 1 gram of vitamin C taken orally every 2 hours. By the 11^th day of vitamin C, she was walking. She would be about my age today, and I can imagine her lifetime of gratitude to Dr. Klenner for making polio a fleeting ailment instead of a lifelong burden.

Dr. Sabin, the developer of the “oral” polio vaccine, attempted to discredit the use of vitamin C. He gave test monkeys a miniscule one-time dose of 100 milligrams, the amount of vitamin C in 2 oranges, so it was no surprise that these monkeys developed unmodified polio. Dr. Klenner wrote: “Thousands of children owe their paralyzed limbs to this unfortunate blunder by Sabin.”

It’s baffling that, despite the endorsement of a Nobel scientist like Linus Pauling and successful use by holistic MDs, this treatment has not been widely adopted in the intervening 75 years. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if Big Pharma did everything possible to keep this information from both patients and doctors.

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County Leaders Contact Info

Yolo County Supervisors:
Oscar Villegas, 1^st <Oscar.Villegas@yolocounty.gov> (West Sac) 916 375-6440
Lucas Frerichs, 2^nd <LucasF@yolocounty.gov> (Davis, Winters) 530 757-5557
Mary Vixie Sandy, 3^rd <Mary.VixieSandy@yolocounty.gov> (Woodland) 530 666-8621
Sheila Allen (Chair), 4^th <Sheila.Allen@yolocounty.gov> (Davis) 530 757-5554
Angel Barajas (VC), 5^th <Angel.Barajas@yolocounty.org> (rural towns) 530 666-8627

Michael Webb, County Admin’r, <Michael.Webb@yolocounty.gov> 530 666-8150

Monica Morales, Dir. of HHS, <Monica.Morales@yolocounty.gov> 530 309-5835

Dear Editor,

Back in September 2021, my sister and I, both retired teachers, were leaving a rally held on the Capitol steps in Sacramento against enforced Covid vaccinations. The huge rally had included a march followed by speakers at the podium, the crowd calmly listening and cheering.

A pair of CHP officers, part of the large contingent of law enforcement on duty during the event to ensure that all of us peaceful demonstrators would stay that way, were watching the large crowd disperse.

My sis asked the two, “So, are you in favor of vaccine mandates?” They smiled and one answered, “Do I look stupid?” We all laughed as we passed them on our way to the car.

What was left out of the AP article in Wednesday’s paper about West Coast states wanting to keep all the vaccines once on the standard schedule for kids, was even a hint of the debate points that “anti-vaxxers” have been trying to explain for the past 6 years.

This letter can’t convey why a third of Yolo County voters chose Trump. I’ll simply point out that both my sister and I once believed the “Safe and Effective” line, only to have our “trust in the science” crumble upon further investigation. Most people won’t read The Real Anthony Fauci, Robert Kennedy Jr’s 2021 book. But with this topic so widely divided along party lines, please remember that a lot of us who disagree with the AP version of reality aren’t stupid.

Lauren Ayers, Guinda

For the looooong version

The ancient Latin adage applies: Cui bono — Who benefits?

Here’s an upgrade of last July’s Substack article, which uses a surprising decrease in autism to make the point:

Check out this 6-minute video that sums up the benefits of every state, county, city, or even university having their own public bank. Or read on!

We the people already own many essential services:

● Municipal water
● Sewage treatment
● Residential garbage and green waste pickup (actually, 30% are run by for-profit companies)
● Parks, roads, tunnels and bridges
● Public schools and colleges
● Public transit systems
● Police and fire fighting
● Even some electric grids are publicly owned (15%)

Less obvious utilities:

● Public health departments
● Regulatory agencies
● The registrar of voters that manages our election
● Inspectors of all sorts – construction, fire safety, food safety in restaurants

Strangely, although internet service is now considered essential, very few municipalities emulate Cedar Falls, Iowa, in providing internet from a publicly owned agency. Virtually 100% of cell phone service is provided by corporations.

As for banks, also an essential service, nearly all are run by for-profit corporations.

Bankers Are Magicians

Keep in mind, contrary to common belief, whenever a bank lends money for big ticket purchases like home ownership or college tuition, it creates money that didn’t exist before, in your name, “from thin air.” So letting them profit off this is like letting huge corporations cut trees or mine ore on federal land for free.

Civic projects funded by loans from public banks save 35% to 50%. That’s why treasurers, state lawmakers and citizen activists in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Washington State, and California are advancing public banking.

Last month, Michael Melio, Communications Director for the Public Banking Institute, reported that 93% of the largest 550 cities by population are using the top 2.2% of the largest banks as their primary depository institution. In fact, in the last 30 years (1994 to 2024), the combined revenue from every city, county, and state exceeds $35 TRILLION!

Melio adds:

“And since a ‘deposit’ is legally a ‘loan’ to the bank, our governments – city, county, state – are entrusting our wealth to Wall Street behemoth banks who have a clear record of reckless investments in derivates and other speculative instruments, with a virtual guarantee that they are ‘too big to fail’ and will be bailed out … when they fail.”

That’s what happened in the 2008 financial collapse – government budgets were gutted, but Wall Street banks didn’t suffer because taxpayers bailed them out.

You may be wondering, since the interest on loans can cost as much as the actual construction, or even more, why don’t towns and states use public financing instead of always borrowing from Wall Street banks?

Afterall, governments at local and state levels own tremendous assets, as the first paragraph shows, which are all part of the secure foundation a public bank needs to start. Plus the incoming revenue from taxes and fees, as well as outgoing money in the form of employee payrolls and construction and maintenance, provide a large cash flow. It’s clear municipalities and states have plenty of financial stability to support public banking.

In 1919, as a result of populist era activism, North Dakota did the obvious: they set up the Bank of North Dakota (BND). Strangely, despite its clear success, in the succeeding century no other state-owned, state-run financial institutions were formed in the United States. (A fact that provides a lot of fodder for conspiracy theorists.)

North Dakota Sailed Through the Recession

● Strong Economic Indicators: During the height of the national financial crisis, North Dakota consistently led the nation in several economic metrics, including unemployment rates, state budget surpluses, and GDP growth.
● Minimal Housing Crisis Impact: The state experienced one of the lowest rates of home foreclosures in the U.S.

Some particulars:

● By law, all funds belonging to the State of North Dakota and its agencies must be deposited in the BND. This provides a stable and significant deposit base for the bank’s operations.
● Wholesale Bank Role: The BND functions primarily as a “bankers’ bank,” providing services like loan guarantees, interest rate buy-downs, and check clearing for community banks and credit unions across the state.
● Limited Retail Services: North Dakota residents can open basic checking and savings accounts, however, to avoid competing with the private sector, the bank does not offer standard consumer products like debit cards, credit cards, or online bill pay.
● State Guarantee and Oversight: BND deposits are not insured by the FDIC. Instead, they are guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the State of North Dakota. The bank is overseen by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, composed of the Governor, Attorney General, and Agriculture Commissioner.

Public Banking Is Widespread Around the World

Few Americans know that from Brazil to Germany to India, and many more, publicly-owned banks are the proven correction for the prior waste of tax dollars on the high interest collected by conventional banks. In fact, 17% of banks around the world are publicly owned, with assets just under $49 trillion.

Ellen Brown, founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, explains:

“That is how China built 12,000 miles of high-speed rail in a decade: credit created on the books of government-owned banks was advanced to pay for workers and materials, and the loans were repaid with profits from passenger fees.

“ Unlike the Quantitative Easing (QE) pumped into financial markets, which creates asset bubbles in stocks and housing, this sort of public credit mechanism is not inflationary. Credit money advanced for productive purposes balances the circulating money supply with new goods and services in the real economy. Supply and demand rise together, keeping prices stable. China increased its money supply by nearly 1800% over 24 years (from 1996 to 2020) without driving up price inflation, by increasing GDP in step with the money supply.”

Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Brown tells another success story:

“The American president dealing with an economic situation most closely resembling today’s … was Franklin D. Roosevelt. America’s 32nd president resolved massive unemployment and infrastructure problems by greatly expanding the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) set up by his predecessor Herbert Hoover.

“The RFC was a remarkable publicly-owned credit machine that allowed the government to finance the New Deal and World War II without turning to Congress or the taxpayers for appropriations. The RFC was not called an infrastructure bank and was not even a bank, but it served the same basic functions. It was continually enlarged and modified by Pres. Roosevelt to meet the crisis of the times until it became America’s largest corporation and the world’s largest financial organization. Its semi-independent status let it work quickly, allowing New Deal agencies to be financed as the need arose.”

According to Encyclopedia.com:

“[T]he RFC—by far the most influential of New Deal agencies—was an institution designed to save capitalism from the ravages of the Great Depression. Through the RFC, Roosevelt and the New Deal handed over $10 billion to tens of thousands of private businesses, keeping them afloat when they would otherwise have gone under.”

In fact, this approach goes back to the beginning of our nation. Brown, writes that the first self-funding national infrastructure bank was set up in the ‘American System’ by Alexander Hamilton. Later Abraham Lincoln used a similar method to pay for the Civil War – funding national production simply with ‘sovereign’ money and credit.

The Federal Reserve –
How For-Profit Banks Finagled the System

We became dependent on private banks after a secret meeting took place in 1910 at the Jekyll Island Club off the coast of Georgia. Staff were told that the 9-day gathering was a duck-hunting excursion. Six powerful figures – a Senator and representatives from major banks like J.P. Morgan’s – drafted a plan for what they would call “bank reform.”

The participants traveled there under assumed names and wouldn’t admit the meeting occurred until over 20 years later (in their memoirs) because if Americans found out in 1913, when Congress made it law, the plan would have failed due to progressive era suspicion of the “Money Trust.”

Later, The New York Times, which usually favored Wall Street, atypically called the final bill’s government oversight system a “colossal political machine,” and described how the public had been lulled into thinking this was true government reform that put public interests first.

The Fed’s Real Purpose

However, the core concepts from the secret Jekyll Island meeting were that the Federal Reserve:

● Decides when the money supply would expand or contract, based on economic conditions and public demand, which helps prevent financial panics
● Provides an institutionalized “discount window” that allows banks to manage their short-term liquidity risks and access a source of funds in times of stress, i.e. it serves as the “lender of last resort” role for the banking system.
● Has authority over interest rates.

In short, the Federal Reserve is neither “federal” nor a “reserve.” Hence the need to consider the Public Banking alternative.

Californians Want Public Banks

California’s Assembly Bill 310 (AB 310) was proposed in the 2020 session. It would have created a state-owned public bank to fund economic recovery and infrastructure, but the bill did not pass.

Hmmm, I wonder why.

Here’s the answer: Organizations like the American Bankers Association (ABA), the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), and the California Community Banking Network expressed strong opposition to such legislation.

Their high-falutin’ arguments would amuse North Dakotans. According to Wall Street, a state-owned bank would:

● Create undue taxpayer risk!
● Divert deposits from local community banks and credit unions!
● Put Californians at financial risk!
● The private market already provides the necessary banking services and competition!

Sacramento Is Working on their Public Bank

Activists in Sacramento had a very well attended Town Hall meeting:

Bring Our Public Dollars Home!

Speakers:
• Katie Valenzuela, former Sacramento City Council Member
• Trinity Tran, Executive Director, California Public Banking Alliance
• Dr. Flo Cofer, former Sacramento mayoral candidate
• Moderator: Chris Brown, Sacramento Climate Coalition

P.S.
Public Banking Could Prevent California’s Looming Budget Bust

In addition to its market-rate programs in participant lending, student loans, and forthcoming financial tech offerings, the Bank of North Dakota has continued to provide, at below-market rates, disaster relief, loans for schools, clean energy, and infrastructure projects, among other initiatives.

Here’s my homemade extrapolation, it’s more poetic than mathematical, but still good news for us:

According to its 2024 Annual Report, the Bank of North Dakota reported $200 million in revenue, and a total return to the state of $335 million.

California’s population is roughly 50 times larger than North Dakota’s, and California‘s total economy is roughly 51 times larger than North Dakota’s, so 51 times their $335 million profit from public banking would mean $17 billion more revenue for CA if we had a public bank here.

That revenue would sure come in handy since the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), which is nonpartisan, projects an $18 billion deficit for the 2026–27 year.

Get it? If we had public banking in California, we’d only need to cut out $1 billion from the budget, instead of $20 billion!

By the way, Governor Newsom’s own projection was only a $2.9 billion deficit because he forecasts continued high tax revenues from artificial intelligence and tech sector earnings. The LAO’s estimated deficit of $18 billion is 6 times worse because they foresee a stock market downturn and rising program costs and shifts in federal funding.

We should consider the LAO’s much bigger budget deficit predictions as more accurate because Governor Newsom’s budget projections underestimated the deficit for the past 4 years (sometimes by tens of billions of dollars).

For those who don’t believe that Ignorance Is Bliss, check out Cal Matters’ article from 3 months ago which paints a very clear (and very grim) picture of California’s economy without jargon, graphs, or equations.

We’ve got until Dec. 31^st (2025) to protect the 5^th, 7^th, 9^th, and 10^th Amendments.

You might think that the 7 bills in Congress and the FCC docket (see below) relate to microwave tech.

But this message is about much more. Because in one week, the basic concept that local government ought to have the final say on local safety, instead of state or federal governments, could end.

Should we need to trek to Sacramento, or, worse, to Washington DC, to oppose placement in our neighborhood of, hypothetically, a garbage dump, a nuclear plant, or a 24-track rail yard? Or, for real, must we leave Yolo County to stop cellphone antennas in every block, beaming into our bedroom windows?

If our news media and our regulatory agencies had done their job, Americans would know three things – the first is crucial to keeping our republic and the other two are crucial for health:
1. How to stop corporate and federal takeover of local control

2. The hazards of this technology (ever since radar was widely deployed in 1938, the risks of wireless tech were well known by the experts)

3. The legislation that takes away our right to safely have cell phones and Internet.

But that knowledge has been denied because anything that interferes with corporate profits is gift wrapped in Convenience and Entertainment so that we won’t ask too many questions.

In California, Republicans (25%), Democrats (45%), and No Party Preference voters (23%) ALL AGREE that the federal government should not be able to override local opposition to their sneaky plans.

Republicans want to keep their property values from dropping. Democrats want to protect bees from dying. And No Party Preference voters want to overcome both parties’ narrow thinking.

If you agree that we must all work together to keep local control of local issues, then please spend a few minutes now.

Do you need proof that Big Tech wants to end those rights?

● They’re sneaking big changes when we’re distracted by the holidays

● There aren’t 2 or 3 bills – there are 7 bills in Congress to promote their cause: HR-1343, HR-1588, HR-1665, HR-1681, HR-1731, HR-6046, and HR-2289

● The FCC’s Docket 25-276 demonstrates the huge influence that the Wireless Industry has on our regulatory agencies

The best holiday gift for our kids is to protect our local veto of any corporate plans that jeopardize their future!

These are the 2 main ways to protect Local Governance:

1. Stop HR-2289 (As of January 28, still not passed)
Because it would “streamline” broadband deployment by:
● Removing “burdensome” local and state review processes
● Setting strict deadlines (shot clocks) for approving or denying telecom facility permits (like 90-150 days)
● Potentially allow automatic approvals if localities miss deadlines

2. Stop FCC docket 25-276
Because it would shift authority from local governments to the federal government in order to “reduce delays in cell tower and antenna siting,” the very thing we do not want to reduce!

(As of January 28: Not adopted.) docket has received heavy pushback, with over 3,000 submissions as of early January. Major local government associations—including the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties—formally oppose the proposal, arguing it unconstitutionally preempts local zoning authority.)

Take Action
Stop HR-2289

The National Call for Safe Technology has been tracking these bills in addition to H.R. 2298. Send your letter via their action alert and stay connected with the organization as well.

If you live in Yolo County, our Congressman is Mike Thompson. He says he “shares” our concern, which isn’t the same as promising to “fight to protect our local control.”
Email: <RepMikeThompsonCA05@mail.house.gov>
Phone: DC: 202 225-3311
Woodland: 530 753-5301
Call 9-5, start with your NAME, ADDRESS & ZIP

Stop FCC docket 25-276

Grassroots Communications has a website with streamlined info on submitting your comment to the FCC.

https://www.25-276.org/how-to-submit-comments

Dr. Bill Gray’s Talk on Homeopathy

At the Holistic Health Institute on March 5, 1977

First off, I want to introduce myself and I’ll try to give a lightning introduction to homeopathy and then try to leave the second half for questions. There’s a lot that could be said and it’s very hard to do in just a 3-hour period but what I want to do is give you a basic understanding of what homeopathy is, how you can get more training in it, and how you can recognize a homeopath, including homeopaths of different types.

I became interested in medicine because of the indirect influence of my mother, who was a nurse. It was indirect because she definitely didn’t want to influence my future, right? So around the eighth grade, I was reading about Albert Schweitzer and all kinds of famous doctors and had dreams of myself walking around in a white coat curing the world’s diseases. And I ended up going to Stanford Medical School, where I quickly learned that it wasn’t what I thought it was.

During my clinical years they would put a white coat on me, which was the whole goal of my life, right, and march me into a room and introduce me to somebody who had lupus erythematosus, which I could barely pronounce, much less understand, and tell that patient that I was their doctor. There would be a bunch of doctors in there to see this patient, but I was to be the primary doctor. This was to help me get used to the idea of taking care of patients. This was literally only the first week of my clinical experience.

Then, of course, the patient would ask me questions. They’re in this strange medical center with all kinds of fancy techniques and words that sound like they’re from another language and they want to know, “What’s going to happen to me, Doctor?” And I didn’t know. But I acted as if I did. And if I didn’t act as if I knew, I got all kinds of flack from the other staff members, “unprofessional conduct” and so on. And not only that, but in my own self I had this dilemma going on about what’s best for the patient. If I admitted that I was just a student and didn’t know much, how would that person feel? So I copped out and lied all through medical school and most of Internship. Then at the end of internship I looked back on what I had done and I couldn’t honestly decide whether I had done more good to patients than harm, or the other way around. So I couldn’t do it anymore.

I decided to drop out and I traveled around the country and reflected on my experience. One thing that had really impressed me during internship over in Highland Hospital in Oakland was an orthopedic surgeon who taught me some chiropractic techniques. He did this sort of thing on the sly, for the liberal minded doctors, and made sure that we didn’t talk about it to anyone else.

People would come in with whiplash injuries and with Valium and analgesics, I knew, it would be sometimes months before they would recover. They’d wear collars around their necks and so on. With the chiropractic technique, just a quick, noisy and frightening snap of the neck and their pain was gone and they’d walk out free of pain and they wouldn’t have pain after that. It was a non-toxic technique that was very effective and I had a prejudice against it that didn’t come from super scientific, Stanford level, double-blind control studies. The prejudice was picked up by osmosis. I wondered how many other things there were that are non-toxic that I had a prejudice against.

So I started looking around. I went to health food stores and mystical book stores and visited a bunch of chiropractors and osteopaths and looked into acupuncture and did some herbal medicine and a lot of nutrition and polarity therapy and psychic healing and spiritual healing and a wide variety of things. And after that I still couldn’t decide to go back into medicine because as an M.D. I needed to have a systematic, thorough method of dealing with illness. Most of the available approaches, though non-toxic, weren’t that reliably effective for my purposes. I think for lay people a lot of it really is effective, and you can cure a lot of minor ailments. But when it comes to treating cancer, lupus, diabetes, and so on, I needed to find something that was very effective.

Finally, after nine months, I just happened to come across a magazine article on homeopathy. The description of the whole thing made a lot of sense. Here was a systematic, thorough approach that was effective. So I took the only formal training available in the United States, which is the two week course in Pennsylvania sponsored by the National Center for Homeopathy. It was designed mainly for doctors but they have courses also for lay people. And at the end of that I was very impressed, they used gigantic books with lots of detailed information in them, and there are actually fixed principles on which you can judge the progress of lack of progress of the patient. And the case studies they gave were phenomenal, people being cured of all kinds of diseases. “Why in the world didn’t I know about this before if it’s so effective?” went through my mind. And gradually as I got to know more and more about it, I realized why it isn’t so widely known. Because, as you’ll see, it is very hard to know how it works. In fact, we have no idea why it works. It is just an empirical observation that it works.

