Science Archives - McGillespie

Belief

Once Burned, Twice Shy—Why “Anti-Vaxxers” Are Really “Ex-Vaxxers”

By Guest Post April 30, 2019

By the Children’s Health Defense Team

In the 1920s, Edward Bernays, the so-called “father of public relations,” wrote several influential books outlining the principles of successful propaganda. In his book by that title, Bernays argued that “the mind of the people…is made up for it by…those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion” and know how to skillfully supply the public with “inherited prejudices” and “verbal formulas.”

Bernays’ comments come to mind in the current climate of hostility and intolerance being directed against individuals pejoratively dubbed by the vaccine lobby as “anti-vaxxers.” The dumbed-down propaganda being plastered across the mainstream media on an almost daily basis would have the public believe that anyone who questions any aspect of vaccination is ignorant, selfish or both. However, there is a glaring flaw with this logic. The incontrovertible fact—which the legislators, regulators, reporters and citizens who are participating in mass tarring and feathering are not honest enough to admit—is that many of the people classified as “anti-vaxxers” are actually “ex-vaxxers” whose dutiful adherence to current vaccine policies led to serious vaccine injury in themselves or a loved one.

Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming ex-vaxxers.

From compliance to injury

Vaccine coverage in the United States is high. In their first three years, over 99% of American children receive some vaccines. By the government’s indirect admission, however, vaccine-related adverse events are also common—with fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries ever getting reported.

Parental compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) heavy-duty vaccine requirements for infants is often the catalyst for the injuries that start families down the path of becoming “ex-vaxxers.” In one tragic case, a parent who followed doctors’ orders lost her six-week-old infant girl 12 hours after the child received eight vaccines; medical experts’ conclusion that vaccination was the cause of death prompted a different valuation of risks and benefits with a subsequent child. There are many other such stories. Moreover, when individuals who suffer nonfatal vaccine injuries stick to the standard vaccination regimen, research shows that they often experience even more severe injuries the next time around.

In the U.S., vaccines have been liability-free since 1986—and evidence suggests that vaccine safety has deteriorated significantly as a result. The only current recourse for the vaccine-injured is to file a petition with the stingy and slow-moving National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP). Although the NVICP has paid out over $4 billion in taxpayer-funded compensation, it denies far more petitions than it awards. The family of the six-week-old described in the preceding paragraph eventually received NVICP compensation, but not before the program expended considerable effort to leave the cause of death unexplained. And, literally adding insult to injury, the maximum payout for any vaccine-related death is only $250,000.

The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, ‘Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable.’

Money talks

When people or their loved ones are vaccine-injured, many begin to unravel the unscrupulous world of pharmaceutical influence on our media, government agency leaders and lawmakers. Connecting the dots is a horrifying and enlightening experience, exposing facts to which the general public generally remains oblivious. These revelations weigh heavily when someone makes the decision to permanently change into an “ex-vaxxer.”

Why would the people’s elected representatives (and the officials they appoint) propagate smears, promote censorship and ignore the testimonials of the many families that have experienced devastating vaccine injuries?

Why would officialdom ignore the escalating fiscal implications of vaccine injuries, which are imposing a staggering financial burden on households and taxpayers?

Why do the media increasingly advocate for the elimination of informed consent and vaccine choice?

One of the inescapable answers has to do with the overt and covert influence of pharmaceutical industry funding on those who shape vaccine policy and public opinion.

At the government level, senior Senators openly admit that “drug companies have too much influence in Washington,” with big pharma spending more than any other industry on lobbying and campaign contributions. For example, the pharmaceutical industry poured an estimated $100 million into the 2016 elections, rewarding politicians on both sides of the aisle with its largesse. The chair of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee has stated, “Congress is getting paid to not hold pharma accountable” [emphasis added].

…studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”

Not content to just influence legislators, the pharmaceutical industry puts equally high value on print advertising directed at doctors—the all-important “gatekeepers” between drug companies and patients. In fact, studies show that medical journal advertising generates “the highest return on investment of all promotional strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies.”

