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/ Mobilise! / Issue 47 (July 1998) / Page 7 Email page link | Print this page

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This isn't all the damage that antibiotics have been doing to the population as a whole. A small snippet of information in one of the major tabloids in Britain called The Daily Mail on 19 March 1998, titled, "SUPERBUG LINKED TO DRUGS USED BY FARMERS". This is what it said:

"Disturbing evidence that farmyard antibiotics are creating drug-resistant superbugs in humans emerged last night. Scientists have linked an antibiotic given to pigs and poultry to an untreatable mutant stomach bug now spreading across the world.

The findings will add to the mounting pressure on farmers to cut the number of drugs that they routinely mix with feed to boost the growth of animals. The bacteria, called enterococci, normally live harmlessly in the stomachs of people and animals, but can be fatal if the immune system is damaged. Until the 1980s the bug was easily killed off using the antibiotic vancomycin. But since 1986, the drug has become increasingly useless.

At first experts blamed doctors for using too many antibiotics in hospitals, but in recent years the finger of suspicion has pointed to farmers. Now Danish scientists say they have come up with the most convincing evidence yet that antibiotics fed to animals are to blame, 'New Scientist' reports today.

Henrik Wegener of the Veterinary Laboratory in Copenhagen has worked out the exact genetic code of the Vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) superbug. After taking samples of VRE from animals and humans and working out how the bug has evolved, he says it must have originated in farms. 'This supports the idea that animals are the source of VRE in humans, whereas humans are an unlikely source of VRE for animals', he said.

One farmyard antibiotic, Avoparin, was banned by the EU last year. But other drugs are still regularly used. A spokesman for Roche products, makers of Avoparin, said: 'These are interesting data. But I'm not sure you can categorically state that it's one way traffic of resistance'."

This, to me, seems like big news. Shouldn't it be splurged all over the front pages of papers everywhere? After all, it concerns all of us. But remember, the papers are controlled by the drug companies themselves. Besides that, an increasingly apathetic, amoral public is more interested in reading about the latest love interest of a member of the Royal Family or meaningless gossip and titillation.

However, this disturbing news is hardly 'new'. The book called "SUPERBUG - Nature's Revenge", by Geoffrey Cannon, published in 1995 (Virgin Publishing Ltd), delivers a very shocking warning to us all. It states in the first line of the introduction that,

"In effect, antibiotics are pesticides used on people", and that "heavy or regular use of some antibiotics, liable to damage the mucosal lining of the gut wall and thus our immune defences, is for this and other reasons possibly one cause of a number of diseases that baffle modern medical science, some much more common in the last half-century. These include gut diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's Disease and even colon cancer; some forms of arthritis; and the debilitating illness known as chronic fatigue syndrome or M.E." It also states that "more people are becoming sensitive to antibiotic drugs, dying from allergic shock or aplastic anemia (irreversible damage to bone marrow and thus to blood cells)".

Dr Richard Novick, who is a world authority on drug resistance in New York, warned that,

" Certain species and strains of enterococci had evolved in the late 1980s to become immune to all known antibiotics, including Vancomycin, and in his opinion were likely in time to become epidemic and also to transfer total drug resistance to Staphylococci. The result could be a global epidemic perhaps the greatest disaster ever created by modern medical practice".

In Health Guardian magazine, September/October 1996, it was reported that
"Birmingham University microbiologists have found that 1 in 4 chickens bought in British supermarkets contain food poisoning bacteria resistant to commonly prescribed antibiotics"…. and that "cooking doesn't kill all these superbugs and neither does pasteurisation: another microbe, suspected of causing Crohn's Disease, a serious inflammatory condition of the bowel, has been found in shop-bought cow's milk".
However, the good news is that "some doctors and natural health practitioners are already using natural antibiotics that are effective against microbes, but do not seem to breed resistance. These include Echinacea, a highly prized immune system stimulant herb originally used by the North American Indians; Garlic Extract, found in laboratory tests to be as effective as modern drugs in preventing bacterial growth; Tea Tree Oil, the Australian all-purpose first-aid essential oil with incredible anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties; Probiotics, supplements of the 'friendly' lactobacillus and bifido bacteria that live in our guts but are wiped out by antibiotics".

For the last ten years I have been suffering from chronic fatigue, hormonal depression, suicidal panic attacks, short-term memory loss / lack of concentration and ability to think clearly. I can quite honestly say my life has been ruined by all of this. Although my situation appears to be improving slowly, I am still on sickness benefit and unable to work or hold down a full-time job. I have what would probably be called 'subtle brain damage'. I experience momentary pain like small electric shocks in my head which I guess has something to do with the neuro-transmitters or pathways of the brain being disturbed by chemical/hormonal imbalance. Candida also causes nerve damage when it grows out of control.

I am not the only one to have had my life blighted by this disease. I met many other people of all ages at a Candida Support Group meeting in central London who are all suffering from one degree to another. Candida has been termed the silent epidemic" in one of the many books on the subject, and indeed it is. I, like many others who attend GPs surgeries, are told that we are malingerers and worriers at best, and at worst, paranoid schizophrenics who should be locked up simply because the doctors don't know what to do with us or refuse to listen. This leads me to ask the question: How many people are "warehoused in mental institutions", as mentioned in the film Hidden Crimes, as a result or because of our system of 'modern medicine'? How many "psychological illnesses" are being caused by any number of animal tested drugs in the first place? The answer is, we don't know, but my guess is, it's an awful lot, and once you are admitted to a psychiatric ward you are experimented on again with another barrage or cocktail of drugs which are supposed to cure you (but in most instances serve only to sedate you or cover up symptoms) of your illness.

The suicide and depression rates amongst young people has never been higher and is still climbing, with anorexia and eating disorders being found in very small children. What if this is not due to our social circumstances as the so-called experts would have us believe, but rather the toxic chemicals that are constantly bombarding our immune systems and our brains?

Sometimes I get angry and I blame myself, the doctors, my parents, or God, or whoever happens to be around at the time for my horrendous health problems. Most of all, I blame the ludicrous system truly responsible for creating this disease: VIVISECTION.


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