I started to use homeopathy treating influenza during an epidemic. The results were so phenomenal that I couldn’t believe it. For example, I was working at Kaiser and all we could recommend was bed rest, fluids, and aspirin. A Primal Scream therapist was brought in by his friend, who had to practically carry him. He was pale, totally wiped out, he could barely raise his head. He had a client who was in the primal crisis, and he had to be there with his client every single day. I knew I just couldn’t say “Bed rest, fluids, and aspirin.”

I began by asking him a lot of crazy questions. This will give you an idea of how a homeopath works. It’s not a matter of whether you have a sore throat, muscle aches and fever. It’s where exactly did the sore throat start, on the left side, on the right side, in the middle? What exactly does it feel like, is it a sticking pain, a fish bone sensation, or a raw pain, or a burning pain? Is it painful when you swallow or when you’re not swallowing, or if you’re swallowing solid food or liquids, and if it’s painful when you swallow, does it radiate downwards, to the side, to the ears? What time of day or night does it seem to be worse? Muscle aches, are they the kind where you just want to stay perfectly still so it doesn’t hurt or are they the kind that make you restless so you are always trying to change position in bed? Do you prefer to be alone and away from people, are you bothered by noises, discord and chaos, or would you rather be around people and have activity around you? Are you better if you are sleeping or if you are trying to move around and do things? Do you like the window open or closed? Are you thirsty, and if so, do you drink warm or cold drinks? Do you drink in little sips or just guzzle the whole thing down?

Of course, this guy must have thought I was crazy but he was too sick to really wonder about it. At the end of the questions, I told his friend to come by my house that evening and I would give him some little granules for his friend, to be taken on his tongue, and he would be better by the next day. Of coarse, for the two-week flu that sounded crazy, but the guy didn’t have any choice. I heard from him later in the week. He woke up the next morning completely and totally free of any symptoms and was able to go on treating his client. He was totally and absolutely astounded.

Here I was, just trying this out, and it really worked. I started studying it more and more, and ended up opening a practice in Sebastopol and finally moved to Mill Valley. I was gaining more and more experience with heavier and heavier cases.

Gradually I discovered that the brand of homeopathy that’s available in the United States, and I’ll explain this in a little bit, is pretty mediocre homeopathy. I found this out when I came across the work of George Vithoulkas in Athens, Greece. He wrote a book called Homeopathy, Medicine for the New Man, which was published by Avon, I think, and it’s fairly unavailable nowadays. The only bookstore in San Francisco that carried this book burned down the other night, so I don’t know where in the city you can get it now. The Mill Valley Library has one copy, other libraries might carry it. Shambala used to have it, over in Berkeley, but I don’t know if they still have it or not. Anyway, it’s an excellent introduction to homeopathy.

George Vithoulkas is, in my opinion, the master homeopath in the world. I visited his place twice, a month each time, and sat in on cases. He has a number of staff who take the cases and he goes from room to room prescribing the remedies. He sees about 50 patients a day. He’s been doing it for about 15 years and he’s the most amazing prescriber I’ve ever seen. He gets the worst possible cases imaginable: congestive failures, the most brittle diabetics, epileptics that are practically in status epilepticus, very bad asthmatics, patients with very bad eczema, psychiatric psychoses of various kinds. And he has a 95% cure rate.

The definition of cure in homeopathy, even with chronic diseases, is complete disappearance of all the symptoms and a full sense of well being, not just the absence of disease, without reliance on any drugs or medications or vitamins or diet regimen or anything.

I want to give you an example of how powerful homeopathy is when it is practiced by someone as skilled as Vithoulkas. I saw a patient there three and a half years after her cure from Huntington’s Chorea. She had returned for a regular routine follow-up visit. Huntington’s Chorea is a neurological disorder that is hereditary in a definite Mendelian genetic way. It usually comes on in middle adolescence, it is something that causes involuntary motions of the skeletal muscles so that they are always jerking and moving and making what are called choreic motions. At first it starts in little ways and then it spreads until it involves the whole body.

When she first came to Dr. Vithoulkas at the age of 23, she was on the verge of dying, she’d lost weight down to about 65 or 70 pounds, she was totally bed ridden with these constant motions 24 hours a day. It was the sheer energy expenditure that caused her to lose weight, and not being able to eat so well. She was just zonked with all the medications to try to control this, and of course there is no treatment for something that is genetic, right? So Vithoulkas asked her a lot of these crazy questions and then gave her a few sugar granules of homeopathic remedy in one dose, which she just took on the tongue, and within three months she was completely free of symptoms.

This is magical, miraculous: 95% cure rate of all these serious diseases. I saw photographs and X-rays of one case, she had breast cancer that had fungated out through the skin, destroyed half of the breast and eaten down the arm and had metastasized throughout the whole body. Three surgeons considered that incurable, there was nothing they could do. Again, one dose, and within 3 months the symptoms were gone. I saw her on a six-year follow-up, and I examined her myself. There was a little bit of scar tissue and so on, but there was no trace of the cancer and she was living a perfectly normal life. Just one dose!

So, exactly what’s going on here? The basic principle of homeopathy is commonly stated as Like Cures Like. That’s what the word homeopathy actually means. Homeo means similar, pathy comes from pathos, which means suffering. Basically this principle was first enunciated, well probably in the Vedas, but in the Western world, Hippocrates was the first to enunciate this. Being an herbalist, and being very eclectic, he said that you can treat diseases by two principles, the principle of Contraries or the principle of Similars. If somebody has a runny nose, you can give them an herb or something that will decongest the nose. Or you can give the person a substance that produces the same symptoms in a normal person, which will also cure their symptoms. In other words, it’s just an empirical observation; we don’t know why a substance that will produce symptoms in a normal person will cure those symptoms in a sick person.

A common example is belladonna. If you give the herb belladonna to people, that’s a toxic herb. and it produces this picture: A flushed face, dilated pupils, a dry mouth, particularly a dry mouth without thirst. A sore throat that has mostly to do with dryness, and it’s usually centered on the right side, or at least begins on the right side and may progress to the left side. A throbbing, pounding headache, also worse on the right side, and particularly aggravated by noise, by light, by any kind of jarring or motion, by lying down flat, and alleviated by putting cold or putting pressure on it. A form of delirium in which the person sees phantoms and ghosts and feels attacked or pursued by entities of one sort of another. But in their terror, they don’t move; they want to escape but they don’t go running out of the room and jumping out of windows and crazy things like that.

Now, of course, we’ve all seen this picture before in people with fever. It can be a fever due to anything, due to meningitis, due to influenza. And if you see exactly that picture, not just a dry mouth but a dry mouth without thirst, etc., then you can give homeopathic belladonna, which is an extremely minute dose of belladonna. Just one dose and the fever will come down in five minutes, and the whole thing will be cured, regardless of whether it’s influenza or meningitis or what. It doesn’t matter what the diagnosis is, i.e. what we call the allopathic diagnosis, it still can be cured if you match the remedy to the symptoms that the person’s body is generating in the first place.

It’s as if the symptoms are the attempt on the part of the body to heal itself. In acute illnesses, if you give the body a chance, it usually does accomplish the healing. In chronic illnesses, usually the body does not accomplish the healing. It generates symptoms but it is not effective enough to actually cure the ailment. In homeopathy what we do is to find the substance that produces exactly those same symptoms in a normal person. Then we give that substance to the sick person, which stimulates their own healing forces. You see, their own healing forces are already trying to work, the remedy stimulates them even more and makes them more effective so the body can quickly and rapidly cure whatever it has been struggling with up to then.

By symptoms, in homeopathic medicine, we don’t mean just simple pains or discomfort, but we mean whatever form of limitation the person experiences, and not just on the physical level, but on the mental and emotional levels also. And it’s a highly individualized concept about symptoms. If all of us here were to suddenly get the flu, there would be a lot of common symptoms that we would all share. But each of us would have symptoms that would be different than the other people’s, ways in which our bodies are unique and individualized in response to the stress of having this virus. We can find a substance which matches the person’s total constellation of symptoms, and which produces a powerful healing response, curing them overnight, just like the Primal Scream therapist. So that’s the basic principle of Like Cures Like. Hippocrates never systematized this, it was an idle observation.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s when a German doctor named Samuel Hahnemann, being a German, and fastidious and precise and thoughtful, and being a genius besides, and divinely inspired very likely, said, ‘Well, if this is true, then we should be able to give substances to normal people and see the spectrum of symptoms they produce.’ In other words, he used people to define the personality of the substance, that is, the actions of the substance in the world. And by minutely describing the actions of the substance in the world on normal people, he built up a body of knowledge that could be used for curative purposes. He called this “proving.”

He would take a collection of people like us in this room, and he’d give belladonna, say, in one dose, and then he’d wait and see if any symptoms showed up in any of us. Then, if nothing happened after the first dose, he would give a number of doses, every day maybe, or three times a day for a long period of time, sometimes maybe even a year. And every day, every two hours in fact, people had to record in their journal if there is any new symptom, any way they feel, even in the most subtle ways, in terms of their energy, the way their minds work, any kinds of emotional reactions, reactions to stress situations, any kind of food cravings or aversions they have, any kind of difficulty sleeping or disturbed dreams, or unusual day dreams, anything. No matter how unusual it may seem, it gets recorded. It’s done very systematically.

At the end of recording everything, the symptoms that were common to the people before they took the substance were subtracted and the symptoms that were newly generated upon receiving the substance are organized and put into books called Materia Medicas. This big heavy one is just a summary of a summary of a summary. It has minutely described symptoms that were generated by substances given to normal people, and that then cure those symptoms in sick people.

It’s a total reversal of our usual way of thinking. Even in herbal medicine if somebody has constipation, you give them a laxative, something that has a different and opposite effect on the body. In homeopathy we give them something that in other people produces constipation and which now cures the constipation. Of course, we don’t do it on a one-to-one symptom like that, we do it in a totality of the symptoms of the person, all the different things, not just constipation, but any kind of rash they have, any kind of food craving or aversion, whether they’re warm blooded or chilly, whether they are comfortable in this room or not, a wide variety of things.

It’s a very detailed process of taking what we call a homeopathic case to get the totality of symptoms that individualize that person in their life. And then we go through books like this, which I’ll pass around so you can see for yourself. You might want to look up things like coffee, and onions and garlic, or cannabis. See the description and you’ll see that it is one you’ll recognize. Then you can do a double think and see that if somebody, for instance a psychotic, has a distorted time sense, and walks around laughing all the time, and they crave sweets, you can give them cannabis and it can cure their psychosis. I’ve seen it happen. A homeopathic amount of cannabis, by the way, you wouldn’t give them the cannabis itself.

Of course, you can’t just go thumbing through 2,500 different remedies every time a patient comes in to try to find the one that covers all their symptoms, so we have a cross index, a great big hefty book, which has all the different systems of the body listed here, including a chapter called The Mind. In here are very many highly individualized symptoms that have been produced in normal people by substances that have been given to them, and the remedies that correspond to those symptoms. So if somebody has a throbbing headache on the right side that’s better from cold, you look in here under head, pain, throbbing, better from cold applications. And you see 50 remedies that have that characteristic to them.

Then you go through all the symptoms that the person exhibits, and all the remedies that correspond to those symptoms until you find the one or two or three or four or six that run through the whole picture. Then you have to know the essence of the substances. After some experience, you begin the realize that each substance has a “personality.” And there’s a personality to people that you’re matching. You are almost literally meditating on the essence of substances and the essence of people. When the matching is done, some of the most powerful things that you could imagine in healing occur, I’ll pass this book around too so you can see how detailed it is. Mostly I want you to see that this is a highly systematic book, that’s what really impressed me about homeopathy in the first place.

It takes, they say, 15 to 20 years to get good at homeopathy. It’s a very detailed, systematic, thorough science, and also an art that involves a great deal of intuitive understanding. However, it’s not psychic, it’s not like a psychic saying, “Oh, your aura shows such and such a color and this kind of a liver thing, why don’t you take chelidonium and arsenicum and a bunch of homeopathic remedies, mix them together and that will make you better.” It’s not that, it’s a very systematic method, using the body’s own expression.

What we are as people is expressed in our body type, our reactions to: various environmental situations. For instance, some people are cold in this room, some are warm, some are restless and constantly change position in their seats all the time, some people sit very still, some people have a terrible time staying awake with a boring talk, and other people have very active minds that keep them going all the time, maybe even in things that aren’t related to what’s going on right here. Some people cry very easily, at the drop of a hat or without any reason at all, some people never cry at all, no matter how severe a grief they experience Some people get very irritable when they are in crowds and they prefer to be alone and to use their mind all the time and they don’t like to relate to people Other people need to be alone, but not because they like solitude itself, but because they have a lack of self confidence and have anxiety in social situations, they fear what people might think of them if they were to reveal themselves, they are introverted for a different reason. I could go on and on. There are a lot of different images of people, a lot of different essences of expression. And a person’s essence is essentially the same as the essence of the correct remedy.

To give some examples in my own experience. I had a patient who was a 13-year-old girl who had rheumatoid arthritis since the age of two. That’s probably the most severe form of arthritis there is. She’d been to the Stanford Rheumatology Clinic and the Mayo Rheumatology Clinic and she’s had a half dozen specialists and she’s been on cortisone continuously for one year, with all the puffiness and complications that come from it. She was having daily physical therapy. She was 13 years old when I saw her and her life had been wiped out by this illness, they’d spent I don’t know how many tens of thousands of dollars on her care and her prognosis was dismal. There’s no way you’re going to cure something like that. She had been on aspirin continuously for 10 years, something like 20 aspirin a day. She was completely bedridden except for maybe 1½ to 2 hours every day when she could get out and walk around a little bit, but she’d get so fatigued and so full of pain that she’d have to go back to bed again.

So during a 2-hour period when she could be up, she came to the office and I asked her questions, like what sort of books did she like to read, how was she affected by changes in the weather, mentally and emotionally as well as physically, what kind of foods did she crave or dislike, and all kinds of irrelevant questions. Then I gave her some little sugar granules on the tongue and told her to come back in a month. In the next week, she had a healing crisis that caused all of her joints to flare up. A law of nature is that in a chronic disease there has to be an aggravation of symptoms before there is a cure. And this is true in any method of medicine. By cure I mean a permanent absence of symptoms and increased resistance to whatever it is, say it’s a virus, bacteria, or whatever, or just the stress. So there has to be an aggravation before there’s a cure. Why that is, I don’t know. We could talk about it from a mystical standpoint and karma and all kinds of notions, but nobody knows, it’s just an observation.

Then her pain started to steadily disappear, to the point where a month after she took this substance, which was poison oak by the way, this one dose of rhus toxicodendron, all the pain had disappeared except her right knee and her ankles, which were the joints where it began at the age of 2. So she went ahead and went to high school. And the next month when she came back, without repeating the dose, she was completely free of pain. That was a year ago last July, over a year and a half ago. She hasn’t had a repeat of the remedy and of course is not on Indocin. She is very active in after school activities, she was trying out for cheerleader at one point. She got an A on a homeopathy paper.

How could a little bit of poison oak on the tongue cure rheumatoid arthritis that had gone on for 10 years? I wish I knew the answer. The principles are Like Cures Like and the Minimum Dose, which is to give just a small amount of substance and see what the reaction is. Homeopathic remedies seem to stimulate the body’s healing forces in such a way that the body cures itself.

QUESTION: Did the girl with arthritis have frozen joints?
ANSWER: No, all the physical therapy had prevented her joints from becoming frozen. If her joints had frozen and degenerated, we wouldn’t be able to correct the deformity, but the pain would be gone, and the inflammation, and the whole arthritic process.

So, anyway, Samuel Hahnemann tested substances on normal people, and enumerated them in books in minute detail, and started treating people, and got such phenomenal results that he was world famous very quickly. He got such good results that the standard medical societies hounded him out of three countries, which is always a sign of success.

They didn’t have any treatment in those days for cholera, they barely have any treatment for cholera now. Hahnemann could go into a county which had a raging cholera epidemic with a 70 or 80% mortality rate and cure every single case without a failure, and prevent it from spreading in that county. He would just go from county to county and do that with homeopathic treatment. The same thing was true for plague and yellow fever and all the influenzas.

QUESTION: Was it necessary to find the remedy for each individual or was there some way that he would deal with that as an epidemic?
ANSWER: Basically you do have to find the remedy for each individual, but in an epidemic the symptoms are similar enough that it comes down to a few remedies. That’s why it’s easier to start with acute cases when you’re doing homeopathy, because you can at least learn a few remedies and be able to cover say 90% of the cases from that.

He would prepare the homeopathic remedies by potentizing them, i.e. shaking and diluting them in glass vials containing alcohol. You take something like poison oak, grind it up, dissolve it in 87% ethyl alcohol, in a glass vial, and shake very, very hard, with a great deal of kinetic energy. As a matter of fact, the best remedies in those days were made by a certain blacksmith in the Midwest. Then you take one drop of that and dilute it in 99 more drops of alcohol, and shake very hard, and then one drop of that in another 99 drops of alcohol. And just keep doing that in serial dilution, one to 99, one to 99. And it turned out that the more it was shaken and diluted, and it must be done in glass, the greater the curative power of the substance when it is used according to the Like Cures Like principle. If it is matched correctly to the person, it has a profound effect, a really dramatic effect. If it is not matched correctly to the person then it has no effect. It doesn’t make them better, and doesn’t make them worse.

A lot of the substances that were being used allopathically* in that day, like mercury and arsenic and so on are toxic substances. Yet Hahnemann wanted to try these on people to see what their homeopathic effects are. So, since he couldn’t get normal people to volunteer to take arsenic or mercury, he gave potentized preparations of these sub stances to a group of volunteers and they would get harmless symptoms that could be recorded in books. Then these substances, which are toxic in non-potentized amounts, can be used in a curative way in potentized forms under the proper circumstances.

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*Defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary: Treatment of disease by remedies that produce effects different from or opposite to those produced by the disease.
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How far would you do this shaking and diluting? After all, Avogadro’s Number is 12 of these one-to-a-hundred dilutions. For the mathematicians in the audience, that would be 10 to the minus 24^th dilution. Avogadro’s Number is 6,023 times 10 to the 23^rd. And what Avogadro’s Number represents is the point beyond which there’s not one molecule of substance left, all there is in a material sense is just the alcohol.

Most people tended to stay in the low potency ranges, they would use 6 or 12 “X”, which means it is a one-to-ten dilution done 12 times. They would stay in that range because there is still some of the remedy, and, after all, it couldn’t work without substance, right?

Hahnemann was crazy, he didn’t go by theories, he went by observation. If it worked so far, how far would it work? He blithely went on to higher potencies, like a 30, which is a one-to-a-hundred dilution done 30 times. That is already a million-fold beyond Avogadro’s Number. How in the world could that work? Well, the potency I gave to the guy with the flu was a one-to-a-hundred dilution done a thousand times. That’s ten to the minus 2,000. Ten to the minus 24 is one thing, but ten to the minus 2,000 is just way out there. There’s no chance that there’s one molecule there of the original substance. And yet he was over his flu overnight, and the control group, the people treated with aspirin, bed rest, and fluids, took two weeks. The poison oak case that had rheumatoid arthritis for 10 years got a ten to the minus 2,000 dilution, or potency. In other words, one to a hundred dilution done a thousand times. There were no actual molecules of poison oak in those sugar granules I gave her.

Now, we could call whatever it was that cured her Energy, or we could call it Life Force, or Prana. We could call it anything, it doesn’t matter what we call it. We don’t know what it is. Some people have tried to do research on it. There is some chemical research that shows if you use nuclear magnetic resonance it shows a slight shift of resonance towards the hydroxyl end of the alcohol molecule. But so what, what does that mean? There are some changes that are detectable even in those realms beyond which there are no molecules left, but exactly how homeopathy works, we don’t know.

We do know some of the properties of homeopathic remedies. They are easily destroyed by various strong odors, like gasoline, cigarette smoke, onions, bleach. If you expose some of these remedies to such odors, their curative action is destroyed. We don’t know why. If the remedies are heated up to a temperature above 120 to 130 degrees, they lose their action. We don’t know why. However, you can freeze them all the way down to virtual zero, and it doesn’t change the action of the remedy.

There are all kinds of theories, lots and lots of theories, on why and how homeopathy works. As a matter of fact, you could read theories for the rest of your life on how this works. People talk about informal polymers between the water molecules and the ethanol molecules, the influence on the glass. And there are all kinds of psychic ideas. It’s a whole crazy field. But nobody has any proof of any of it, it just works. It is a pure empirical science.