Covering all bases, pharmaceutical companies also advertise vaccines and other drugs directly to U.S. consumers. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world (along with New Zealand) that permits this type of direct-to-consumer pandering. Drug company spending on television and print advertising in the U.S. rose to $5.2 billion in 2016—a 60% increase over 2012—with untold additional amounts spent on digital and social media advertising. Astoundingly, pharmaceutical companies even get a tax break for these marketing expenditures, a corporate deduction that costs taxpayers billions annually.

The media benefit handsomely from the steady infusion of pharma advertising dollars. Four networks (CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox) received two-thirds of the TV ad monies spent on top-selling drugs in 2015, with the Prevnar 13 vaccine representing the eighth most-advertised pharmaceutical product that year. Under these bought-media circumstances, it is somewhat astonishing that a few media outlets were willing to concede that drug money “coursing through the veins of Congress” directly contributed to the opioid crisis. So far, however, no reporters have been willing to connect similar dots between drug money and unsafe vaccines.

What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.

Pharmaceutical industry influence makes itself felt not just domestically but also globally, and this has led to a corresponding amping-up of rhetoric against “anti-vaxxers” around the world. In early 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) hyperbolically declared “reluctance or refusal to vaccinate” to be one of ten major “global health threats.” What the WHO failed to mention, however, is the preponderant role of “commercial interests”—and especially pharmaceutical industry interests—in shaping its goals and strategies.

Back in 2009, sleight of hand by WHO scientists rebranded the swine flu from “a ‘perfectly ordinary flu’” into a “dangerous pandemic.” This maneuver successfully generated billions in profits for vaccine and anti-flu drug manufacturers; however, the vaccine in question (Pandemrix) caused cases of narcolepsy—many in young people—to surge all over Europe to nearly four times higher than prevaccine levels. In all likelihood, the parents of the narcolepsy-afflicted youth joined the ranks of “ex-vaxxers.” A researcher looking back on the Pandemrix fiasco recently stated:

“If vaccine regulators were serious about safety, the entire vaccine fleet would have been grounded following the Pandemrix narcolepsy disaster, to check for the same mechanism of failure in other vaccines. But nothing of that sort happened….”

Double standards

If consumers want to learn about the potential risks of widely used FDA-approved drugs, they can—with a little legwork—find detailed information on hundreds of drugs on the FDA’s website. For azithromycin, for example, the FDA links to studies showing that the antibiotic increases risks of cancer relapse and cardiovascular problems. A link for fentanyl clearly warns of “the potential for life-threatening harm from accidental exposure” and “deadly” risks to both children and adults. Although it can be an uphill battle to get drugs taken off the market, the ongoing pressure of lawsuits has succeeded in removing some egregious offenders such as Vioxx—and Merck, Vioxx’s manufacturer, has been forced to pay out billions in settlements.

In contrast, consumers who go to the FDA website for risk information about vaccines (classified as “biologics” rather than “drugs”) will search almost in vain, finding sparse information for only four vaccines. One of the four is Gardasil—also manufactured by Merck, and one of the most notoriously dangerous vaccines ever rushed onto the market. While the FDA cautiously states that “concerns have been raised about reports of deaths occurring in individuals after receiving Gardasil,” the agency asserts that “there was not a common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine.” The 2018 book, The HPV Vaccine on Trial, contradicts this benign narrative and describes how Gardasil has caused thousands of perfectly healthy young women and men to “suddenly lose energy, become wheelchair-bound, or even die” while Merck continues to enjoy “soaring revenues.”

For government and the media to dismiss these and other accounts of serious vaccine injuries as insignificant—while falsely labeling injured individuals and their advocates as irresponsible “anti-vaxxers”—is both shameful and insulting. After revealing how the mainstream narrative about Gardasil is riddled with “discrepancies and half-truths,” the authors of The HPV Vaccine on Trial issued a call for greater civility. Noting that marginalization and bullying of the vaccine-injured “destroys civil public discourse and discourages scientific inquiry,” they pointed out that “we urgently need both.”

© April 30, 2019 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

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Health

Consumer Alert: Tylenol’s Empathy-Killing Properties Confirmed in 2nd Study

By Guest Post April 30, 2019

by Sayer Ji

Two highly concerning clinical studies in four years reveal that Tylenol not only kills pain but human empathy as well, adding soul-deadening properties to its well-known list of serious side effects.