There is another interesting property to remedies, and that is that they are self-perpetuating. For instance, this is a kit of remedies. It has these little glass vials containing sugar granules. The final alcohol dilution, maybe a half a drop of it, is put in one of these vials, not even enough to wet the granules. Then a cork is put on it and it is shaken around a little bit. If there was a flu epidemic and I was treating people and ran out of this remedy, all I would have to do is fill it up with unmedicated sugar granules, shake it around a little bit, and it would be remedicated. There is something about the glass that actually maintains the energy or force, or whatever it is you want to call it, in there.

The most dramatic story I ever heard of this was told by an Indian homeopath, who had an angina patient, heart pain. He got homeopathic treatment and was completely cured of his pain. And after a while he moved clear across India. In the process he ran out the remedy. By the way, some homeopaths give more than one dose. One dose is all a true homeopath needs to give, and I’ll go into this later, but in this case he was taking it repeatedly, which is not the highest level of practicing homeopathy.

Another interesting observation is that once a person has taken a homeopathic remedy, the effect of the remedy is somehow antidoted by drinking coffee or using camphor on the skin. We don’t know why that is. For some people a little bit of coffee will do it, for others it takes a fair amount of coffee before the remedy is antidoted. For some people the amount of camphor in chapstick is not enough to antidote remedies, and for others even one exposure on the skin will stop the action of the remedy. In other words, if this rheumatoid arthritis patient were to use camphor on her skin, then the action of the remedy would stop and her rheumatoid arthritis would come back. There are limitations on homeopathy, you can’t have coffee and camphor. Cigarettes don’t interfere with it.

So this patient somehow antidoted his remedy and he was clear across India and he went to the allopathic doctor and they gave him all kinds of toxic drugs and he got worse and didn’t know what to do. Then he called clear across the country, which is really a feat in India, to talk to this homeopath. And meanwhile, it had been ten years and the doctor had moved into a new office and had thrown away all his old records. He didn’t even know which remedy. he had given him. But in India they save everything, so he asked, “Do you still have the vial?” The patient said he did. The doctor said, “Fill it up with sugar granules and start taking them.” Which he did, and it cured his angina.

We know some of the parameters of the remedies: they are self-perpetuating, the effectiveness has to do with the influence of the substance on the glass, they are antidote-able in certain ways.

QUESTION: How do you treat something without any symptoms?
ANSWER: How do they know they are sick without any symptoms?

QUESTION: He went for a physical examination and was told he had hardening of the arteries.
ANSWER: You see, there is a difference between the homeopathic concept of symptoms and the allopathic concept of symptoms. Somebody could run through a Kaiser Multi-Phasic and have a half dozen internists do physical exams and come up with nothing. And the person himself knows he’s sick, “I don’t feel well, Doc.” They may get weak or fatigued, it’s hard for them to get out of bed in the morning, it’s hard for them to concentrate on things, they don’t have the stamina to go through the day, they can’t remember names and dates, and so on. And you may not be able to find anything wrong in terms of physical diagnosis. That’s where the limitations of allopathic medicine are.

On the other hand, in homeopathy, all of the manifestations of the person, even things we consider normal, for example, irritability and anxiety in certain situations, or fear of heights, all those things are actual manifestations of limitation of the person. That’s how health is defined in homeopathy. So virtually everybody has symptoms to a homeopath, and we would prescribe the remedy accordingly.

Now, if you’re asking me “Suppose the person doesn’t really have even homeopathic symptoms, or they are minimal in importance in their life, but they’ve got an elevated cholesterol level.” To a homeopath, it’s what comes through the ears, the eyes, the touch, and so on, that gives us information that leads to the remedy. If you want to look at it from a mystical point of view, it’s as if the world is set up so that the way the body expresses itself is exactly the cure. You learn to know how to prescribe substances in nature that can fit that particular individual picture. It’s as if the solution to the problem is already available in nature but it requires a knowledge of principles in order to apply the substance. And it does not require blood tests and fancy pathological-level understanding of tests. So homeopaths don’t actually do that much in the way of physical exams or testing.

QUESTION: Suppose you get sick from taking a toxic substance, for example from accidental poisoning. According to the theory of Like Cures Like, would you give a small dose of that same chemical and thus take care of the problem?
ANSWER: Yes, you could do that, that’s close to homeopathy, but not the same. That would be treating that specific response to that specific toxin. But if you really wanted to cure the person totally, you would go on the symptoms that were produced, which may not indicate giving the toxin itself.

There is a difference between the specific prescriber and the constitutional prescriber. Someone who spends 10 or 15 minutes with you and only asks about the pain in your knee, that’s a specific prescriber. And that may be alright, as far as it goes. But someone who spends an hour or two with you, going into all aspects of your life, especially emphasizing emotional and mental states, that’s someone who knows constitutional prescribing.

A lot of homeopaths are only giving one dose, but you don’t know it because they give placebos. It is a very common thing in homeopathy because they don’t think that patients would believe one dose would work. In the Bay Area, however, homeopaths don’t generally give placebos. Across the country and elsewhere in the world it’s almost always placebos in addition to the one dose, so you have trouble telling if you got a constitutional or a specific prescriber on that basis.

In the Bay Area there is the Hering Family Clinic in Berkeley that is a whole clinic of homeopathic prescribers, doctors, and lay prescribers. It’s at 2340 Ward Street. They are booked up 4 or 5 months in advance, which is typical of almost any homeopath. Then there is Frederich Schmid, who is a man in his fifties, or early sixties. I believe he is also not taking new patients, I’m not sure. He’s basically a specific prescriber, but he’s got a great deal of experience, and he’s trained with some of the best homeopaths in the world, so I have a great deal of respect for him. He does allopathic medicine as well as homeopathic medicine, so if you are looking strictly for homeopathy, you have to be specific with him. Then there is Leo Bakker, he’s at 450 Sutter St, in S.F. He’s relatively young and inexperienced, but he’s taking over the practice of a really highly respected homeopath, who died at the age of 86, Roger Schmidt. His practice is still open, and he does a good deal of allopathic medicine and some homeopathic medicine.

And then there is a new homeopath in San Francisco, he’s been practicing about 4 years in Boulder Colorado, but he’s just opening his practice here. His name is Eliott Blackman, and he is on Union Street. He’s also an osteopath, and he practices cranial osteopathy, for those that know anything about that, so he’s got quite a combination. I’m quite impressed with him. I don’t know him very well, but I do know that he tries to do constitutional prescribing and spends a great deal of time with each patient and he’s receiving some training that is coming through me from George Vithoulkas. So I think probably the best referral I can make is Eliott Blackman. Since it is still a new practice you have a chance of getting into see him. My practice is going to be closed in a few months because I’m going to Athens to study under George Vithoulkas for 2 or 3 years and I am not taking new patients.

As for learning homeopathy, you can get a lot of books from Shambala’s book store in Berkeley, they are probably the best source of homeopathic books in the Bay Area. If they don’t have certain books then they are often in the process of ordering them. Another good source of books is Dana Alman, who has kind of made a business out of this. He also teaches classes, introductory and advanced classes in homeopathy in Berkeley. He has a table out in front today. For people who want to learn more about it, that’s a good way to get an introduction. It is effective as far as helping you to prescribe for family and friends. Of course you wouldn’t be a homeopathic prescriber after taking Dana’s classes.

Then there are a variety of study groups. mushrooming all over the place, so it’s hard to give you an update that won’t be out of date in a few months. Dana is probably the best source for finding out about study groups in the Bay Area. The Hering Family Clinic has a study group. I understand there’s a study group in San Francisco, there are a couple of them down in Palo Alto, and so on.

In the future, George Vithoulkas will have a correspondence course in homeopathy that will originate from Greece and will be available all over the world. It’s a very elaborate thing, the way it’s being planned. It’s not just a course you spend an evening month working on. It will be something that will be equivalent to going to college. It will demand a good 16 to 20 hours of study a week, not just homeopathy, but also some of the basics of standard allopathic medicine.

Because allopathic medicine is very valuable as far as it can be used. Allopathy is very good at diagnosis, which is sometimes important. And it is very good at mechanical things like broken bones and surgical situations, while homeopathy is not good at those things. Homeopathy’s strength is in the realm of functional conditions that are still evolving, even before pathological change. Once there is pathological change, homeopathy can still be effective, but if you get too far along, then often surgery or allopathic medicine is still the best thing to do. So I don’t put down allopathy. And for anyone getting into any wholistic field of practice, homeopathy included, having a pretty good knowledge of allopathic medicine is extremely important in order to evaluate what’s going on.

Sometimes you need to know how serious a given situation is, what the prognosis is, will this person die in a day or two, or do they have a year or two? What’s the pace of the illness? Without that knowledge, you can’t always judge the best way to deal with somebody wholistically. You may not have time, so you may have to use allopathic medicine sometimes.

It is not certain when this course is going to be available. I would say the earliest would be within a year. It could be maybe two years before it’s ready. It depends a lot on George getting his book out, but he’s so busy with patients that he hasn’t completed the book. He’s writing a three-volume work on the actual theory and philosophy and the nuts and bolts details, case-taking details that will probably be the most comprehensive book ever written on how to do homeopathy. It will be published in English. It’s slow going for somebody that is as well-known as he is, since he gets so many cases. But we are going to kick his ass and get him to finish it.

There will be publicity on it throughout the whole Bay Area so people will know when it’s finally available. It will probably cost considerable money, maybe equivalent to going to college. It’s going to be a multimedia thing, it will utilize audio and video tapes, programmed texts, and various elaborate teaching aids.

Then, after I get two or three years of training under Vithoulkas it’s planned that I’ll come back here to the Bay Area and will establish a permanent school, with a physical location. It will provide year-round training in both homeopathic medicine of the highest level of understanding, that is real constitutional prescribing, and also allopathic medicine. And that’s still 3 to 5 years away.

QUESTION: What about the Royal College in London?
ANSWER: Yes, there is a college in London that trains doctors in homeopathy. It’s not an actual physical structure, it’s a hospital, and they make rounds, and they have a two-week course that they give on a repeated basis. Again, there’s one real constitutional prescriber there and the rest have lesser levels of understanding. I don’t mean to put that down. Any homeopath is going to do you a great deal of good. The true constitutional ones are the ones you want to have when there’s real heavy duty illnesses. And there it’s important to make whatever efforts are necessary to get that care.

In the United States, there are only six homeopathic doctors doing constitutional prescribing. Most of their practices are closed, unfortunately. I can give you the names: There’s Edward Whitmont in New York, who is doing only a psychiatric practice, he’s probably the best in the United States. He’s a Jungian psychoanalyst, an astrologer, and a homeopath, all at once, with about 40 years experience. I think he’s the president of the Jungian Society in the United States.

Then there is James Stevenson in New York City. In Chicago there is a homeopath named Rudy Ballentine. In Orlando Florida there is Ruth Rogers, she’s a very experienced homeopath and she’s had some training under Vithoulkas. There is Maise Panos in Tip City Ohio, which is near Dayton. She’s one of the better known ones in the United States. Those are the main ones I recommend. Incidentally, you’ll be interested to know there are probably as many women doctors doing homeopathy as men doctors, and that’s always been the case.

QUESTION: Please talk about the legal status, both for M.D.’s and non-M.D. ‘s.
ANSWER: The legal status is fairly iffy, but not as bad as you might think. For M.D.’s, you can do almost anything, so even homeopathy can be done by M.D.’s and they aren’t being hassled currently. In the past, it is true, some M.D.’s lost their license doing homeopathy, not just because they are doing homeopathy, though, but because they were claiming to cure cancer and various other diseases that you just don’t claim to cure, considering the way things are. But those that have just ordinary practices, and treat people instead of illnesses don’t usually run into that kind of trouble. If anybody really gets serious about doing homeopathy, the safest of all the ways is to go to medical school and then do it. But, of course, the vast majority of the time and energy that you spend in medical school is irrelevant once you become a homeopath.

Then, as far as the status of lay prescribers, that has not really been tested in the law yet. Dana Alman was arrested for practicing without a license last May and his trial is coming up April 11^th. A group of us pulled together to join in his defense. The defense is that while you must have an M.D. diagnose or treat pathological diseases, in a true sense homeopathy does not even attempt to do that. It does but it doesn’t -- homeopathy treats the pathological as one level, but it also treats the whole range of the person, and fundamentally the choice of the remedy is not based on the ailment, it’s based on the person.

It appears that this defense will be quite effective and he’ll be acquitted. The charges may even be dismissed, which would be a very great victory for homeopathy. It is just a local court decision so it doesn’t have the tremendous weight of a Supreme Court decision, and the strategy is not to go to the appellate court level. But it will have the weight of one time, anyway, when this argument was made in court and was convincing to the court.

There’s a fair amount of energy that’s being put into Dana’s defense, not just to support Dana but because of the importance this has for homeopathy and the wholistic movement in general. If anybody here has energy that they can use to help organize for this case, we can definitely use as much help as possible.

This trial is really important because it is educational for the public to even know that there is such a thing as homeopathy and that it is even more effective than standard medicine. Most people are really disgusted with doctors. They know that the methods being used are dehumanizing and cost an undue amount of money, but they don’t know what else to do. And Dana’s trial is a showcase situation where publicity could be done to make that point. And we can also make the point that the wholistic health movement has gotten big enough now to create a confrontation with the legislative norms for what is and isn’t medicine. And this is the tip of that iceberg. This case is historically important.

Whether it is safe to practice homeopathy as a lay person now is just not known until this case works itself out. There is definitely a risk even if Dana is acquitted because a prosecutor can prosecute anyone, even if there is a precedent on the books. But, if Dana wins, there will be the reassurance that at least once this argument protected somebody in court. It will also help to delineate the way in which homeopathy can be practiced legally. I.E. the way to communicate to clients in order to not just protect yourself legally, but to communicate to the client that you’re not doing allopathic medicine, you’re not qualified to diagnose, and that they need an M.D. for that, but that you are working on stimulating their life force which can produce a beneficial effect on their health.

As long as we are talking about resources, I want to comment on homeopathic pharmacies. There are pharmacies that are specialty pharmacies for homeopathy. The remedies are usually prepared by machines. There is a homeopathic pharmacy called Mylan’s on 220 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco. They generally don’t handle their remedies very reliably, but if you are in a real pinch, they have some remedies there. I understand that Pay and Save in Berkeley has some remedies too, they are low potencies, i.e. not diluted as much as high potencies and therefore, paradoxically, not as powerful. By in large, until you know something about homeopathy, you probably ought to stay with low potencies.

Then there is the Standard Homeopathic Company in Los Angeles, and they have all different potencies available. There are several other pharmacies across the United States. The most reliable homeopathic pharmacy is Nelson’s in London, England. They have very reliable remedies, and they really handle remedies correctly. A lot of so-called homeopathic pharmacists don’t know about avoiding high temperatures and odors, etc., and I’ve seen them smoke a cigarette while preparing remedies. We are working on that, the homeopathic pharmacopia is being revised and the standards of preparation are going to be a part of the FDA law. [Boiron, a French company, is a reliable source both for doctors and lay people.]

QUESTION: I have gotten the impression that a lot of provings over the past 150 years were done in a rather haphazard way, with no control and no controlling for placebo effect. How reliable are the Materia Medicas?
ANSWER: Actually, most of the provings have been done very reliably. It is true that they haven’t been done in a double blind way, the way we do nowadays because of the allopathic influence. But they have been done in a very systematic way throughout history. Hahnemann set standards that were very high. There are some provings in some places that were done with small numbers of people and they didn’t keep careful notes and a homeopath didn’t supervise it in a very strict way. But actually, the provings that make up the bulk of the materia medicas are really very reliable. And there have been some provings done recently to test information that’s a hundred years old and it still stands. By and large they are accurate. However, there are not enough done. We need a lot more provings done. There aren’t that many homeopaths and they don’t have the time to do it so until there’s a resurgence of homeopathy, we are not going to see much effective development of new remedies through provings.

I might comment a little on the decline of homeopathy. Because in 1890 there were as many homeopathic M.D.’s in the United States as there were allopathic M.D.’s. As a matter of fact, the A.M.A. was formed two years after the American Institute of Homeopathy. And part of its specific reason for forming, according to the bylaws, was to ‘stamp out the scourge of homeopathy.’ And it did a pretty good job.

It wasn’t only medical politics that compromised homeopathy. One of the big difficulties is that it requires so much time with a patient, it’s impractical. Nowadays, in the modern urban setting of doing medicine, money is the medium of exchange. Back in the last century, when medicine was done in a rural setting, a doctor had to travel by horse and buggy to somebody’s house anyway, and didn’t operate out of his office that much. He would spend a lot of time with people and was paid in chickens and fixing the roof and that sort of thing. So his basic needs were taken care of by the community. It was sort of like a peasant situation. [*Further information at the end.]

But now that we are in an urban environment, the economics have changed and it’s very hard to make a living doing homeopathy, if you are really doing it strictly. Take, for example, MediCal. In my practice, I charge $60 an hour, which is an average charge for a doctor if they figure it on a time basis, or probably it’s even a little low nowadays. But I may spend an hour or two, and that can run up to a lot of money for that first visit. MediCal will only pay a certain percentage, according to the standards of practice in the community. So if somebody has hay fever, or arthritis, it doesn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes to prescribe an antihistamine or a pain killer. So they will not permit charges for more than that amount of time. So, on an average, for MediCal patients, I collect 25% of my usual fee.

If you think it’s bad now, wait until National Health Insurance comes in and everybody is on it, like they are in Great Britain. Homeopathy is declining in Great Britain just as much as it is here. And a major part of the reason is that they don’t pay for the time that the doctor has to spend. Of course, in the long run, homeopathy is so effective that it saves people money. For instance, the parents of that rhus tox patient spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for her arthritis and probably didn’t pay me more than one hundred dollars.

The fundamental principles of homeopathy are:

● Like Cures Like

● The Potentization Principle (the systematic dilution of remedies)

● The Single Dose Principle

In true homeopathy you give one dose only. Results should be evident soon and no more remedy needed for the healing to continue until health is regained.

With a 170 years heritage, anyone doing homeopathy is going to gain quite a bit of insight into health and disease. You don’t just sit down with somebody for 5 minutes and throw out a remedy, or look at their aura and zap a remedy to them. In real homeopathy, you go through a very detailed question and answer session, the whole interview usually takes hours. But as you gain experience, you can do it more and more quickly. By asking all those questions about their individual responses to their environment and social situations and so on, you are really getting closer to the essence of who that person is, the way they work, their fundamental, basic way of interacting in the world. It’s more than psychoanalysis. The psychotherapeutic view of the world is that the mind causes things in the body. And that’s true to a certain extent. But the homeopathic view of things is that whatever manifestation of limitation there is in the person, that leads to the remedy.

Homeopaths get quite a sophisticated view of health and disease. There is a principle that comes out of observations that goes beyond the principles that we have talked about so far. This is the principle that I think is of the most value to people using other therapies. Now this comes directly from George Vithoulkas, who is really the master homeopath in the world. It’s a very simple concept. As I convey it, you may think “Well, of course, that makes sense.” But this can be an extremely powerful tool in measuring how a person is responding to any therapy, or how sick a person actually is, regardless of the allopathic diagnosis. There are people with cancer who are healthy, basically, and the cancer is just one hang up. And there are people with lupus who are healthy, but it’s just one hang up. And there are people with hay fever who are very sick, by this concept.

It’s basically the definition of health. First off, the person is an integrated whole, including the mental level, the emotional level, and the physical level. The definition of health relates to all three of these levels.

The definition of health on the physical level is freedom from having extra attention on the body due to pain, weakness, stiffness, or whatever. It isn’t just freedom from pain, but freedom from having to put undue attention on the body. If you must do your stretching or your yoga in the morning in order to get your body to a place where it feels comfortable so you can go on with your day, that’s a limitation right there. Freedom would be that you can or you cannot do it, depending on how your body is on the physical level.

On the emotional level, it’s freedom from being trapped by the passions. Most people react in a habitual way to emotional situations. If somebody confronts them in some way, they may habitually react with anxiety or withdrawal or anger or irritability or defensiveness, or whatever. And most people go through life reacting constantly in the same way to very many different situations. For instance, Richard Nixon had a characteristic way that he responded to all the stresses that occurred before and while he was President. That’s a limitation of freedom on the emotional level. Now, freedom from habitual emotional reactions doesn’t mean zen detachment, a state of noninvolvement in the world, or a state of emotionlessness. It’s not that at all. It’s a matter of being able to experience the full range of human emotions, but without being trapped in any one of them, so that you have a choice in how you can react to a circumstance.

On the mental level, this is a little harder to describe. The mental level is different from the emotional level. Our perception of the world is without emotion. Emotions are in our reaction to our perceptions. And that perception can be confused or it can be clear. It can be basically a perception which has to do with selfishness or with selflessness. It can be a perception of reality as it is or as a fantasy. And these don’t necessarily have an emotional content to them.

The extreme example of somebody who is limited in this way, who has a lack of freedom on the mental level, would be a schizophrenic. Often there is a great deal of emotional reaction in a schizophrenic. But there are schizophrenics, particularly the more chronic ones, who cannot separate realities on different dimensions and yet are not frightened anymore. They may have passed through the emotional reaction to it, but the perceptual difficulty is still there. If you say something to a schizophrenic, he may not be able to perceive the impact of what you’re saying on his own state. And he may not be able to perceive the impact that his words have on you. It’s true that there are other planes of existence that people can come in touch with, and I think schizophrenics are often in touch with these planes, but the limitation in their case is that they don’t know how to discriminate which level they are on in a given moment, whereas other people can.

Now the mental, emotional, and physical all interact. The mental can create emotional reactions, the emotional state can create ulcers and colitis, and vice versa. A bodily pain can stimulate fear in a person and fear can distort their ability to perceive what’s happening around them, of narrow them in to a more self-centered consciousness, rather than a more outward consciousness. So these all interact, but the totality is animated by something we might call the Life Force, or the Vital Force, or Prana, or Chi.

Life Force is a non-material process, or force, or energy that animates the whole being. And this is what is always trying to create a state of equilibrium or balance in the person. So that if there is a stress or any kind, such as an auto accident or a change in weather or a full moon or cigarette smoke or the cat pulling the drapes down, then it produces a reaction. And that reaction comes from the Life Force trying to maintain a state of equilibrium.

Equilibrium will be achieved depending on the strength or weakness of the Life Force in the person. We are born with either a weak Life Force or a strong Life Force, or it’s somewhere on the continuum in between. Some people are born with such strong constitutions that they can eat all the junk food in the world, and never exercise, and overwork, and they never get sick, and they live into their nineties. Other people can be health nuts, and put all their attention and energy into that realm. They exercise, they eat the right diet, they never miss their vitamins, they meditate regularly, they have good balanced relationships, they’re always centered, and yet they’re sick. Those people have weak Life Forces.

We can talk about the center of gravity of symptoms. If somebody’s symptoms are generated by the Life Force primarily on the physical level, and they have a great deal of freedom on the mental and emotional levels, then they are relatively strong. They are setting up their defenses on the physical level, which is actually of least importance to the freedom of the organism. But if somebody has a disturbance on the mental/spiritual level, where their whole ability to perceive reality is distorted in a significant way, that’s a limitation of freedom that permeates every other aspect of their life. That’s the most important area. The center of gravity of an illness has a great deal to do with measuring how healthy or how sick a person is.

Using this concept, if you apply a therapy to someone who is sick, you can measure the progress of that person under that therapy by the way they respond. If they clear up on the mental and emotional level and their symptoms are still progressing on the physical level, you’re going in the right direction, towards a cure. Often, the physical body changes much slower than the mental and emotional aspects, which are on a dynamic plane. So you can see somebody change on the mental and emotional level and the physical level is still sick. But you know they’re better, and they do too.

I have a patient right now who has had ulcerative colitis for a long time. This is one of the worst cases I’ve ever had. She’s been on cortisone a long time. Under the influence of her homeopathic remedy, a tremendous healing crisis was produced, it’s gone on for a month. And it started with a deep-seated emotional response. She woke up the morning after taking the remedy and every symptom she had ever had on the mental and emotional levels all of a sudden came out in the space of an hour. She had all the canker sores, the colitis, the eczema and she had all the anxiety and fear and anger she had never been in touch with before. As the day went on, she experienced a lot of anger towards her husband and her brother-in-law, which had been what she had been going through the previous few months. After that, she experienced a lot of anger towards her mother that she had felt ever since she was a child. It marched right through time.

She said it was as if her mind was out of control, that these things would pop into her consciousness and she would immediately develop a symptom in the body at the same time. In a matter of minutes that symptom would disappear as the mental and emotional states disappeared. She said that during this experience she saw the root of her entire illness internally, in a psychic space. Before her homeopathic treatment she had been contemplating surgery to remove the colon. She discovered during this experience that it was not just her colon that was sick, it was her whole being, and that it is all connected.

And it was not a matter of her having to overcome her anger in order to get over her colitis. The anger which was created by the Life Force in response to stress was just as much an expression of limitation as the colon symptoms were. They were all the same, they were all just symptoms. And prior to the remedy, all those symptoms were needed in order to maintain a balance in response to stress.

Someone with a weak Life Force maintains their balance in response to stress by having symptoms on the mental, emotional and physical levels. And when either the Life Force is strengthened or the stress is reduced (preferably in homeopathy we stimulate the Life Force itself), then they are able to cope with those stresses, and the symptoms can go on the produce a cure. This is a reversal of the way of thinking about health and disease from the usual medical concept. The allopathic medical concept is that symptoms are something you want to get rid of. And that’s true, as far as it goes, but it’s also a manifestation of the body trying to heal that problem. In homeopathy, we strengthen the Life Force so that that process can be completed, that’s why there needs to be an aggravation before there’s an improvement.

To summarize: a set of symptoms is an integrated whole and the symptoms are produced by the Life Force. In homeopathy we stimulate the Life Force which then aggravates the symptoms to the roll-over point so they produce a cure. We measure progress by defining health as being equivalent to freedom. If you ever doubt whether somebody is sick, ask them if they are free.

QUESTION: I would think that some of these healing crises would be very frightening. Do you explain to people what might happen to them?
ANSWER: The healing crisis could possibly be frightening. However, the patient is really stronger than before they received the remedy and can now handle the aggravated symptoms. The colitis patient experienced much of healing crisis over a period of hours, and then she went on experiencing it for weeks, working exactly backwards in time. We could actually tell how far back in her life the remedy was working, it will work all the way back into infancy, till the first day of life.

Any symptoms that have ever been generated will be chronologically recreated during the healing crisis until all the symptoms are gone, and the patient is cured for life. And during the healing crisis they are actually stronger, so they have a greater capacity to cope with these aggravated symptoms. Whereas before the remedy patients feel overwhelmed and vulnerable and unable to cope with the symptoms or the emotional states. Under the influence of the remedy, there is definitely a heightened sense of well-being, a clear state that this is exactly what is supposed to happen.

Usually, I don’t have to talk patients through their crisis, they already intuitively know it will turn out fine. I talked to her on the phone yesterday and she’s doing very well now. The whole mental and emotional thing is nearly cleared up, and she’s just working through the physical level of symptoms. She said one thing that was obvious to me all the way through, “I am fine.” And that’s the prime thing that we look for in homeopathy, that despite aggravated symptoms, the patient says, “Oh, I have this and that pain and so on, but I’m fine. I know that I am well.” When people say “I”, they are talking about a sense of themselves as a whole. They’ll say “My knee hurts but I’m OK.”

So counseling isn’t even needed during the healing crisis. Mostly counseling is trying to talk somebody into a certain point of view. Usually whatever counseling I give is irrelevant because the person is already discovering those things for themself. When there is basically a neurotic kind of process going on, i.e. anxiety or fear, and they have some insight into what’s going on, but they’re just not able to take responsibility for it, the remedy will stimulate their capacity to see the root of the problem. Then it’s up to them to learn from that and use it. And that’s where counseling might come in. But usually they’re strengthened so much that there is no obstruction to learning the lesson, so counseling is not needed.

There are several levels of understanding homeopathy. And you’ll see people giving homeopathic remedies and calling themselves homeopaths who don’t understand the highest level of homeopathy because they weren’t exposed to it or they weren’t interested in it. So let me describe first the different ways of using homeopathic remedies. I don’t mean to put down the more superficial levels of homeopathic practice because they all have their uses. But we do need to be able to discriminate among them.

For instance, there’s Tissue Salts, which you see in all kinds of health food stores. They are homeopathic preparations of the same salts found in the body. “Natrum Phos,” “Natrum Sol,” “Natrum Ur,” “Cali Phos,” and so on. Their originator theorized, “Well, if you extract the energy from them by potentizing them, that should enhance the absorption by the body of those salts, and help to balance the body’s mineral balance.” In actual practice, we don’t know what they do and they don’t do very much. They are low potencies (i.e. not diluted very much) and they have very minimal effects unless it just happens that your particular homeopathic remedy, the one that fits your system precisely is one of those. In that case, you can get a very nice response. But for most people, buying these salts and taking combinations of them will have very little effect. And probably it’s an effect that is analogous to vitamin therapy, which is not useless, but it’s not as curative as the highest level of homeopathy. Tissue salts don’t work very well because, while they are homeopathically prepared substances, they are not prescribed by the homeopathic principles of (1) Like Cures Like, (2) of using the totality of the person’s symptoms, and (3) matching the essence of the remedy to the essence of the person.

You’ll also come across the Bach Flower Remedies. Bach himself was a homeopath. But he uses flowers that are not homeopathically prepared, they are prepared as a tincture so they’re not potentized, and they are prescribed by a sort of superficial Like Cures Like principle. Prescribing is based on one or two or three mental symptoms. The Flower Remedies do actually have effects as far as relieving anxieties or angers or grief situations, but they are temporary and you have to keep on taking them in order to get the effects. So they’re not curative in the sense of stimulating the body’s own healing forces so that the body can manage on its own after that.

Then you’ll see people who prescribe remedies in a very quick fashion on just a few homeopathic symptoms. The people who prescribe in this manner say you have to have three homeopathic symptoms because “You have to have three legs on a stool to get it stable.” Basically that approach will have a relatively superficial, transient effect, and you have to keep taking the remedy to continue getting the effect. I call that Specific Prescribing. Usually the remedy is based on the particular symptoms. If you have a pain in the knee, then it’s a matter of how is that pain affected by changes in the weather, what time of the day or night is it better or worse. Then you prescribe a remedy for that. That’s basically allopathic prescribing, i.e. giving a remedy for a problem. Whereas in true homeopathy, you give a remedy to the person with the problem, based on who that person is as an individual, and then the problem is cured as a part of the process of stimulating the healing forces of the person.

But specific prescribing does work. So when somebody is basically strong and they just have a minor ailment, then specific prescribing is very, very useful. You can get a lot of benefit from it. I analogize it to mathematics. If you know arithmetic and can make change in a store, that’s equivalent to knowing first aid. When you learn more homeopathy and you can treat people with specific remedies for specific problems, that’s analogous to knowing algebra or geometry. And constitutional homeopathic prescribing, which is a very detailed, painstaking process that has very powerful deep curing actions with just one dose, that’s analogous to doing calculus. So you wouldn’t use calculus to make change in the store. You don’t do constitutional prescribing because somebody smashed his thumb. [Just take arnica 30x!]

But if somebody has cancer or Lupus Erythematosus or colitis or chronic asthma, you don’t give a first aid remedy, you give a constitutional remedy. It’s a matter of knowing how to do the level of homeopathy that’s needed for the person. Unfortunately, in the United States, the vast majority of homeopaths are basically specific prescribers, including here in the Bay Area. That’s good as far as it goes but it’s not the full blown, constitutional way of prescribing.

This is gradually changing as George Vithoulkas has gotten more widely known. There are only a few constitutional prescribers in the world, probably only 5 or 6, it’s really that drastic. But their knowledge is spreading, and it is developing in the United States. And gradually over the next several years you’ll be able to see more and more constitutional prescribers.

I’ll talk about how you can get training in homeopathy. It’s still not easy. Technically there’s only one formal course available in the United States right now. And that’s sponsored by the National Center for Homeopathy. It’s a 2-week course in late August and early September. It’s a very intensive and good quality course, done by several well-known homeopaths in the United States. They can answer almost any question you have regarding resources, and they have a directory of practicing homeopaths in the United States.

(Updated Dec 2025)
National Center for Homeopathy
PO Box 1856
Clarksburg, MD 20871-1856
info@homeopathycenter.org

In homeopathy we start from the assumption that the person is fundamentally a mystery. But we do know principles from just plain observation that lead to a cure. We don’t have the depth of understanding to know what’s happening on other planes. There’s no question it’s happening on other planes because there’s nothing in these little granules, in a material sense. So it’s obviously a non-material therapy. But we don’t know what’s going on. I don’t sit there studying the astral level and the causal level of a person and somehow figure it out. It isn’t that at all. It’s a matter of knowing and applying the principles, and the more strictly they’re applied, the better the result. But in terms of what’s going on or why, we don’t really know. Maybe someday we will.

QUESTION: How can the patients remember everything you need to know about their pain or disease?
ANSWER: Well, you have to help them, it takes a great deal of experience and skill to do a true homeopathic interview. It’s not just a list of questions which you work through, “Are you warm-blooded or chilly?” etc. It isn’t that, it’s a matter of really helping the person to observe themself. And often you don’t get that far on the first visit. But after they’ve thought about it, they can observe themselves.

There’s a concept in Kant’s Lectures on Philosophy that really goes to the heart of this business about freedom. The idea is that if, as an individual, you were perfectly healthy you would experience, no sensation. If you’re healthy and you’re sitting there and you don’t have to put attention on your body, you’re not thinking about your hair and your fingernails and things like that, that’s a state of freedom. The body is doing its job, keeping you alive, enabling you to do various things but you don’t have to put attention on it.

Well, this applies to the emotional and mental levels too. If you think about it, most of what we experience as our personality is really an expression of hang-up. If a person is irritable or if they’re anxious or if they are withdrawn or if they’re overly hyperactive or whatever, that’s actually a limited response. As I said earlier, it’s a habitual response to a given situation. We are healthy to the extent that we are free of habitual responses. The goal in homeopathy is to achieve that whole level of freedom from habitual responses. In illness almost everything that we experience as ourselves is a pathological symptom in that it limits our freedom. And people are aware of this so, if you approach the illness through that definition of health, it’s not that hard to have a patient be precise about their symptoms. Some people are blocked up and they’re aware of it only to a certain extent. But you can get them to talk about it as time goes on. Basically, the things that the patient himself sees as limitations are the most important homeopathic symptoms.

QUESTION: Do you have to believe in it to get it to work?
ANSWER: No. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen some of the most dramatic cures happen in animals and they don’t have beliefs. My wife. cured our cat of distemper. Distemper in cats is supposedly fatal. It was diagnosed by a vet and he wanted to give it shots, and he gave it a poor prognosis. We said, “No way we’re going to give it a drug.” My wife took the case of the cat by observing him. We talked about the personality of the cat, he is a Siamese cat, really stand-offish of other cats and of people, he always tended to stay in the shade and not in the sun and he liked certain food and so on. It added up to homeopathic Sulfur. We gave him homeopathic Sulfur and he was cured of distemper overnight.

There was a poodle that I treated. I didn’t even see the poodle, he was a patient’s pet. He had chronic diarrhea that was really giving him trouble and they suspected cancer, I don’t know if that was ever confirmed or denied. He was a really nervous kind of poodle, always wanted to be around people. And he always wanted to stay in the sun rather than the shade and he was very restless, he wouldn’t stay in one position very much. That’s the picture of homeopathic arsenic. So we gave him homeopathic arsenic and that cured the poodle.

You can cure infants and they don’t know anything about homeopathy. It’s a little hard to get a personality picture from an infant, but that’s where specific prescribing really comes in handy, just on the specific nature of the symptoms. There are cases or people who don’t believe in homeopathy at all and their friend or relative put the correct remedy in their water or juice and it produced a cure.

QUESTION: Why is it recommended that people not take their own case?
ANSWER: Well, people try. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the big dangers when you first become a homeopath, you give yourself too many remedies. Generally people don’t see themselves with as much clarity as someone else could see them. And homeopaths particularly could see someone else more clearly than they can see themselves. For instance, just think about it, are you introverted or extroverted? Compared to most people are you warm-blooded or chilly? Are you physically very active or are you more sedentary? Are you unusually neat or sloppy? Those are questions that aren’t that easy to get at, and what I have to always do is follow it up and say, “Well, can you give an example?” Or for example, if I ask somebody if they are unusually neat or sloppy, they may say, “Oh, sloppy.” And when they answer that way I know they are neat, because they’re bothered by disorder. So then I ask them, “How do other people see you?” “Oh, very neat.” So, it’s a subtle thing. It’s much better to have a homeopath take your case.

QUESTION: What’s the difference between vaccinations and homeopathy?
ANSWER: There is a world of difference. A vaccine looks like it is based on Like Cures Like, you give a little bit of smallpox to prevent smallpox. But actually you’re giving, first off, a material substance and in homeopathy you give a potentized or energized substance. And secondly, it’s not being prescribed on an individualized basis. If you give the swine flu vaccine to a whole population, some of those people are going to be more sensitive to it than others. In homeopathy we would give the remedy that would fit the individual.

To a homeopath it’s obvious that if you give one substance to a whole population a certain percentage of those people are going to react to it adversely, because people are individuals. It’s an absolutely predictable thing. Homeopaths always oppose things like fluoride in the water and swine flu vaccinations because we know there are going to be adverse reactions in the people that are constitutionally weakest. We do it on an individualized basis.

When the swine flu thing came up, homeopaths just laughed at the whole thing. There wasn’t good evidence that there was going to be a swine flu epidemic, this year anyway. Also, it was very predictable that we’d get the kind of complications that have occurred. And usually there’s not studies done over 15, 20, 30 years on the long term effects of something like this. It could well be causing cancer or some neurological problem.

And finally, homeopaths aren’t afraid of swine flu at all. There was a study done in San Francisco in 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic. The flu had roughly a 50% mortality rate among the hospitalized patients. I think the overall mortality rate was 35%. There were 5,000 cases treated by the three active homeopaths at that time. All of those charts were studied and there was only one death out of 5,000 patients. That’s quite a dramatic difference.

QUESTION: Have you given talks like this to doctors?
ANSWER: Yeah, sure. The first one I gave was to the staff of the hospital that I was a member of in Sebastopol. They had to have meetings every month. So they figured they’d have an entertaining one and have this quack get up and talk about homeopathy. I would say that a third were actively interested and sought me out afterwards and got treatment for their hay fever and stuff like that. A third were moderately entertained and probably enjoyed it more than TV. And the other third were openly hostile. It was an interesting evening.

By and large, doctors really aren’t close minded to this if you approach it from an empirical standpoint. I’ve always said to doctors, “It’s non-toxic, it’s not going to do harm, so why not give it a try?” It always makes sense to start with something non-toxic before you resort to something toxic.

When I first started in practice in Sebastopol I didn’t know that much homeopathy and couldn’t justify treating people homeopathically if there was an effective allopathic treatment for them. So I applied the criteria that I would only use homeopathy in cases where allopathic medicine is either ineffective or it’s too dangerous for the degree of the problem they have. Believe it or not, that turns out to be 75% of the time. I ended up doing a great deal of homeopathy, even on those grounds, and I gained a lot of experience. Allopathic medicine, when you look at it, isn’t that effective. It always makes sense to try something non-toxic before you try something toxic, except in situations like very rapid appendicitis.

QUESTION: What if the patient is already taking medication?
ANSWER: Yes, that’s difficult. Now the one thing I haven’t talked about is suppression. The body is trying to produce symptoms in order to accomplish a cure. If you artificially suppress those symptoms, for instance by giving cortisone to take away pain, or a tranquilizer to take away anxiety, then all that does is push down the symptom which the body is trying to produce. The symptom will pop up somewhere else, and allopathic treatment would attempt to suppress it with another drug, and you just keep doing that. Here’s the Life Force causing a symptom in order to cure the person and the allopath tries to suppress it because “If it’s not there then you’re not sick.”

And that’s also true of a lot of wholistic practices. Much of what goes on in wholistic medicine isn’t that different from allopathic medicine. It’s basically symptom suppression. It’s wholistic in the sense that it tries to use non-toxic things and alternative therapies. They’ll take a person and say, “She has a mental problem here so give her a little Gestalt therapy, and she has a little hypertension so give her a little bio-feedback. And hypnosis for her sleeplessness. And herbs for her constipation. And vitamins to prevent her colds and take care of her eczema. Balance the minerals in her hair. Doing all this is like band-aid medicine. The patient is walking around with a bunch of band-aids on. It’s not really a cure, it’s just keeping the symptoms down. Wholistic medicine is often the same as allopathic medicine, it just uses a broader range of therapy,

Most wholistic therapies are an attempt to remove stress from the system or to help the person cope with the stress better. But they don’t actually strengthen the Life Force itself. Sometimes it’s appropriate to detoxify a person, get their diet straight, teach them about exercise, posture, breathing, the whole business. That’s effective for most people that are constitutionally strong and healthy. Their symptoms are coming from imbalanced life habits so by correcting those habits the symptoms disappear and they regain a sense of well-being. But somebody who is constitutionally weak, who’s fundamentally sick, by the definition of freedom, can do all those things and still not feel well.