When will we learn? Synthetic, patented chemicals have profound unintended, adverse health effects which take decades to recognize, long after exposed populations have suffered profoundly. The risks of these pharmaceuticals are sometimes several orders of magnitude higher than their natural alternatives. Over-the-counter painkillers have become classical examples of this, with so-called “low-dose” aspirin no longer considered safe enough to use for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and stroke, ibuprofen causing tens of thousands of deaths each year due to its recently discovered cardiotoxicity, and Tylenol’s adverse effects on the psychospiritual constitution of humanity only just beginning to surface on top of it’s already well-established extreme toxicity to the liver.

In 2015, a groundbreaking study found that Tylenol (known by the chemical names acetaminophen and paracetamol) not only blunts pain but has potent psychotropic side effects highly relevant to human social connection and behavior, such as blunting both positive and negative emotional stimuli, also known as “affect flattening” in psychiatric terminology.

Now, a new study published last month in the journal Frontiers of Psychology, titled, “A Social Analgesic? Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) Reduces Positive Empathy,” further confirms that this extremely popular drug (billions of doses taken annually) directly interferes with the experience of human empathic connection; specifically, reducing empathy for other people’s suffering.

In the new study, researchers tested the hypothesis that Tylenol impaired affective processes related to the experience of empathy with a double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial consisting of 114 undergraduate students, who randomly received either 1,000 mg of the drug or a placebo.

One hour after administration, subjects read scenarios about the uplifting experiences of other people (different protagonists within the stories), and their responses were evaluated with the aim of determining their ability to empathize. The researchers reported that,

“Results showed that acetaminophen reduced personal pleasure and other-directed empathic feelings in response to these scenarios.”

They further reported:

“These findings suggest that (1) acetaminophen reduces affective reactivity to other people’s positive experiences and (2) the experience of physical pain and positive empathy may have a more similar neurochemical basis than previously assumed. Because the experience of positive empathy is related to prosocial behavior, our findings also raise questions about the societal impact of excessive acetaminophen consumption.”

Below is a graph of the relative responses between Tylenol-treated and placebo-treated individuals, with the Tylenol group clearly seeing reductions in positive empathic responsiveness:

© April 21, 2019 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.

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Blood-Letting

Poor Man’s Life Extension: Fasting & Reduced Blood Iron

By Guest Post April 2, 2019

by Bill Sardi

Sweat, Fast, Donate Blood, Limit Red Meat, Supplement With Iron/Copper Chelators (Fisetin, Quercetin, Resveratrol, IP6 Rice Bran, Nucleotides) To Reduce The Population Of Senescent Cells In Your Body & Live Longer & Healthier Than You Ever Imagined

To Stay Young… Kill “Zombie” Cells — Scientific American

(TG Note: A doctor once told me that, by donating blood, I had unwittingly saved my own life. Now Bill Sardi says that giving blood may be extending that life, as well. And anyone can do it!)

Now you and your loved ones can play the game of life into extra innings and they aren’t going to have to send in a pinch runner for you, and you won’t be forced to retire and you can still hit home runs!

Biologists just figured out how people living in developed countries are going to live 100 healthy years and the masses aren’t going to have to wait for some high-priced drug to achieve it.

Despite precautions from university-based researchers not to forge ahead on their own and wait for anti-senescent (sen-ess-cent) drugs to be approved, longevity seekers have jumped on this newly understood longevity bandwagon, first by adoption of intermittent fasting (Dr. Jason Fung’s book The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting is a best seller).

Then North Americans are eating less iron-rich red meat (not for the sake of reducing cow farts by the way).

And a growing number of Americans are adding a strawberry extract called FISETIN to their dietary supplement regimens.

These and other health measures will add up to fewer “dud” senescent cells in the body, say biologists who study human aging.

370 million “dud” cells

There are an estimated 37 trillion cells in the human body. Over time, senescent cells, that is, cells that no longer divide and replicate (mitosis), so-called “dud” or “zombie” cells, are produced. These zombie senescent cells foment low-grade inflammation that is a hallmark characteristic of aging (inflammaging) in organs throughout the body and induce gene mutations. The accumulation of these senescent cells leads to frailty in the latter years of life and premature death.