There are some exceptions. For instance, acupuncture, polarity therapy, reflexology, and Chinese medicine work with subtle body energies, and do it primarily by balancing and to a certain extent by stimulating the Life Force. Chinese medicine is based on an understanding of the person as a total being. And herbs are not used in the usual allopathic way of a cathartic for this and an astringent for that, but are used as stimuli for the Life Force, like ginseng, damiana, gotu kola, etc. These herbs have some specific effects but more importantly have general, constitutional effects. The oriental herbalists know this a lot better than the Western ones. Yet homeopathy stimulates the Life Force more powerfully than any other method I’ve encountered.

So in medicine we do two things. One is balance the life habits, and that goes only so far. And sometimes we need to stimulate the Life Force. And in both cases, wholistic practices are useful to the extent that we increase people’s consciousness of the way they are reacting to their environment, via posture, breathing, exercise, diet, etc. Wholistic medicine is at its best the more patients actually take responsibility for themselves and are not dependent on their therapist.

QUESTION: I am curious about the cost of the correspondence course.
ANSWER: We don’t know, we haven’t gotten down to estimating that in a concrete way. We’re trying to keep it in the range of what it would cost to go to college. This is probably going to be a three- or four-year course.

QUESTION: And when you start your school, will it cost that much?
ANSWER: Probably in the same range, although it wouldn’t take so Jong, so the total cost wouldn’t be as much... But what we’re trying to do is to establish real quality training. What’s available now is mostly giving a rough idea but it doesn’t emphasize the real deep, penetrating approach that homeopathy is capable of.

QUESTION: Do you use iris diagnosis at all? To help know what’s going on with a patient?
ANSWER: I personally don’t. I used to but I found that the homeopathic case itself could give me virtually all the information I needed. Iris diagnosis mostly measures the physical body levels, which is the least important in homeopathy anyway. So by in large I haven’t used it. I have worked with Josh Carter on comparing cases before and after. It’s interesting, there is definitely a response. It is a very accurate diagnostic technique.

QUESTION: Could you give a hypothetical example of a type of personality that matches a remedy.
ANSWER: Sure, probably a lot of people here would relate to Pulsatilla, which is a windflower, since it’s mostly women in the audience. It’s primarily a female remedy, it fits the type of woman who is very tuned into what other people think of her, not necessarily in a negative sense. It’s a positive orientation towards generosity and giving, especially an emotional expression. This type of person is emotional, she goes through wild emotional swings, one moment she is down because her child got scratched by the cat. But then a friend from next door comes over and brings her a flower and she is suddenly really up, or she can go out shopping and see something that she really gets turned on by. She really goes through big emotional changes, depending on her environmental situation. She’ll be depressed in a darkened room and elated in a room full of light. She like’s being out of doors. She’s warm-blooded and feels better from exercise. She has a gentle, yielding disposition, she doesn’t automatically gravitate towards confrontation, instead she yields in a confrontation, she likes to make peace. She has a high degree of sexual desire, she enjoys touching, hugging, and being touched and being hugged. And if she is not being touched or is not receiving affection, then she misses it. She is oriented towards people, she really gets off on people energies, and emotional expression between people.

There is another type that is almost the opposite, the Sepia type, i.e. the ink of the squid. That fits the type of woman who has sublimated a lot of her sexual energy and emotional energy into, not so much the mental realm, but into achievement. Into accomplishing goals and learning things, becoming a career woman. They characteristically are chilly and constipated, they have a great deal of energy for physical activity. If they are depressed, they can really go out and play tennis or ride their bikes or run and they’ll feel a lot better. Emotionally and sexually, they are quite blocked. They generally have a low sexual desire and a lot of tension around the whole issue of sex. Usually they feel a great deal of love for people close to them, but they can’t express it.

Then there is the Sulfur type. They are real philosophers. They are thin and scraggly in the sense that their hair may not be combed. They don’t care about their appearance and they are usually unorthodox, not because they are rebellious and trying to draw attentions to themselves, but because they just don’t care what people think of them. Their minds work in a creatively synthetic way, so they’ll see relationships between things which are not ordinarily perceived by most people. They make very great artists. Picasso was probably a sulfur type. Remember the thing he made out of the bicycle handlebars and the seat, that looked like a bull? Sulfur types make that kind of connection between things. Also, sulfur types have undying confidence in their own perception. They are so sure they are right that nobody else can shake them and they often get in trouble with their wives or husbands. They have disdain for other people who aren’t as intelligent or have less perception than they believe they have. And it’s a real hangup for them, actually, because they are very selfish types. I could go on and on.

I think I have covered what I can, and I am keen to go to the race track and watch this young jockey. Thank you. APPLAUSE.

Typed by Lauren Ayers from a recording. Contact: 530 796-2463 Lauren.yolocounty@gmail.com
Lauren always has homeopathic Arnica in her purse for first aid in case of physical trauma like an accident or fall.

* Additional Information on the Decline of Homeopathy
In the early 1800’s, lay practitioners provided most of the medical care. Many of these lay healers were midwives, and they were very close to the people they treated. Their methods tended to be mild, emphasizing diet, massage, herbs, homeopathy, etc. as opposed to bloodletting, mercury, and other strong measures used by physicians. Studies of the time show that a person got well faster by not going to a physician.

Physicians noticed the increasing popularity of lay practitioners and ostracized those other physicians who chose to use the milder approach of homeopathy and natural methods, expelling them from medical associations and thereby depriving them of legal status. By 1830, thirteen states had passed medical licensing laws prohibiting all forms of lay healing.

But the vast public sentiment that supported lay healing combined with the strong women’s movement then not only brought the repeal of the licensing laws but gave rise to ladies Physiological Societies everywhere, the equivalent of contemporary self-help clinics. Many types of alternative medical schools were established in this era, with their own licensing procedures. There were homeopathy schools in nearly every state. Orthodox medical histories characterize this period as the high tide of quackery.

Subsequently, bickering amongst homeopaths weakened their united front, Then, starting in 1910, huge grants from Rockefeller and Carnegie, to orthodox medical schools modeled after Johns-Hopkins, were the final blow, most foundation funds for homeopathic education were suspended. Other alternative systems suffered also, midwives were outlawed and replaced by male obstetricians, women were excluded from medical education, and six of the eight black medical schools were closed.

How the pendulum is swinging back towards safer and natural approaches, especially since orthodox medical care costs so much.

Information taken from “The Struggle for Alternative Health Care,” from the Bay Area Homeopathic Study Group.

Report on Lectures on Homeopathy
by George Vithoulkas
April 28 through May 1, 1978

Dr. Vithoulkas was introduced by Dr. Bill Gray, formerly of Mill Valley, who is now studying with him in Athens Greece, Bill pointed out that when George came to Greece a little over ten years ago, he was the only homeopath there, now there are about 25 and homeopathy is widely known in Greece. George’s introductory book on homeopathy was serialized in the Greek counterpart of Newsweek. And his clinic is swamped with patients and has 20 doctors in training. Bill said that he believes George is the next step in carrying the mastery of homeopathy beyond Hahnemann and Kent.

Some excerpts from George’s lecture (paraphrased):

● A patient’s symptoms are the best thing that the organism can do to protect itself, every symptom is something that is useful and should not be blocked or thoughtlessly eliminated.

● The organism can maintain a kind of equilibrium via symptoms.

● A person’s health is composed of three layers, The central and most fundamental is the Mental, encircled by the Emotional layer, and the outermost layer is the Physical. People very sick in the deepest level, Mental, don’t get acute diseases. And people with chronic diseases don’t get light acute diseases such as colds.

● And within a layer or level there are gradients. A person stays within their gradient and keeps equilibrium if they avoid stress, get exercise, eat natural foods, achieve emotional quietness via meditation, these all maintain that equilibrium, but the person will not necessarily climb out of that gradient into better health. In other words, stress or cessation of exercise or forgetting food supplements or eating the wrong things like sugar, can throw the patient into worse condition, while a truly healthy person would withstand that assault.

● These gradients became evident when I observed that a person who gets Bacillus pyanoyana infections cannot get Proteus or Strep. Treating a patient who has pyanayana homeopathically bumps them into the next gradient nearer health, and suddenly they are susceptible to Proteus. After the homeopathic treatment for that, they emerge into the next gradient and can contract Strep or Staph, which they never contracted while in the less healthy gradients.

● Acute diseases, such as infections, are an effort by the organism to return to health, they are merely triggered by the specific mortific agent. The disease should run its course if the patient hasn’t anything better to do. The patient may feel better than ever at the end of the acute disease, some chronic symptoms having cleared up.

● By suppressing the acute disease, as is done in allopathic medicine, there is the risk of pushing the patient into the next deeper gradient, or into the next level of illness, such as from the physical into the emotional.

● What is a symptom: it is a diversion from normal functioning of the person, it is not necessarily painful, craving certain foods or drinking more water are symptoms taken into account in homeopathy.

● A case of a woman who had claustrophobia shows how various aspects of modern life act to suppress rather than cure symptoms. It took eight remedies, one at a time over many months, the first ones based primarily on her physical symptoms the later ones shifting to an emphasis on her mental symptoms. Finally, on the last remedy, her claustrophobia cleared up. The remedy was hydrophobia bacillus (potentized). A case of dog bite had been treated in her youth by a suppressive allopathic rabies series, and had worked on deeper layers of the patient, showing up as claustrophobia. That final remedy wouldn’t have worked without the other remedies preceding it. It is the layers of suppression of disease which the old homeopathic masters didn’t have to deal with, the patients they treated had simply survived previous ailments while patients today have had many previous ailments suppressed, which drives the basic imbalance into deeper levels of the organism.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach is joy.

There is radiance and glory in the darkness
could we but see—
and to see we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver,
but we, judging its gifts by the covering,
cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard.

Remove the covering and you will find
beneath it a living splendor,
woven of love, by wisdom,
with power.

Welcome it, grasp it,
touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty,
believe me, that angel’s hand is there,
the gift is there,
and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.

Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose,
so full of beauty— beneath its covering—
that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all.
But courage you have,
and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together,
wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you,
not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem
and with the prayer that for you
now and forever,
the day breaks,
and the shadows flee away.

*Evidence suggests the letter was written in the early 1900s by Ernest Temple Hargrove, an English barrister and religious writer, who wrote this Christmas greeting in a medieval style and attributed it to Giovanni Giocondo, a real Renaissance priest, scholar, and architect who worked for the King of France. Regardless of the source, these words light a candle in the longest nights of the year.

This was written in 2021. Remember, the mRNA shots were becoming available?

Even then, some of us knew that we couldn’t trust the CDC as far as we could throw it.

In the fond hope that accurate information would appeal to our county’s public health department, this alternative approach was provided to the community.

Nope, there wasn’t a spark of curiosity from the expert shot promoters.

Thanks goodness, as of 2025, HHS Secretary Kennedy and his colleagues are sweeping the stairs at HHS from the top down. Now that more people are clambering for change in our county’s public health dept, we in the grassroots can help re-direct public health towards Mother Nature’s wisdom and efficiency.

On the basis that there’s already talk of the next pandemic, here’s info for those who can think for themselves and who can’t be herded into a Pharma profit scheme by well-intentioned but gullible medical people perpetrating a Fear Campaign.

The Amazing Vitamin D to the Rescue

Vitamin D is actually more like a hormone than a vitamin, and it’s the only hormone we make from the invisible ultraviolet-B wavelengths emitted by the sun. Over 700 processes in the body require vitamin D. During the recent Covid pandemic, those who knew how to reach vitamin D repletion had no need for the mRNA shots.

Note: We in the USA are so far from the equator that we can’t make D from October to March, and, even in the sunnier six months, the UV-B rays reach us only from 11 AM to 1 PM. In other words, lifeguards are among the few people who can skip supplementation and get all the way through fall and winter coasting on the stored up supply of D.

Seven Reasons to Be D-Replete:

1. Dr. Roger Seheult’s 1-hour MedCram video, “Vitamin D3 & COVID-19 — The Evidence for Prevention & Treatment of Coronavirus” covers a reliable, natural path to Covid flu protection.

2. VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) reveals far more vaccine harm¹ than the CDC reports, hence nutritional protection from Mother Nature is better than vaccinal protection from Pharma.

3. The vaccinated majority fears their unvaccinated children will catch COVID from people who refuse to be vaccinated while, simultaneously, the ‘vaccine hesitant’ minority strongly opposes² the shots because research is showing that mRNA injections are dangerous.³

If Congress is so sure of the safety of these shots, then why did they relieve Pharma of any liability⁴ for harm? And why are House members, Senators and staff not required⁵ to get the shot?

4. Dr. Fauci⁶ takes 6000 IU⁷ of D3 a day, instead of the FDA’s puny recommended amount of 800 IU.⁸ Depending on which standard is used, from 80 to 95% of Americans are D-deficient⁹ due to spending less time outdoors than our ancestors, and eating less tuna, salmon, and sardines. Additionally, lower D levels correlate with more diabetes, cancer,¹⁰ & heart disease.¹¹

5. Decades of research¹² show infections plummet to zero when people are replete in vitamin D3, which is defined as an optimum level of D, not the minimum needed to prevent rickets.

6. Most doctors are uninformed about nutrition in general and vitamin D in particular. Those who are open-minded will appreciate these two resources:
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v14n22.shtml
https://citizens.org/vitamin-d-the-role-of-vitamin-d-in-reducing-risk-of-covid-19-a-brief-survey-of-the-literature/

7. Native Americans, Latinx, and people with African and Asian heritage make only ¼ to 1/6 of the vitamin D from sunlight¹³ in the same timespan as pale people because melanin is a sunscreen, yet doctors don’t educate patients of color about getting D replete, so their COVID death rate is higher.

Vitamin D Repletion Basics

Those who don’t want Covid¹⁷ vaccinations¹⁸ in order to keep their jobs should be able to prove they’re replete in vitamin D instead; repletion is defined as 50-80 nanograms of D3 per milliliter of blood (ng/mL). However, the average level for Americans is a pathetic 24-27 ng/mL. The FDA recommends 600-800 IU/day, but that amount won’t even achieve 20 ng/mL.

The four sources of vitamin D: sunlight,¹⁹ tanning beds,²⁰ nutritious²¹ food,²² and supplements like capsules or drops.²³

A supplement of vitamin D3 alone will boost immunity, but traditional diets around the world always included other nutrients that enhance D’s utilization: vitamins A,²⁴ C ,²⁵ and K2 (MK-4),²⁶ as well as the essential fatty acids DHA/EPA,²⁷ quercetin,²⁸ magnesium,²⁹ and zinc.³⁰

To gauge your progress, it’s worth the effort of starting with a D3 test. Then you can enter the current level into a vitamin D calculator³¹ to find³² a safe³³ daily dose,³⁴ which can be as high as 10,000 IU. D3 is better absorbed³⁸ than D2. (It’s hard to overdose; the Mayo Clinic says that a toxic level³⁵ of ingested D is 60,000 IU per day, when taken for months.)

After 1-2 months of vitamin D supplementation, a second blood test may reveal that 50 ng/mL has been reached. Finger prick (“spot”) tests³⁶ are less daunting than a blood draw.³⁷

What’s Your Blood Level of Vitamin D?

The unit of measure for a blood test is ng/mL (nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood). For the sake of comparison, lifeguards demonstrate the body’s potential for high levels since they naturally achieve 100 ng/mL just from sunlight.
● Conventional “Sufficient” Range…...20–30 ng/mL
● Integrative “Optimal” Range…………..30–60 ng/mL
● High-End “Abundance” Range……....50–80 ng/mL

Over 95% of Americans are low or deficient in D because it’s hard to get the necessary ultraviolet B rays from sun exposure— because we’re mostly indoors and usually wearing clothes. A further hurdle is that, except for the hour before and the hour after high noon, when sunlight has the shortest path to our skin, the UVB rays in sunlight are absorbed by the atmosphere before reaching us.

Once sunlight converts cholesterol in the skin to D, it’s picked up by capillaries for delivery throughout the body. For people who live near the equator, evolution reduced the risk of sunburn by supplying their skin with more melanin— but more melanin means that longer sun exposure is needed to make enough vitamin D— which is fine because living near the equator provides more exposure to UVB wavelengths than people get who live nearer to the poles.

For all these reasons, it’s usually wise to take a vitamin D supplement. Capsules or liquids come in two different units— IUs and mcgs. The federal government’s “Recommended Daily Allowance” is, as usual, feeble, while these Integrative Medicine standards will bring a person to an optimal level sooner:
1-12 months old………………..1 - 17 years old………………..Adults
1000 IU.……………………………1000 IU per 25 lbs……………..5000 IU
25 mcg……………………………… 25 mcg per 25 lbs……………..125 mcg

In other words, once your repletion goal is met, it’s possible to lower the daily vitamin D intake, but unless you live in a tropical paradise and wear a bathing suit all day, quitting supplementation would likely lead to vitamin D deficiency.

Government agencies are overly cautious about dosages of all the fat-based vitamins (A, D, E, K2). The possible symptoms of excessive D3 consumption occur at very high blood levels— 150 ng/mL. Symptoms may include: nausea, constipation, abdominal pain, decreased appetite, frequent urination, excessive thirst, muscle weakness, bone or muscle pain, confusion, irritability. Such symptoms can persist for weeks or longer after a person stops taking supplements. Remember, however, that too much D is a rare problem, while too little D is nearly universal.

That is why it’s good, when beginning supplementation, to test every 2-3 months in order to watch one’s progress in achieving repletion.

This is not medical advice; check with your doctor before taking high doses of Vitamin D, particularly if you have underlying health conditions like hyperparathyroidism, granulomatous conditions such as sarcoidosis, or hypercalcemia.

Citations

*

1. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-cdc-covid-vaccine-data-injuries-5-year-olds/

2. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-nw-over-half-parents-skeptical-safety-efficacy-vaccines-children/

3. https://truthunmuted.org/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/

4. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html

5. https://newsweek.com/members-congress-staff-exempt-biden-covid-vaccine-mandate-1627859

6. https://www.instagram.com/tv/CE7tWzinTI8/?hl=en

7.

8. https://fda.gov/media/99069/download

9. https://scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficiency-united-states/

10. http://anaturalhealingcenter.com/documents/Thorne/articles/vitamin_d10-2.pdf

11. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321167

12. https://c19vitamind.com/

13. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-from-sun#time-of-day

14. https://truthbasedmedia.com/2021/12/13/ron-desantis-newly-appointed-surgeon-general-promotes-nutraceuticals-for-covid/

15. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/the-science-of-masks/

16. https://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02243-1/fulltext

17. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-ceo-covid-shots-limited-protection-covid/

18. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/cdc-director-covid-policies-failed/

19. https://worldvitamindday.net/reference.php#sun

20. https://grassrootshealth.net/canadian-study-finds-tanning-salon-sunbeds-effective-raising-vitamin-d-levels/

21. https://daveasprey.com/is-bacon-healthy-paleo-pork/

22. https://nourishedkitchen.com/pasture-raised-pork/

23. https://enaturalhealing.com/vitamin-d-pills-vs-capsules-vs-liquid-which-one-to-choose/

24. https://lewrockwell.com/2015/11/joseph-mercola/vitamin-deficiency/

25. https://foundationforhealthresearch.org/rapid-virus-recovery/

26. https://westonaprice.org/health-topics/in-defense-of-vitamin-k2-mk-4-dr-prices-activator-x/

27. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v17n02.shtml

28. https://www.theepochtimes.com/2-new-studies-test-quercetin-and-covid-19-outcomes_4051356.html

29. https://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324022#The-link-between-magnesium-and-vitamin-D

30. https://www.webmd.com/diet/foods-high-in-zinc#1

31. https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/dcalculator/

32. https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/dcalculator/

33. https://oh17.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/vitamin-d-deficiency-research-paper-Mercola.pdf

34. https://icwb.com/vitamin-d-dosage

35. https://mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/vitamin-d-toxicity/faq-20058108

36. https://everlywell.com/products/vitamin-d-test/

37. https://directlabs.com/HowItWorks/Resources/Vitamins/VitaminD/tabid/273/language/en-US/Default.aspx

38. http://brightoncompounding.com/vitamin-d-supplements-are-better/

When the state of our world is especially discouraging, it cheers me up to see the 150 trees our family planted around our acre in the country. The future olive hedgerows will provide a shady corridor for flying and scampering critters, soil bacteria, fungi and invertebrates, not to mention more carbon in the soil.

The family’s worker bees live in the city, balancing work with parenting, while the retired teacher gets to live here full time because I’m the one who waters those trees, and all the shrubs and groundcovers, in the very hot summers of Capay Valley. It’s more affordable to have me drag hoses along every few days than to install irrigation, and I enjoy it (mostly).

That joy in life allows me to keep going, along with millions of other activists around the globe, in our effort to show decision-makers how to really improve life for everyone:

● No, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are not as good as organic and regenerative farming.

● No, WiFi is way too toxic, so let’s use Ethernet wiring for our computers.

● No, water fluoridation doesn’t build strong teeth, MK-4 does that Mother Nature’s way, without reducing children’s IQ

● No, vaccines can’t match the immune system Mother Nature provided us.

● Etc.

And we’re finally making good progress! True, a lot of that progress is elsewhere; Europe has banned so many ag poisons that the US regulators must pay attention so we can catch up someday.

It’s good that the CDC is firing Pharma-aligned staff and hiring experts who don’t have conflicts of interest, and that they are clearing out the false science behind vaccines that has harmed and killed so many Americans.

Of course, it’s obvious to me why our HHS Secretary is constantly attacked by the mainstream media and corporate interests hiding behind “experts” who can’t admit their mistakes— corporate profits will go down as people depend on good food, EMF-free modern conveniences, and honest politicians. And farmers will, someday, be able to make a fair living from providing wholesome food to suburban and urban folks.

I believe it’s worth the effort to speak at Public Comment time when the Yolo County supervisors meet, which is about 3 times a month. While I don’t think Trump’s MAGA claims are an honest description (it looks to me like our racist, imperialist, corporatist past has harmed more people than any other empire before us; even the slavery-enforcing Founding Fathers weren’t really Great).

On the other hand, Trump was elected with the help of people like me who support Making America Healthy Again, MAHA, and his appointment of that Disinformation King to head the Health and Human Services Department could end the misplaced trust in Pharma, which provides a fifth of our nation’s GDP for all the wrong reasons.

Whether you hate him or love him, here’s a funny 1-minute video in which RFK Jr. reads scarry quotes and must choose if he was the object of someone’s ire, or if these are quotes about Osama bin Laden:

https://www.facebook.com/alex.harrison.33671748/videos/bobby-or-bin-laden-testrfkjr-maha/1122523866345868/

MAHA is already a surprisingly strong pivot in public affairs. And making us truly healthy (and financially better off too) means Pharma must shrink.

On the Big Tech front, this week I posted a mini treatise called “Wireless Tech Hazards— and Solutions.” It is meant to show educators and parents how microwave technology is harming our kids, and to safely make the world wide web accessible.

I’m sending that post to our county supervisors, and urging them to emulate other local governments in telling Congressman Mike Thompson and our two Senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, to oppose the numerous bills in Congress that would allow Big Tech to build cell towers and place cell 5G antennas anywhere they want, whenever they want, with no local oversight regarding safety or loss of property values.

Here are paragraphs that two health-wise California towns sent to the FCC in October, 2025:

“The City of Murrieta fully supports the pursuit of wireless infrastructure, as it provides tremendous benefits to our residents, businesses, schools, and public safety. However, as drafted, we have significant concerns about the draft rule changes. As written, these amendments erode local control, undermine established planning and public investments, contradict the Commission’s own progress narrative, shift costs to local governments, and diminish environmental and community safeguards.”

“These rules will allow towers to be placed literally anywhere in Encinitas, with no say from my City Council nor our residents. This is unacceptable. We desire to maintain our control over their locations, aesthetic impact, historic impact and removal when no longer in use.”

In a related topic, this particular meeting of the supervisors had an overflow crowd because a transnational gravel corporation wanted to increase their extraction by over 50%. Despite all the ecological reasons not to allow that, the supervisors basically claimed that their hands were tied and they voted unanimously to give Cemex what they wanted.

It seemed to me that the county’s lawyers convinced them that they must accept the Cemex increase. The generations of county residents who will face the resulting mercury contamination aren’t even born yet, and they certainly don’t vote, so today’s profits slammed the future’s environmental stability.

Various speakers reminded these highest local elected officers that they are responsible for the safety of any contracts the county makes. But they ducked that responsibility, despite the oath of office they all swore when they became supervisors:

“I, _____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United State and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.”

In 2025, our biggest “foreign and domestic” enemies are corporations who dress up their greed in words like “progress, prosperity, environmentally sound.”

I didn’t say this last Tuesday because Public Comment on Non-Agenda Items is always scheduled first, before everything else.

Here’s my 2-minute Public Comment:

My name is Lauren Ayers, I live in Guinda.

I’m here to urge you to tell our 2 Senators and our Congressman, Mike Thompson, to [join cities like Murrieta] oppose the various bills ghost written by Big Tech that would allow them to put cell towers anywhere they want with zero local say in the matter. Due to hefty campaign donations from Telecom corporations, and to the deafening silence from most state and local governments, these bills probably will pass anyway.

In July, 2019. I sent this to you, it’s titled: “Wireless Tech Hazards & Solutions for Schools.” It has 200 hyperlinks to citations.

By the way, yesterday, I sent you an email; here are the first 3 sentences from it:

This morning at 9:15 there were 20 cars lined up for the 9:30 food give away at the Grange in Guinda.

I asked each driver:

“If you went to a County Supervisors meeting and they said you only had 2 minutes for Public Comment, would you prefer to have 3 minutes, like it used to be?”

Nineteen out of 20 said they preferred to have 3 minutes.

Here are 3 points from my public comment in 2019, although now I only have 2 minutes, instead of the 3 minutes allowed back then:

Any modern equipment that’s wireless is emitting harmful EMFs (“EMFs” is the acronym for electromagnetic frequencies). That includes: WiFi, routers, all cell phones, cell towers, Blue Tooth gear, any wireless mouse and wireless keyboards, smart meters, and even baby monitors.

A simple test shows that everyone is physically affected by EMFs, even if not aware of it. In a short video, a man hooked up to an EKG machine cannot see, hear, or feel when the smart meter behind his head is turned on, yet the EKG meter showed that his heart beat is disrupted.

Santa Clara County Medical Association published a document on 5G called “Wireless Silent Spring” which shows the connection between microwaves and the crashing populations of birds and insects (including bees). In fact, scientists are finding that microwaves damage all life forms, right down to their DNA.

It’s odd ducks like me who tried to tell electeds about the hazards of cigarettes, asbestos, DDT, and so on. We activists hope that you’ll listen at some point. But, more often, all that happens is we later get to say, “We told you so.”

To view in browser, click on headline.

Here we provide a short primer, in 30 tiny chapters, to provide you with the info that has been suppressed in media owned by corporations that profit from our ignorance.

Our goal for Safe School Tech is to clear “electrosmog” from today’s classrooms by providing you with the facts about EMFs (electromagnetic fields), in particular microwaves, that are used in cell phones and WiFi internet. These microwave devices (which also include smart meters, home security, smart appliances, cars, and even baby monitors) are more dangerous than most experts predicted at the start of the Cell Phone and WiFi Age in 1983— especially for kids. This 2-minute Generation Zapped trailer gives a great overview.

1. A picture is worth 1000 words.

Here are MRI images showing that everyone absorbs microwaves when holding a cell phone to their ear. But the absorption is far greater for children than for adults. Children using their classroom computers are exposed to the same microwaves as 3G, 4G, and 5G cell phones produce, so these MRI images should be a wake-up call for parents and educators. (Or skip the picture, and read Professor Butler’s 18,000 words.)

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.pFzfGpBu-Uc345jnQlwhrAHaFl?pid=Api&rs=1

2. Glossary

This essay doesn’t use tech jargon, such as ISP, SOHO, LAN, switch, server, WAP. Nor do we explain things like how the World Wide Web is different from the internet. For our purposes, “access to the internet” is like turning on a faucet to “access” water, or going somewhere in a car: We don’t know the technical explanations for how cars work, but we can explain why wearing a seat belt is better than sitting on it.

WiFi — Wireless access to the internet via microwave antennas. (Cell phones also use microwaves to access other phones, via cell towers, as well as the internet.)

Ethernet — Wired access to the internet is possible via an Ethernet cable connecting one’s computer or tablet, to a router which accesses the internet by cable (like Comcast) or by phone lines (like Frontier) or via fiber optics (the least available due to the construction expense). An Ethernet connection not only provides faster service but it’s impossible to hack, and dangerous microwaves are not used. By adding a Thunderbolt or Lightning adaptor to the Ethernet cable, people can use their cell phone to access the internet without microwaves. (However, calls still use microwaves.)

EMFs — Electromagnetic fields have a common trait: These energy frequencies are able to pass through the near-vacuum of space at the speed of light (or nearly that fast), and these frequencies travel almost instantaneously in Earth’s atmosphere. See these charts. This paper doesn’t address the most energetic frequencies— x-rays and gamma rays because they aren’t an issue in schools.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Meter — An EMF detector can reveal the level of exposure to the microwaves used for cell phones, WiFi used in computers and tablets, cell towers, 5G small antennas, smart meters, cordless landlines, baby monitors, Bluetooth, wireless security systems. A Safe & Sound meter uses lights to show exposure: green = safe, yellow = unsafe exposure, orange = highly unsafe, red = extremely unsafe.

EHS — Electromagnetic hyper sensitivity: poor health resulting from WiFi and other wireless tech.

Modem — The device that makes it possible to access the internet.

Router — To oversimplify a complex system, a router connects a modem to a computer or tablet, either wirelessly or via an Ethernet cable. Home routers typically have 4 outlets to plug in Ethernet cables so that more than one person can reach the internet from their respective devices.

3. Symptoms of wireless toxicity

Here’s more research on the hazards of 4G, 5G, WiFi, and other wireless tech.

Human-generated EMFs are vastly stronger than natural fields, and the pulsed frequencies used in wireless technology are more harmful than nonpulsed EMFs. All living things suffer from exposure to them. Human reactions to high EMF levels depend on each person’s vulnerabilities. We can be confident that EMFs are a major cause of these symptoms because, as fire fighters discovered (see below), many ailments recede or disappear when a person’s exposure to EMFs is reduced or ended:
ADHD
Alzheimer’s disease
AnxietyInsomnia
Asthma
Brain fog
Cancer
Depression
Diabetes
Dry cough
Dry eye
Erectile Dysfunction
Fatigue
Gut Problems
Headaches
Heart palpitations
High blood pressure
Immune problems
Irritability
Male infertility
Miscarriage, female infertility
Muscle aches (despite inactivity)
Nausea
Nosebleed
Rash or skin tingling
Shortness of breath
Tinnitus
Vision problems
Vertigo

4. Why is the list of symptoms so long?

Dr. Martin Pall, professor emeritus of biochemistry at the University of Washington, also wondered: “The great puzzle is that these EMFs are comprised of low-energy photons, those with insufficient energy to individually influence the chemistry of the cell… how can such effects of EMFs possibly occur?”

The answer: voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs). At minute 2:24, here, Professor William Catteral, who teaches pharmacology at the University of Washington, says, ”Electrical signaling would be useless without calcium channels because every physiological event that’s initiated by an electrical signal begins with calcium coming into the cell through calcium channels.” When Professor Catteral says “electrical signaling” he’s referring to microwaves from our wireless tech, which humans have only been able to generate for the past 80 years. No one working on radar (one of the earliest microwave applications) foresaw how seriously microwaves, even at very low levels, would interfere with basic life functions. Indeed, because most electrical engineers and physicists have no idea about VGCCs, they still consider WiFi safe (especially if they are funded by telecom corporations).

Think about it— both animal and plant cells have VGCCs (which shows how basic to life they are) and each cell has hundreds of these pores, so how can WiFi be “harmless” if the hundreds of VGCCs in each of our 30 trillion cells are swamped with excess calcium whenever a person is near WiFi? Professor Pall describes many consequences of this fundamental disruption to cellular integrity in his 90-page paper. In 1983, Motorola et al assumed that microwaves don’t penetrate the skin, ignoring advice from the EPA, FDA, OSHA, and NIOSH. By now, Big Telecom, like Big Tobacco before it, knows better. But trillions in sales motivate them to suppress thousands of research papers. See Harvard’s Center for Ethics 62-page report, Captured Agency— How the FCC Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates.

5. Internet access can be either safe or un safe.

Your access to the internet will either be hazardous (if you use a WiFi connection, which is wireless) or safe (if you use an Ethernet cable). Because most schools use WiFi for students to go online with their tablets or laptops, that means kids are exposed to EMFs the entire time they are at school, whether they’re online or not. Due to pervasive wireless technology, our EMF meter is in the red zone (“Extreme Exposure”) on a school campus, or in a library (or visiting a hospital, or shopping at a mall). In contrast, most offices are wired up because that makes working online faster and more secure, with the extra benefit that it’s far safer for the office workers (especially if everyone’s cell phones are on airplane mode).

The safe way to connect to the internet is to “wire up” (see minute 4) by using Ethernet cables from the router to computers. Some health measures are a bit inconvenient (brushing teeth, exercising).

So, what is more inconvenient, plugging in or cancer? Ditto for the other ailments that correlate with using WiFi, listed above. Instead, how about Ethernet cables that retract into spools hanging from the ceiling— much more convenient than wheeling a film projector into the classroom (the 60s), or a TV set with a video cassette player (the 90s). Or, an alternative way to reduce EMFs would be for kids to stay in the same classroom most of the school day, except for science lab, with Ethernet cables for each student (as office workers stay at their own desk every day!) and the teachers rotate in for the different subjects.

Of course, teachers won’t like that. But since we gave every student her or his own tablet to take to various classrooms each day and then home, without confirming the Telecom and FCC assurances of safety, something has got to change to ensure student health— and teacher health!

With Ethernet cables (i.e. being “wired” instead of wireless), students can turn off the Wifi on their computers and the school can turn off WiFi at the router. That means the little WiFi icon on the router goes dark, which causes the EMF meter to be in the green zone (unless there are some cell phones nearby that are not in airplane mode). An educator compares WiFi to cell phone exposure in this 15-minute video.

6. References

In this essay you’ll read the good news about making school safe again by removing electromagnet frequencies. Click on any of the 200+ embedded links to see the citation and get more details. For each page we put in 4 days of research— so that you wouldn’t have to.

Here are two references no one else is telling you: the whole reason for the huge expense of giving each student a tablet was to boost learning, yet these studies cast doubt on that approach:

● The hoped-for benefits of information and communications tech (ICT) in education are not happening. while the potential for harm from WiFi is being revealed. Sweden leads in wireless education but has deteriorated the most in the PISA performance surveys in mathematics and reading, 2005 to 2012.

● The Uruguayan pioneering program “one child-one laptop” did not improve their performance in basic subjects such as math and reading, according to a report from the country’s Institute of Economy and financed by the same education authorities.

7. Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS)

Microwaves are invisible and most people can’t feel them, at least at first. That’s why there wasn’t much research into the health effects of radar. The earliest “canaries in the coalmine” were radar technicians back in World War II, many of whom got strange symptoms from their work, such as a high rate of cataracts or tingling skin. Now we call that reaction “electromagnetic hypersensitivity,” abbreviated as EHS. Initially researchers thought that health problems would arise from microwaves’ ability to heat water, just as much higher power microwaves inside a microwave oven do. The military even developed a thermal crowd control weapon. However, it was the non-thermal effects that caused EHS symptoms. Investigative journalists have been trying to alert the public for 50 years.

8. Most doctors don’t know about EHS.

Considering how prevalent wireless technology is, it’s odd that neither medical schools nor ongoing education courses bring doctors up to speed on the many ways it causes illness. Often, they learn about EHS from their patients! Just as only a few people have life-threatening allergic reactions to peanuts, not everyone reacts to microwaves. But those who do are typically mystified for years before they find a practitioner who can diagnose their problem, while many more are still waiting for the insight that they could clear up some, or all, of their misery, from ADHD to vertigo, by simply removing wireless tech from their daily life. This list has 1000+ medical journal studies of wireless harm from around the world.

The EHS diagnosis can be confirmed by widely available biomarker lab tests. If you read “The Secret History” (the burgundy sidebar in the postscript), you’ll see that EHS has actually been around since Edison and Tesla. Today people get sick from wireless tech because an invisible, silent threat of human-generated EMFs looms like Mt. Everest over the molehill of Earth’s naturally occurring electromagnetic fields. The FCC limit is 10 million microwatts per square metre (μW/m²)— that’s a billion times more than the natural background level in which humanity evolved, 0.000001 μW/m²! Wireless harm isn’t limited to humans— many living things show damage, from bees, other insects, birds, trees. Check out this 9^th grade cress sprout experiment. German doctors are calling on their government to emulate France in banning “cell phones at daycare centers, primary schools and secondary schools for students up to 15 years.”

According to Dr. Devra Davis, up to a third of the population have some EHS symptoms and 3% of the population have severe symptoms. EHS is officially recognized in Sweden and the syndrome has an International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code number, used by hospitals for identifying a patient’s symptoms when billing for care.

9. We still use cell phones

We in Safe School Tech still have cell phones. But to reduce our exposure to microwaves, we blocked internet access and GPS, so our phones can only call, text or take pictures. That’s why our Safe and Sound EMF meter shows a green light most of the time, which means our phones are not emitting microwaves 24/7. (Of course, when we’re on a call, the meter reading is in the red zone, therefore we keep calls brief.) Remember, whatever is true about cell phones is worse for WiFi because it’s on all day.

10. How to use cell phones more safely:

This 4-minute video covers the key points, click here.

1. Use Speaker Mode when calling instead of holding it against one’s head (or, use air tube ear buds instead of Bluetooth because acoustic transmission emits no electromagnetic fields)

2. Whenever not on a call either turn the phone off or place it in airplane mode (non-wireless apps still work, such as games, downloaded books, and the camera).

11. How to use computers safely during remote learning:

1. Both schools and homes can dramatically lower children’s exposure to EMFs by “wiring up.” The internet is delivered to a classroom or home router by broadband (DSL, cable, or fiber optic). Most Americans use WiFi (wireless) for the last leg of internet access. You can drastically lower children’s EMF exposure by replacing WiFi with an Ethernet cable from the router to the computer or tablet. Remember to turn off the WiFi button on the router or it will continue to fill the area with EMFs even tho’ they aren’t being used. More good advice from Children’s Health Defense, cofounded by RFK, Jr.

2. In homes that use a cell phone as a “hotspot” in lieu of an internet modem; parents can protect everyone from the EMFs by placing the cell phone far from high traffic areas. Then a 10- or 20-foot Ethernet cable from the cell phone (use a Thunderbolt plug-in adapter) replaces a modem-router, which is the usual wireless internet access. The other end of the Ethernet cable is typically a USB plug that inserts into the computer. Since many tablets don’t have a USB socket, then a second Thunderbolt adapter (or a Lightning adapter for iPads) will carry the internet that last stretch. With wireless tech, “distance is our friend”— the Inverse Square Law of physics means that a cell phone 9 feet from a child is far safer than one only 3 feet away.

Note, today’s printers also rely on WiFi. Obviously, it would be inconvenient to wire every computer up to a printer. But schools can reduce EMF emissions from printers to zero by having students use a flash drive to transport a document to the printer. You’ll find more info on reducing EMFs here, here, and here.

12. Healing from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS)

Besides avoidance, certain nutrients, such as glutathione, may speed healing. Many people with EHS buy a bed canopy that looks like a mosquito net but is actually a Faraday cage—the metallic threads woven into the net block 95% of the EMFs coming from outside the home (especially helpful in an apartment with neighbors on each side as well as above and below). This gives people with less severe cases of EHS respite from EMFs while they sleep. But those with worse EHS must move far into wilderness areas, away from cell towers and antennas, to live in an RV, a tent, or a cabin, at least at the beginning of their healing process. Here’s Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt’s 11-minute video on EMFs as a root cause of health problems.