Around age 20, after full growth is achieved, the human body begins to accumulate senescent cells. Over time senescent cells represent 1-3% of the body’s total cells, which roughly amounts to 370 million to 1.110 billion senescent cells. Over a period of 45 years, from age 20-65, let’s presume these senescent cells accumulate at a steady rate. That would come to ~22,500 cells/day becoming senescent or ~8 million per year. The challenge for longevity seekers is how to non-toxically annihilate these senescent cells.

Senescent cells eradicated in old animals

The good news is that an anti-senescent drug eradicated all of these zombie cells in the animal lab and even prolonged the life of very old mice (24-27 months old, equivalent to 75-90 years in humans) by 36% (up to age 108 human equivalent). So, no one is ever too old to embark on a regimen to eliminate senescent cells.

Iron is the culprit

Cell senescence starts after childhood growth is completed, ~age 18-20 years. Current data “supports the hypothesis that accumulated iron in tissues is a key factor in aging.” The population of senescent cells grows commensurate with iron accumulation and storage. Senescent cells accumulate up to 30-fold more iron.

Therefore, a ferritin blood test serves as a measure of cell senescence. Blood is stored in ferritin. The normal healthy range for ferritin is 20-90 nanograms/milliliter/ blood sample.

The prevalence of adults with high iron storage levels (high ferritin, above 90 nanograms/milliliter of blood) is 10.9%. This iron overloaded segment of the population will age faster than those with ferritin in the normal healthy range (20-90 nanograms/ milliliter). A ferritin blood test can be easily obtained to determine your iron load.

Impaired degradation of ferritin leads to iron overload and cell senescence. Any molecule that promotes ferritin degradation via enzymatic (lysosomal) activity as part of a “self-eating” cell cleansing process called autophagy would reduce the accumulation of iron in ferritin and abolish cell senescence. Polyphenols found in grapes (wine), strawberries, apple peel, have strong iron chelating properties and promote autophagy.

While iron is the predominant metallic mineral in the human body, copper, while less voluminous (~200 mg stored in the body of an adult) also induces premature cell senescence. Resveratrol solely chelates copper.

How to reduce iron load

Excess iron is removed from the body via menstruation in young females, by blood donation (phlebotomy) in full-grown males and postmenopausal females, or by chelation (key-lay-shun).

Adult males have 1000-2500 milligrams of iron stored in their body compared to just 300 milligrams in menstruating females.

Historical misdirection

Historically, in the 1950s-60s the popular Lawrence Welk TV show advertised Geritol, an alcohol-based iron and B-vitamin tonic. Older adults taking Geritol would have predictably experienced an increase in cell senescence as alcohol increases iron absorption. Geritol liquid provides a whopping 18 milligrams of iron is still sold today as a tonic for older adults.

Iron-limited diet

A typical carnivorous diet provides 10-20 milligrams of highly absorbable heme (heem) iron while plant food (vegetarian) diets provide non-heme iron that is only absorbed on an as-needed basis.

Only about 1 to 1.5 milligram of iron is actually absorbed by males to make up for losses from sweat, urine, and feces. Menstruating females absorb 3.0-3.5 mg per day to replace iron lost in menstruation. This is a reason why females generally live longer than males – they don’t begin to accumulate iron till they reach menopause, at age 45-55.

A 3-ounce portion of red meat provides ~2.5 milligrams of iron while chicken provides ~1.4 milligrams. The same portion of beef liver, appropriate for anemia-prone menstruating females, provides ~5.2 milligrams of iron. Iron pills are not recommended for mildly anemic women as they induce constipation and nausea.

Blood donation

Given that more than 70% of iron is stored in hemoglobin, the red pigment in blood cells, blood donation is a direct way of reducing iron load and therefore, cell senescence. According to the Iron Disorders Institute, each 500 cc blood donation reduce the amount of blood in the body by ~250 milligrams and lowers typically lowers ferritin by 30 nanograms/milliliter of blood. Bloodletting is primarily a health strategy for middle-aged males.