13. Quitting wireless— one family’s experience

During the COVID pandemic lockdown, when one of our Safe School Tech members invited her daughter, son-in-law and grandson to live with her in the country, they were a little grumpy because they missed the convenience of going online anywhere they perched. Nevertheless, within a few weeks “Grandma’s Low EMF Experiment” became second nature. Their router has 3 extra sockets for Ethernet cables, so they got some 50- and 100-foot cables and now everyone plugs in for their email, videos, and social media. Eventually they’ll move the cables off the hall floor by running them through the attic, but, for now, what is lost in aesthetics is offset by a big gain in health. Also, they found that it’s not too inconvenient to keep their phones on airplane mode whenever they’re not on a call.

14. An EMF meter tells the truth.

Often a person coping with EHS carries an EMF meter in order to know what places to avoid. We suggest every school principal buy a Safe and Sound EMF meter ($150)— it’s the fastest way to know which classrooms need mitigation.

15. Why isn’t the media doing their job?

Looking back a year or two, did you see any news stories about the hazards of cell phones, computers, or other WiFi devices (such as smart meters, baby monitors, cordless land lines, home security)?

Probably not. Because Telecom has a lot of clout and too much to lose. Of all those devices, cell phones are the biggest money maker. In less than 20 years, the “car phone” melded with the personal computer, the camera, the radio, the TV, and the newspaper. It shrank in size, shed the external antennas and huge batteries, and was swallowed by Facebook and Amazon. Now we spend hours each day looking at our small screen that’s so perfectly individualized. It’s the biggest addiction in history, but few can admit it. “What water?” says the goldfish. Watch the 5G Trojan Horse documentary or read the transcript.

16. Glimmer of truth

Three articles got through the media blackout, “5G Is Going to Kill Us All,” in the May, 2020, New Republic. In smaller circulation periodicals, this and this. Naturopaths, chiropractors, and other holistic healers (even some aware MDs) also advise their patients to minimize wireless exposure. One international health organization, WestonAPrice.org, with the banner “Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts,” has consistently covered this otherwise neglected topic, for example here, here and here.

17. The FCC’s so-called safety standard

In 1996 the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) measured the heating effects of a cell phone held for six minutes against a 1.5-quart artificial head full of water. Since the phone did not cause overheating, that level of EMF energy was declared safe. No surprise, since almost the entire leadership of the FCC come from the telecom industry and return there for much better salaries when they’re done with government work.

This year the FCC declined to update their standards, despite 24 intervening years of independent research showing that WiFi technology is harmful, not only from the aforementioned damage to VGCCs but also because the electrons in oxygen atoms react to certain microwave frequencies and make it hard for red blood cells to pick up that oxygen in the lungs (more on this in the blue postscript).

Why is the FCC indifferent to these facts? Answer: contrary to public perception, the FCC has ignored their obligation for public safety while simultaneously preventing the FDA and EPA from taking that on. Congress set up the FCC in 1934 to sell America’s radio and microwave frequencies to the highest bidder.

In fact, FCC leadership, which has always been temporarily borrowed from the industry (the famous D.C. Revolving Door), illegally usurped the EPA’s and the FDA’s roles as guardians of public safety; Section 704 of the 1994 Telecommunications Act declares that no health or environmental concern can interfere with the placement of telecom equipment such as cell towers and antennas.

Ironically, aesthetics and loss of property value are valid reasons, according to the FCC, for denying placement of cell phone antennas (this may end up as the public’s main legal leverage because property values can drop 20% or more when cell antennas are installed nearby).

18. Our kids deserve the same protection as fire fighters.

Fire fighters got an exemption from mandatory cell antennas on their stations. Why? Because their 12- to 24-hour shifts made them a natural experiment, clearly showing how much worse they felt at work than at home, while people with shorter shifts might never connect their symptoms to worksite “electrosmog.”

19. The profit motive skews science.

Professor Henry Lai at the University of Washington analyzed 326 cell phone safety studies done between 1990 and 2006. Results: 56% of them found negative biological effects. But when Lai recategorized the studies based on funding sources a different trend emerged: 67% of the independently funded studies found a biological effect while only 28% of the industry-funded studies did. Lai’s findings were replicated by a 2007 analysis in Environmental Health Perspectives, which concluded that industry-funded studies were two and a half times less likely than independent studies to find health effects.

20. If WiFi is so hazardous, why doesn’t everyone know?

A little digging reveals two reasons we never hear about microwave hazards:

1. Corporations in telecommunications and information technology (IT) collude to hide the facts.

2. Telecom and IT corporations have captured regulatory agencies at all levels (local, state, national, international), which would explain why Poland’s maximum allowed exposure, set at 0.1 watts per square meter, is 100 times safer than the U.S. maximum allowed level of 10 W/m². Fortunately, some governments are correcting their mistakes: The European Parliament is finally admitting the hazards of wireless tech. A number of U.S. municipalities (Seattle and San Jose among them) have lawsuits to block placement of thousands of new “small cell” wireless antennas. Even uncaptured agencies persist in ignoring the scientific literature going back to the 1940s. Dr. David Carpenter, an expert in environmental toxins, explains why, “When you acknowledge you have a problem, and you’re a government agency, you have to do something about it.” And yet, the French government does take action; it bans cell phones in schools and playgrounds and limits WiFi time for students.

Sometimes we in Safe School Tech get discouraged by how easily Telecom corporations duped the public. But sooner or later, the truth will out. Read 13-year-old Amelia’s article about microwave tech. When parents and educators finally realize the harm to children from wireless tech, they will demand safer internet access, which, fortunately, is easy and not too expensive (keep reading).

21. Power corrupts

Although awareness is growing about WiFi hazards, ponder for a moment how these Fortune 100 companies still have enough power to block negative reports and to weaken wireless regulations:
Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Chrome, Comcast, Disney, Facebook, Google , Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, News Corp (Murdoch), Samsung, Sony, Verizon.

These corporations have forced regulators at both the federal level and in states to suppress scientific research showing the hazards pf wireless tech, as happened at the Oregon Health Authority.

Here’s another example: the New York Times “debunked” cautionary articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Yet the Times omits any mention of their own contract with telecom giant Verizon to supply the news stream for Verizon’s impending 5G service. Their conflict of interest spiked the truth.

22. Telecom tells the truth (if you can read tiny font)

This was Apple’s warning, in 2010, for the iPhone— in tiny (6-point) gray font:

“When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or wireless data transmission over a cellular network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch away from the body), and only use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation [from the body].”

In other words, do not carry it around in a pocket or bra. Who knew?!

And this is what Google’s Chromebook advises educators and students:

“Because the wireless devices (which may be embedded into the notebook) emit less energy than is allowed in radio frequency safety standards and recommendations, manufacturer believes these devices are safe for use. Regardless of the power levels, care should be taken to minimize human contact during normal operation.” –Samsung Chromebook Plus

These “warnings” give Telecom legal cover— “We told you to be careful.” Another little-known factoid:
Cell phones typically emit more radiation through their backs than through the keypad side. So if you carry the phone facing out, you may be getting an extra dose of radiation, according to Dr. Devra Davis.

23. In loco parentis

As you probably learned in your first week as a school trustee, a district that creates— or ignores— hazardous conditions, whether out of negligence or ignorance, can be held at fault if those conditions cause a personal injury. Put another way, “Ignorance is no defense in the eyes of the law.” That’s similar to the Reporting Rule for educators; when we see evidence that a child may be suffering neglect or abuse, we are obliged to report it. (That’s one reason why we in Safe School Tech, two of whom are retired teachers, feel obliged to send you this letter!) This message is a call to action! Those who heed the call will not be burdened by regrets in future years.

Our goal is to bring you up to speed on a problem that you didn’t know existed. Thank you for reading this far and for considering how to remove this hazard for the children of your district. Here’s a student-made video showing that young people will see the value of cell phone caution!

Teachers back in the 70s took for granted that the staff lounge was a cloud of cigarette smoke, and many high schools had an unofficial smoking zone for the 18+ students. But, after decades of indifference, schools began to strictly enforce no smoking on campus. Similarly, in California soft drinks are no longer sold during school hours, and trans fats are banned from cafeteria food statewide. Someday, EMFs will also be widely recognized as bad for our youth. You don’t have to wait for low EMFs to be the law!

24. An ounce of prevention? Or a pound of cure?

Every school district has a choice— to be at the front of this evolution, or to lag behind, at the cost of students’ health each year that WiFi persists in classrooms. Maybe we can learn something from Russia, which has much stricter guidelines for their schools, as reported by UC Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health, click here. Or, check out how France does it, here. You don’t have to know anything about EMFs to be shocked by this 3-minute video demonstrating the dangerous EMF levels of an iPad. For more details on why the ounce of prevention is better, Merinda Teller, MPH, PhD, provides a short, persuasive summary, here. Jeromy Johnson, once a Silicon Valley engineer, explains how to “wire up.”

25. Free your students from “EMF chambers”

Lucia, an 8^th grader, spoke to the Oregon legislature (minute 8) about her fourth grade year of seeking a diagnosis for her illness. Her mother finally asked the school if they had WiFi. Yes, and Lucia had been sitting directly under the router. A recent Swedish study measured EMF levels in 18 classrooms from 7 schools. The report published in a peer-reviewed public health journal reminds us: “Since children are obliged by law to attend school, a safe environment is important.” Adding insult to injury, modern school children are exposed to the EMFs from their classmates’ cell phones, which is why all cell phones should be in airplane mode when not on a call.

There’s a further explanation for students’ high exposure. The Environmental Health Trust explains that tablets “have up to five transmitter antennas emitting radiation as a beacon signal that transmits even when the internet is NOT being used…. The bursts continue because the tablet antennas ‘check in’ with what is called a ‘digital handshake’ to the base network which is usually a WiFi router or hotspot, or a nearby cell tower. If the network signal strength is low, then the tablet’s radiation burst is higher. This digital handshape continuously repeats.”

“There is a major legal difference between an exposure that an individual chooses to accept and one that is forced upon a person, especially a dependent, who can do nothing about it.”
~ Dr. Davis Carpenter, Director, institute for Health and the Environment

26. Better grades when phones are banned

Physiologic stress increases with exposure to EMFs, as do insomnia and depression. So a working hypothesis might be: Reducing EMFs will support:

● Improved student well-being and morale
● Increased staff job satisfaction
● Better attendance due to lower infection rates and lower rates of depression

“Researchers at the London School of Economics, the University of Texas, and Louisiana State University looked at the impact of cellphones on student performance by evaluating 91 schools in four cities in the U.K.— Birmingham, London, Leicester and Manchester— before and after cellphone bans…. Across the board, teens’ test scores increased by 6% after phone bans were implemented.… Kids who were struggling academically… improved by 14% after the ban.” This study focused on cell phone use, ignoring another common source of microwave EMFs, namely WiFi, so academic improvement would probably have been even greater if the school had replaced WiFi with Ethernet cables.

Electromagnetically hypersensitive (EHS) people consistently report depression therefore both suicide and anxiety would be lower when EMFs are brought down to pre-2000 levels. Considering all the symptoms of electromagnetic hypersensitivity, attending an EMF-free school for 6 hours a day would boost health and reduce absenteeism from illness.

Perhaps the rise in COVID-19 infections in children was due to a few months of greater WiFi exposure while they were “in school” at home. Certainly sheltering in place pushes people of all ages to spend more time online. All the more reason to wire up! As for EMFs at school, Scientific American reports that laptops in class don’t improve grades.

See “Schools Worldwide Removing the Wi-Fi and Reducing Exposure” here. And learn about the first ever state bill on wireless radiation in schools.

27. “When pointing out a problem, offer a solution.”

Pairing a solution with a complaint is the life lesson that a Safe School Tech member learned from her favorite school principal, who advised students, teachers, and parents to deal with problems that way. Safe School Tech reveals the problems with wireless and we are offering solutions other communities are using.

That’s also why we urge the PTA or PTO to buy an EMF meter so school administrators or parents can map the red (danger), orange (caution) and green (safe) areas in each school in your district. Both your staff and your families will thank you for being proactive.

28. Tho’ Telecom hides the facts, experts have been warning us:

● The California Department of Public Health has some surprisingly robust guidelines that, alas, are being totally ignored.

● Ditto for advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

● Another warning comes from the 236 scientists who comprise a large percentage of radio frequency researchers; they published over 2,000 journal articles and wrote an appeal to policy makers to take action on wireless hazards.

● A human fetus is the most vulnerable to harm from EMFs, including higher rates of asthma and ADHD later in life, therefore shouldn’t any school staffers or volunteering parents who are pregnant be protected by a low-EMF school environment?

● We learned above (section .3 , Symptoms) that fertility is reduced from microwave exposure. Remember that every baby girl is born with all two billion eggs she will ever have for creating her own infants; they reside in her ovaries in an immature form until puberty, when they are released month by month. Should girls be exposed to microwaves for 6 hours a day for 13-14 years? Already, 1 in 8 couples in America experience difficulty conceiving, childhood exposure to wireless tech could make those odds so much worse.

29. Caveat emptor

Here’s a fact you’ll never see in a cell phone ad: the wireless tech industry won’t cover electronic equipment for illnesses caused by EMFs. Lloyd’s of London’s Risk Assessment Report compares wireless tech to asbestos, since the early research on asbestos was “inconclusive” and only later did it become obvious to everyone that asbestos causes cancer. Due to aps like GPS and internet access, cell phones have up to 7 microwave antennas each!

30. Better late than never.

The EMF problems you’ve just read about are like lice in elementary classrooms— yucky and hard to get rid of. Dealing with lice is an uphill battle, but setting the goal and sticking with the plan leads to victory. (BTW, we in Safe School Tech were happy to find non-toxic ways to eradicate lice.) Obviously, lice don’t go away all by themselves—educating families and having a good action plan are key. Which is exactly what this letter aims to provide for “eradicating” WiFi. If you only open one link in this letter, this page at Environmental Health Trust will show you that safe internet access is possible for all your students. See New Hampshire’s Oct. 2020 report on wireless tech. Palo Alto’s PTA advises parents on WiFi and cellphone safety, other PTAs should too. Here’s a price guide and an illustration of a wired-up classroom.

Thank you!

You’re a school board member because you care about the students in your community. We hope this message from “out of thin air” will rouse you from the Path of Least Resistance, even if it temporarily adds to your work load. Listening to some whistle blowers and independent scientists on the topic of WiFi will benefit all of us— students, staff, school families, grandparents, trustees and other volunteers. Isn’t better student health worth a little extra effort?

Buen Salud,
Lauren Ayers, on behalf of Safe School Tech

P.S.

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” — Albert Einstein

Most people won’t be interested in these two ‘out in left field’ ideas. Nevertheless, (1) understanding how human-made EMFs worsen infections like corona viruses such as SARS and COVID-19 will help reduce disability and death from pandemics, and (2) learning how rare events like natural EMFs from solar storms coincided with pandemics of influenza going back many hundreds of years, broadens our understanding of disease. The evidence of electromagnet hypersensitivity, (EHS), is clear for both Franklin and Tesla, but also can be found in ancient records, both BCE and CE (Before the Current Era, Current Era).

Does EMF exposure magnify COVID-19 severity?

“The Emperor’s New Virus” is a very provocative article with the premise that EMFs worsen COVID-19, making what is a mild illness for most people into a life-threatening, slow-healing crisis for some. As we know, co-morbidities worsen the prognosis, and explain why most of the fatalities are patients over 60. But there’s more to it than age.

Paul Doyon provides videos, maps, charts and journal articles showing that the COVID-19 virus becomes much more lethal in 5G roll-out cities like Wuhan. You don’t have to read the entire 90-page document to get a sense of the legitimacy of the 5G perspective, even if the proof is not yet fully established.

Another revelation is how many COVID-19 symptoms are the same as EMF-sensitivity symptoms. For instance, the loss of the sense of smell has long puzzled public health experts.

The 3-page synopsis of “The Emperor’s New Virus” is here. and the full 90-page document is here. Further evidence was published this spring, “Correlation between cases of coronavirus and the presence of 5G networks.”

Like Wuhan, Italy is another high fatality COVID-19 infection locus due to a very high per capita use of 5G. People in developed nations already experience astronomically more EMF exposure because of years with pre-5G phones (3G and 4G are in the microwave range of the electromagnetic spectrum along with 5G), so the EMF effect on sick people goes beyond 5G cities. An Italian physician declares COVID an EMF disease.

These facts form an interesting picture when dots are connected:

● 5G cities have more cases of the COVID-19 flu and a higher mortality rate than other locales

● Countries in Central and South America, as well as in Africa, which don’t have a high per capita rate of cell phone or wireless tech use also have lower mortality from COVID-19

● You just read how both 4G and 5G impair the immune system, but keep in mind that 5G is much more harmful than 4G.

The FCC deprives the nation of oxygen.

https://vertassets.blob.core.windows.net/image/eac387f4/eac387f4-2cc2-11d5-a770-00d0b7694f32/041001akembedded1.gif

Figure 1: Dry Atmospheric Absorption per Kilometer

Nearly twenty years ago an industry researcher explained why it’s so convenient that microwaves at 60 GHz have a special affinity for oxygen, which therefore makes it “ideal for interference free, fiber-speed connectivity.” (see the graph) But did he or his bosses ask themselves, “Gee, what does that mean for all living things near these microwaves, since most life forms need air (0₂) and all need water (H₂0)?”

Further, besides the oxygen in water molecules, now we know that microwaves interfere with the ability of the hemoglobin in our blood to bond with the oxygen we breathe in. Breathlessness is a symptom of both EHS as well as the more severe COVID-19 cases.

Remember the supposed scarcity of ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic? It turns out that ventilators don’t actually help and, in fact, only one intubated patient in nine survives after they’re put on a ventilator. With COVID-19, pressurized air from ventilators doesn’t boost oxygen uptake because red blood cells passing near the fragile, microscopic alveoli (tiny air sacs only one cell thick) cannot properly absorb oxygen. Autopsies of COVID-19 patients show that their lungs were full of fluid, and that COVID-19 lungs are often twice their normal weight.

This brings us back to EHS symptoms, which also include hypoxia— low oxygen levels— without patients realizing how serious it is, just like so many COVID-19 patients. Dr. Levitan, a 30-year veteran of emergency medicine, said to the New York Times, “A vast majority of COVID pneumonia patients I met had remarkably low oxygen— seemingly incompatible with life— but they were using their cellphones [with] relatively minimal apparent distress, despite dangerously low oxygen levels.” This strange syndrome has been called “happy hypoxia.”

Here are two good articles about the interplay of COVID-19 and wireless tech: Corona Virus & 5G— Is There a Connection? and Is Coronavirus Contagious?

The secret history of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS)

Surprisingly, illnesses from EMFs have been known since Marconi’s time, when he and other early electricity investigators suffered from what came to be called “telegraphic illness” because telegraph operators also were susceptible. In fact, even earlier, Ben Franklin had symptoms of EMF disease, as did other researchers, but they didn’t see the connection.

There’s more! In The Invisible Rainbow, Arthur Firstenberg writes, “Canadian astronomer Ken Tapping showed that the influenza pandemics over the previous three centuries correlated with peaks in solar magnetic activity, on an 11-year cycle.” In other words, even before scientists were playing around with electricity, “solar winds” from sun spot activity brought enough extra electrical energy to earth that humans, as well as other living things, experienced epidemics of disease and death. Normally Earth’s magnetic field protects us from ordinary solar radiation but the extra solar energy broke through our protective barrier.

One hint about the solar origin of certain pandemics is in the word “influenza,” which derives from “the influence of the stars”— even though ancient people probably wouldn’t have blamed that influence on our closest star, the sun.

When industry began generating electricity to power the incandescent bulb and “wireless telegraphy” (radio), each jump in man-made EMFs correlated closely to a new flu epidemic, although, again, the connection never made the news or landed in history books:

“In 1889, full-scale electrification was carried out in the USA and, shortly thereafter, in Europe. That same year, as if by chance, doctors were inundated with cases of flu, which had until then appeared only infrequently. The victims’ symptoms were far more neurological in nature, resembling neurasthenia, and did not include respiratory disorders. The pandemic lasted for four years and killed at least a million people.” Page 4

“The Swedish researchers Ollie Johansson and Orjan Hallberg have shown a clear correlation between breast, prostate and lung cancer rates and the exposure of the population to radio frequencies. They point to a significant increase in rates in 1920, 1955, 1969 … corresponding respectively to the increase in radio frequency smog due to the introduction of AM radio (1920), FM radio and TV1 (1955), the arrival of color TV2 (1969)…. These same researchers have likewise found a very clear linear correlation between the number of FM radio transmitters per region and the incidence of melanomas, with the exposed locations having 11 times more melanomas than the “white zones.” Page 11

“It can be seen that each new influenza pandemic corresponds to a new advance in electrical technology, such as the Asian flu of 1957-58, following the installation of a powerful radar surveillance system, and the outbreak of Hong Kong flu from July 1968 onwards, following the commissioning of 28 military satellites for space surveillance at the altitude of the Van Allen belts, which protect us from cosmic radiation.” Page 6

In fact, when Sigmund Freud wrote about neurasthenia in 1895, it was still called ‘telegraphic sickness.’ Freud put the cart before the horse by blaming the physical symptoms on mental illness. He called it ‘neurosis anxiety,’ and now it’s labeled ‘panic attacks.’ The psychological aspect of this syndrome obscures the obvious remedy of removing the EMFs.

These few examples may pique your curiosity to know more. The little-known history of wireless technology comes alive with pithy biographies and fascinating details (backed by over 550 citations). Surprisingly, considering the dry subject, the book is a page turner!

Contact Safe School Tech via Lauren.yolocounty@gmail.com 530 796-2463

This document has been sent to these school trustees:

“Armando Salud-Ambriz, Brd” <Armando.Salud-Ambriz@ycoe.org>
“Elizabeth Esquivel, Brd” <elizabeth.esquivel@ycoe.org>
“Melissa Moreno, Brd” <melissa.moreno@ycoe.org>
“Shelton Yip, Brd” <shelton.yip@ycoe.org>
“Maria Olmedo, Brd” <maria.olmedo@ycoe.org>
“Garth Lewis, Supe” <Garth.Lewis@ycoe.org>

“Hiram Jackson, Brd” <hjackson@djusd.net>
“Joe DiNunzio, Brd”<jdinunzio@djusd.net>
“Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald, Brd” <cescamillagreenwald@djusd.net>}
“Elizabeth Moon, Brd” <emoon@djusd.net>
“Lea Darrah, Supe” <ldarrah@djusd.net>

“Kelly Stotts, Brd” <kstotts@eusdk12.org>
“Lori Ronchetto, Brd” <lronchetto@eusdk12.org>
“Nikki Peronto, Brd” <nperonto@eusdk12.org>
“Tracy Nash, Brd” <tracy.nash@espartok12.org>}
“Ygnacio Lua, Brd” <ylua@eusdk12.org>
}“Christina Goennier, Supe” <cgoennier@eusdk12.org>
“Leah Smith, Controller” <lsmith@eusdk12.org>
“Rebecca Spiva, CBO” <rspiva@eusdk12.org>
“Susie Hedrick, System Specialist” <shedrick@eusdk12.org>
“Aman Kullar, MS Prin’l” <akullar@eusdk12.org>
“Mario Landeros, HS Prin’l” <mlanderos@eusdk12.org>

“Vannessa Castro, W.Sac Brd” <vcastro@wusd.k12.ca.us>
“Jannette Hunt, Brd” <jhunt@wusd.k12.ca.us>
“Jackie Thu-Huong Wong, Brd” <JWong@wusd.k12.ca.us>
“Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez, Brd” <SKirby-Gonzalez@wusd.k12.ca.us>
“Virginia Coffey, Brd” <vcoffey@wusd.k12.ca.us>
“Cheryl Hildreth, Supe” <childreth@wusd.k12.ca.us>

“Carrie Green, Winters Brd” <carriecgreen@yahoo.com>
“Cathy Olsen, Nutrition” <colsen@wintersjusd.org>
“Everardo Zaragoza, Brd” <everardozaragoza@wintersjusd.org>
“Joedy Michael, Brd” <joedymichael@wintersjusd.org>
“Kristin Trott, Brd” <kristintrott@wintersjusd.org>
“Sterling Davis, Brd” <sterlingdavis@wintersjusd.org>
“Dr. Rody Boonchouy, Supe” <RBoonchouy@wintersjusd.org>

“Bibiana Garcia, Woodland, Brd” <Bibiana.Garcia@wjusd.org>
“Deborah Bautista Zavala, Brd” <Deborah.Zavala@wjusd.org>
“Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica, Brd” <Claudia.Rodriguez-Mojica@wjusd.org>
“Kandice Richardson Fowler, Brd” <Kandice.Fowler@wjusd.org>
“Noel Rodriguez, Brd” <Noel.Rodriguez@wjusd.org>
“Rogelio Villagrana, Brd” <Rogelio.Villagrana@wjusd.org>
“Laura Brubaker, Brd” <Laura.Brubaker@wjusd.org>
“Elodia Ortega-Lampkin, Int Supe” <elodia.lampkin@wjusd.org>

CC to Media:
“Carlos Guerrero” <cguerrero@dailydemocrat.com>
“Angelica Vera-Franco” <afranco@dailydemocrat.com>
“Davis Enterprise” <newsroom@davisenterprise.net>
“Davis Vanguard” <info@davisvanguard.org>
“Davisite” <roberta.millstein@rlm.net>
“The Davisite” <davisite@rlm.net>
“Taylor Buley, Publisher” <taylor@wintersexpress.com>
“Crystal Apilado, Editor” <crystal@wintersexpress.com>

Also sent to:
“Oscar Villegas, 1st” <oscar.villegas@yolocounty.org>
“Lucas Frerichs, 2nd” <lucasf@yolocounty.org>
“Mary Vixie, 3rd” <mary.vixiesandy@yolocounty.gov>
“Sheila Allen, 4th” <sheila.allen@yolocounty.gov>
“Angel Barajas, 5th” <angel.barajas@yolocounty.org>
“Mike Webb, Co Admin’r” <mike.webb@YoloCounty.org>

“Bapu Vaitla” <bvaitla@cityofdavis.org>
“Linda Deos” <ldeos@cityofdavis.org>
“Donna Neville” <dneville@cityofdavis.org>
“Gloria Partida” <gpartida@cityofdavis.org>
“Josh Chapman” <jchapman@cityofdavis.org>
“Will Arnold” <warnold@cityofdavis.org>
“Kelly Stachowicz, City Mgr” <kstachowicz@cityofdavis.org>

“Dawnté Early” <dawntee@cityofwestsacramento.org>
“Martha Guerrero” <mguerrero@cityofwestsacramento.org>
“Quirina Orozco” <quirinao@cityofwestsacramento.org>
“Verna Sulpizio Hull” <vhull@cityofwestsacramento.org>
“Norma Alcala” <nalcala@cityofwestsacramento.org>
“Aaron Laurel, City Mgr” <aaronl@cityofwestsacramento.org>

“Albert Vallecillo” <albert.vallecillo@cityofwinters.org>
“Bill Biasi” <bill.biasi@cityofwinters.org>
“Carol Scianna” <carol.scianna@cityofwinters.org>
“Jesse Loren” <jesse.loren@cityofwinters.org>
“Richard Casavecchia” <richard.casavecchia@cityofwinters.org>
“Jeremy Craig, City Mgr” <Jeremy.craig@cityofwinters.org>

“Mayra Vega” <mayra.vega@cityofwoodland.org>
“Rich Lansburgh” <richard.lansburgh@cityofwoodland.org>
“Tania Garcia-Caena” <tania.garciacadena@cityofwoodland.org>
“Tom Stallard” <tom.stallard@cityofwoodland.org>
“David Moreno” <david.moreno@cityofwoodland.org>
“Ken Hiatt City Mgr” <ken.hiatt@cityofwoodland.org>

William’s Version 2 suits me best:
https://suno.com/song/f3783b2b-5899-4d7c-af93-3c48729c53a7

Version #1 has a more pop quality:
https://suno.com/song/1b417e95-b090-48ad-b8e4-1a467df572534

William was inspired by Dr. Meryl Nass, one of my favorite “Covid Conspiracy Theorists.” But even if you disagree with Meryl and me, even if think the mRNA shots are heaven-sent, this song encourages everyone who puts their care into action, something we share regardless of which “side” we’re on.

A group of us, see below, think it’s time for a pilot project at one school in our county to demonstrate what happens when the school cafeteria offers 100% organic meals. Once that first school has demonstrated the benefits for student health, both physical and mental, we are confident that every school in the county will want to follow that example. This goal is being adopted beyond California, for example in Boyle County, Kentucky.

We’re gathering signatures (including from youngsters) on our survey that says:
We support Yolo County school districts emulating Winters & Esparto in serving locally-grown, organic produce in the school cafeteria, and we want all the ingredients of each meal to be more nutritious and pesticide-free.

Lauren Ayers, Retired Teacher, 530 796-2463
Candice Schaer, Therapeutic Massage
Allison Thomas, Master Gardener
This digital version is at laurenayers.substack.com/p/good-school-food-in-yolo-county

Children Benefit from 100% Organic Cafeteria Meals

Considering the tight budget for school cafeterias, it might seem impossibly ambitious to aim so high. Yet some schools have done it. For instance, the Sausalito-Marin City School District, serving a low-income part of the county, has had all organic meals for 12 years! Conscious Kitchen helped make that possible and they are now working with the West Contra Costa County school district, which has 54 schools, and they have achieved 60% organic content.

Tony Thurmond, California’s Secretary of Education, has a goal of organic school meals across the state, because otherwise today’s children will have shorter lifespans than their parents. Hilary Boynton transformed the food at Manzanita School and now teaches others how.

Children’s health is (and should be) a bipartisan issue— the 2024 election brought a new head of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is also focused on children’s health and who points to the benefits of nutrient-dense, toxin-free food for children. The fact that over 60% of public school students receive a free or reduced-price lunch means that Mother Nature’s plan of building health with wholesome food can help Make America Healthy Again, which is why the MAHA slogan is bigger than politics.

The federal and state standards could be better. But we don’t need to wait because there’s no rule against setting higher standards in our schools. Upgrades in the breakfasts and lunches served in school cafeterias would transform lives in these ways:
● Fewer sick days improves learning, which increases the high school graduation rate.
● Increased courtesy and cooperation boosts mutual respect in the school community, and can be quantified by a reduced number of visits to the principal’s office.
● Higher standardized test scores and student grades.
● Happier children, happier parents, and happier educators.

A Fishy Tale

Look at this example of improvement in a child’s writing from the Oxford-Durham study on essential fatty acids (Alexandra J. Richardson, 2004):

In this study of 493 school children, one boy’s Before and After writing is representative of the sort of improvement they had. His writing is hard to read, but he was trying so hard! Did you notice how he made every i into a balloon on a stick? With only 3 months of DHA and EPA supplementation, his writing is much easier to read, and he no longer adds those tiny balloons!

DHA and EPA are called Essential Fatty Acids. That’s because while these omega-3 lipids are necessary for every cell membrane, especially nerve cells, humans cannot produce DHA and EPA but must get them from their diet (fatty cold-water fish are the best source) or from cod liver oil, which the USDA recommended for every child in the early 1900s.

However, over the past 60 years, our ocean fisheries have collapsed to a tenth of their former bounty. Hence, the salmon, sardines, cod, mackerel, and tuna that families used to eat at least a few times a week are no longer affordable. Nor are families still advised to provide their children with cod liver oil. Therefore, those essential fatty acids, DHA and EPA, that are crucial for our children, have simply been forgotten. Another factor was that in the 1960s Pope John VI relieved Catholics of eating fish on Fridays, so school cafeterias turned Friday into Pizza Day.

To sum up: we now typically consume far fewer omega-3 lipids than omega-6s. The ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids that humanity evolved on ranged from 1:1 to 1:4. But today Americans consume a skewed ratio of 1:15 or even 1:30, which explains why over 65% of adults and 95% of children in the US are deficient in DHA and EPA, the crucial omega-3 lipids. Experts advise adults to get at least 250-500 mg of omega-3s (EPA and DHA) per day for optimal health.

In contrast, research reveals that our higher consumption of omega-6 fatty acids, which were rare in the diet before seed oils were manufactured, parallels the steep rise in our nation of:
● ADD & ADHD
● Allergies
● Anxiety
● Cancer
● Depression
● Diabetes type 2
● Hearing loss
● Heart disease
● Joint pain
● Macular degeneration

The land-based foods that provide the next highest levels of these essential fatty acids for people eating less sea food are eggs from free-range hens with access to insects (or their feed contains flax seeds, which birds can convert to the long-chain lipids DHA and EPA), and pasture-raised chicken, beef, lamb/mutton, and goat.

Note: large fish like albacore tuna bioaccumulate mercury (which falls into oceans from the smoke of coal-burning energy plants); well-informed people have quit eating that type of tuna.

We need to return omega-3s to our children’s meals. That’s why, back in 2005, from April to June, Good School Food member Lauren offered her third graders a sardine every day at first recess. About 3/4 of the kids eagerly participated, which improved their outlook and work.

Reducing Dental Decay Mother Nature’s Way

Most people have never heard of vitamin MK-4. It’s the type of vitamin K₂ that Dr. Weston Price discovered in milk from cows eating fast-growing grass, which in California arrives after spring or autumn rain. This vitamin makes our saliva a donor of minerals to teeth instead of a thief. When people switch to foods rich in MK-4, cavities in their teeth fill in naturally!

Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS, discovered this fat-soluble vitamin, which he called Activator X, that not only helped prevent and heal caries, but also helped shape the very faces of the isolated peoples he studied. He felt it was such an important nutrient that in 1945 he added a new chapter about it to his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

Is Organic Really Worth It?

Note that children in the foothills (left side on both plates) of northwestern Mexico, who had scant exposure to pesticide drift, had the fine motor control to draw detailed images of people; by the age of 5, most kids will include details like fingers and belly buttons.

However, valley children (right sides of the 2 plates), who were exposed to pesticide drift from the farms all around them, could only manage scribbles or, at best, rudimentary rag doll figures that look tossed aside. An organic diet supports the natural removal of toxins. Heavy metal chelation is a way to accelerate excretion of heavy metals, but it needs medical supervision.

These drawings were made by 4.5-year-olds:

These drawings were made by 5-year-olds:

We’ve covered 2 aspects of student health:
1. Why DHA and EPA are important for kids’ health and academic achievement.
2. Organic food protects children from toxins that reduce their mental and physical capacities.

The third pillar of health is known to all— reduce added sugar in school meals, it’s addictive!

School Lunches, A to Z

Take a look at what school lunches in various countries look like:

Austin TX

(Breakfast at a public charter school)

Columbia

Finland

(This is a free school lunch, note the salmon)

France

South Korea

USA

What a contrast! A typical American lunch includes chicken nuggets, canned fruit AND a cookie, which is simply sugar bribery to keep the kids coming back.

Zimbabwe

Students enjoy Sadza (finely ground corn), vegetables, beef (simple, no added sugar)

What Moms Across America Found Out

Out of concern for America’s skyrocketing mental and physical health crises, Moms Across America, MAA, a nationwide grassroots group, recently sent samples of cafeteria food to the lab to be tested for minerals, B vitamins, toxins, and calories:
● The Bad News: Most School Food Is Inadequate and/or Contaminated with Toxins
● The Good News: We Know How to Do Better

Large food processing corporations often supply most of the 30 million school meals served to our children each day.

Food utilized in school cafeteria meals is rarely produced with organic, regenerative, or sustainable methods, which we believe contributes to these problems:
● 1 in 5 Americans have a mental illness
● 54% of our children have a chronic health issue
● Over 50% of Americans are now obese, leading to dozens of chronic illnesses and a lifetime of prescription medications. An article from 2010 points out that the Pentagon considers school lunches a “national security issue” because 27% of high school students weigh too much to join up

Happier Kids

MAA members report that switching to whole, organic foods led their children, who had previously behaved erratically, to become happy, capable learners. When parents switched to organic food and also provided their children with trace minerals and B complex vitamins, some even left behind their autism diagnosis.

Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America’s founder and director, stated:

“After reviewing the fast food and school lunch test results, it is clear that the consistent consumption of food-like products, such as fast food and school meals, is a major contributing factor to chronic disease, mental illness, violence, and the demise of our American communities.” She adds, “One of the most important things for the future of our country is a transition to regenerative farming for safer, nontoxic, nutrient-dense food.”

Depressed Kids

About a fifth of Americans have mental illness, that includes children. Would you agree that a sign of mental illness is antisocial behavior, from mean gossip to murder, with bullying, lying, cheating, thieving, punching, and raping in between?

We take our violent culture for granted so it may surprise readers that Dr. Price didn’t find either mental illness or psychopathic personalities in the communities that still prepared and consumed their ancestral foods. Nor, when getting to know each of the communities he studied, did he hear about suicides.

It is peculiar that so few criminologists give any thought to what all humans do every day: eat food. Isn’t food an obvious component of health, and isn’t physical health a clear factor in mental health?

Criminologists also seem to ignore the abundant research about heavy metals and other toxins causing people to lose their empathy and their self-control, common traits of repeat offenders.

The US has the highest consumption of ultraprocessed (i.e. nutrient-deficient) food, we spend the most on medical care, and we have the highest rate of illness of nearly all developed nations. Clearly there’s room for improvement, and better health would result in crime reduction.

If only the Law and Order folks looked far enough “upstream,” they would see the cause-and-effect relationship between malnutrition and criminality. If that’s hard to believe, see for yourself by reading Silvia P. Onusic’s article, ”Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight.” As a board-certified and licensed nutritionist, writer and researcher, she covers a lot in a short space!

Vitamins & Minerals

The tests revealed abysmally low levels of Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6. Deficiencies in these vitamins can lead to fatigue, weakness, rashes, nausea, diarrhea, irritability, and depression. Speaking of this research, MIT Senior Scientist Stephanie Seneff, PhD. author of Toxic Legacy, writes:

“It’s astonishing that there is no cobalamin (B₁₂) or folate (B₉) in the foods. Deficiencies in these two B vitamins can be linked to autism. The signs and symptoms of pediatric B₁₂ deficiency can lead to anxiety, depression, or mental illness.”

The tests found low levels of both macro minerals like calcium, magnesium, and potassium, as well as trace minerals:
● Boron activates and regulates gene expression
● Copper is required for cardiac health and immunity
● Manganese is necessary for the metabolism of amino acids
● Zinc is essential for hundreds of enzymes, wound healing, and the sense of smell

One Last Reform that Would Bring Big Results

In 1865, the average American ate 2 grams (about half a teaspoon) of vegetable oil, or a hundredth of their calories for the day. Now, the average American consumes 15 times more, and veg oil accounts for a quarter of the total calories eaten in a day. Early humans did not have any vegetable oil until about 3500 years ago, when olive oil appeared in the Mediterranean and sesame oil appeared in Asia. Both are monosaturated fatty acids; they are liquid at room temperature.

Then, a mere 130 years ago, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) were produced from corn, soy, canola, safflower and sunflower. These highly reactive oils set us up for inflammation, which is the precursor to all chronic disease. These cheap oils replaced lard and tallow, as well as coconut oil, and even butter, in home kitchens, restaurants, and school cafeterias. Recent studies show that saturated fats were wrongly demonized; in fact they are crucial for health. Nevertheless, today our kids get only skim milk at school and are loaded up with PUFAs in salad dressings, mayonnaise, sauces, and canned foods. Read more in this short article:
Linoleic Acid — The Most Destructive Ingredient in Your Diet
Linoleic acid found in vegetables and seed oils may be the biggest contributor to chronic disease in the Western world.

Godfrey C. Danchimah Jr.’s gentle spoof of Trump will make anyone smile, regardless of who they voted for.

https://learningforsustainability.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/canstockphoto53009505.jpg

We Americans call our government a representative democracy. In other words, we elect people to make decisions for us.

That’s different from a pure democracy, such as the ancient Greeks had, where all the voters had to vote on each issue.

Still, as a shortcut, we say our nation is a democracy.

Considering that the majority of Americans don’t like how our government operates, the obvious question is: Why haven’t we fixed it?!

The article I invite you to read provides answers to that mystery.

Maya Angelou once said to an audience (that happened to be mostly white), “If you don’t have any Black friends, get some.”

Today, she might say, “If you don’t have friends who voted differently from you in the presidential election, get some.”

Please click on this link. If you don’t have time for it now, I think you’ll be glad if you remember to read it later:

John Macgregor’s Substack

Reviving counter-dominance

The existence side by side of these hostile creeds is one of the strong points in our political position in India…

Read more

a year ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · John Macgregor

Cheers,

Lauren