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Diet

American Heart Association President Suffers Heart Attack at 52

By Guest Post February 15, 2019

By Dr. Mercola

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

John Warner, cardiologist and president of the American Heart Association (AHA), recently suffered a heart attack in the middle of a health conference at the age of 52
In all likelihood, Warner followed AHA recommendations, many of which can actually worsen or cause heart disease
AHA supports ample grain consumption and recommends eating harmful fats such as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower oil, both of which are known to cause and/or contribute to cardiovascular problems
Good heart health starts with your diet — what you eat and when you eat. A powerful treatment for heart disease is to work your way up to an intermittent fasting schedule where you’re fasting for 20 hours a day
When you do eat, make sure you eat real food, and consider a cyclical ketogenic diet, high in healthy fats, low in net carbs with moderate protein. Once you’re comfortable with this intermittent fasting schedule, start doing a monthly water only fast, working your way up to multiple days

In the health paradox of the year, 52-year-old cardiologist John Warner, president of the American Heart Association (AHA), recently suffered a heart attack in the middle of a health conference.^1,² In a statement, the association reported Warner was in stable condition after having a stent placed to open a blocked artery. Part of Warner’s speech at the Scientific Sessions conference in Anaheim, California, centered around his own family’s struggle with heart disease.

“After my son was born and we were introducing him to his extended family, I realized something very disturbing: There were no old men on either side of my family. None. All the branches of our family tree cut short by cardiovascular disease,” Warner said in his speech.³

“Together we can make sure old men and old women are regulars at family reunions, that people live long enough and healthy enough to enjoy walks and fishing trips with their grandchildren and maybe even their great-grandchildren. In other words, I look forward to a future where … children grow up surrounded by so many healthy, beloved, elderly relatives that they couldn’t imagine life any other way.”

The AHA’s CEO, Nancy Brown, said in a statement:⁴ “John wanted to reinforce that this incident underscores the important message that he left us with in his presidential address … that much progress has been made, but much remains to be done.”

Many AHA Recommendations Worsen Heart Health

In all likelihood, Warner followed AHA recommendations, many of which are actually recipes for heart disease disaster. Of the foods scientifically proven to cause heart disease and clogged arteries, excess sugar and industrially processed omega-6 vegetable oils, found in nearly all processed foods, compete for space at the top the list. And what kinds of foods does the AHA recommend to protect your heart?

Not only does it support ample grain consumption, it also recommends eating harmful fats such as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower oil.⁵ “Blends or combinations of these oils, often sold under the name ‘vegetable oil,’ and cooking sprays made from these oils are also good choices,” the AHA says. Meanwhile, the association still insists saturated fats are to be avoided.

Just this past summer the AHA shocked health experts around the world by sending out a worldwide advisory⁶ saying saturated fats such as butter and coconut oil should be avoided to cut your risk of heart disease, and that replacing these fats with margarine and vegetable oil might cut your heart disease risk by as much as 30 percent. Overall, the AHA recommends limiting your daily saturated fat intake to 6 percent of daily calories or less.⁷

This is as backward as it gets, and if Warner was following this long-outdated advice, it’s no wonder he suffered a heart attack. In fact, it is to be expected. As noted by American science writer Gary Taubes in his extensive rebuttal to the AHA’s advisory,⁸ with this document, the AHA reveals its longstanding prejudice — and the method by which it reaches its flawed conclusions.

In short, the AHA simply excluded any and all contrary evidence. After this methodical cherry-picking, they were left with just four clinical trials published in the 1960s and early ‘70s — the eras when the low-fat myth was born and grew to take hold. The problem is nutritional science has made significant strides since then, and a number of significant studies have firmly disproven the hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease, finding no association whatsoever.

In related news, the AHA recently issued new guidelines on blood pressure,⁹ moving the goal post for heart health yet again. Now you’re considered hypertensive if your blood pressure is above 130 over 80. Previous guidelines started hypertension at 140 over 90. This means an estimated 30 million Americans will qualify for the designation of having high blood pressure, and of those, an estimated 1 in 5 are likely to receive the recommendation to take blood pressure medication.

Flawed Fat Recommendations Have Been Followed With Disastrous Consequences

Since the 1950s, when vegetable oils began being promoted over saturated fats like butter, Americans have dutifully followed this advice, dramatically increasing consumption of vegetable oil. Soybean oil, for example, has risen by 600 percent while butter, tallow and lard consumption has been halved. We’ve also dramatically increased sugar consumption, which has also been implicated as a primary contributor to heart disease and other chronic health problems.¹⁰

While following this advice, Americans have gotten fatter and sicker. Heart disease rates have not improved even though people have been following the AHA’s “heart healthy diet.” Common sense tells us if the AHA’s advice hasn’t worked in the last 65 years, it’s not likely to start working now. Modern research is just now starting to reveal what actually happens at the molecular level when you consume vegetable oil and margarine, and it’s not good.

For example, Dr. Sanjoy Ghosh,¹¹ a biologist at the University of British Columbia, has shown your mitochondria cannot easily use polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) for fuel due to the fats’ unique molecular structure. Other researchers have shown the PUFA linoleic acid hinders mitochondrial function and can even cause cell death.¹²

PUFAs are also not readily stored in subcutaneous fat. Instead, PUFAs tend to get deposited in your liver, where they contribute to fatty liver disease, and in your arteries, where they contribute to atherosclerosis.

According to Frances Sladek,¹³ Ph.D., a toxicologist and professor of cell biology at UC Riverside, PUFAs behave like a toxin that builds up in tissues because your body cannot easily rid itself of it. Making matters worse, when vegetable oils like sunflower oil and corn oil are heated, cancer-causing chemicals like cyclic aldehydes are also produced.¹⁴

how the oils turn toxic — Source: The Telegraph November 7, 2015

Vegetable Oils Are Anything but Healthy

Other research confirms such findings by linking fried foods to an increased risk of death. For example, eating fried potatoes more than twice a week has been shown to double a person’s risk of death compared to never eating fried potatoes.¹⁵ Animal and human research has also found vegetable oils promote:

Obesity and fatty liver¹⁶
Lethargy and prediabetic symptoms¹⁷
Chronic pain/idiopathic pain syndromes (meaning pain with no discernible cause)¹⁸
Migraines¹⁹
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis²⁰

According to Dr. Cate Shanahan,²¹ a family physician and author of “Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food,” the idea that PUFAs are healthier than saturated fats falls flat when you enter the field of biochemistry, because it’s “biochemically implausible.” In other words, the molecular structure of PUFA is such that it’s far more prone to react with oxygen, and these reactions disrupt cellular activity and cause inflammation.²² Oxidative stress and inflammation, in turn, are hallmarks not only of heart disease and heart attacks but of most chronic diseases.^23,²⁴

[T]he folks at the AHA claim saturated fat is pro-inflammatory and causes arterial plaque and heart attacks — but there is no biochemically plausible explanation for their argument,” she told me in an emailed rebuttal to the AHA advisory. “Saturated fat is very stable, and will not react with oxygen the way PUFA fat does, not until the fundamental laws of the universe are altered. _

Our bodies do need some PUFA fat, but we need it to come from food like walnuts and salmon or gently processed (as in cold pressed, unrefined) oils like flax and artisanal grapeseed, not from vegetable oils because these are refined, bleached and deodorized, and the PUFA fats are molecularly mangled into toxins our body cannot use.”_

Open Letter to AHA President

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Children

A Master Chemist Gives 3 Reasons He’ll Never Vaccinate His Kids

By Terence Gillespie November 6, 2017

Shane Ellison has a masters degree in organic chemistry and is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his studies in biochemistry and physiology.

Here are Three reasons Shane will never vaccinate his kids:

Instead of using an unproven hypothesis to question parents who have opted out, pro-vaccine parents should be questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. With dozens of vaccines being forced on the public, some healthy skepticism could go a long way toward raising a vibrantly healthy child.

My background as a medicinal chemist taught me to rely on proven research. I learned to be less sensitive to emotional arguments and more sensitive to facts supported by reproducibility. This is one of the main principles of the scientific method. It refers to the ability of a test or experiment to be accurately reproduced. As a parent, I have a responsibility to use my training to make decisions for my family. Especially when it comes to potentially dangerous vaccinations.

In my own research, I have uncovered facts that every parent should be aware of. Here are three primary reasons why I have not and will not vaccinate my own children and why I’ve used vaccine exemption forms for public school and more:

Herd Immunity: Three Reasons Why I Don’t Vaccinate My Children… And Why Vaccine Supporters Shouldn’t Care That I Use Vaccine Exemption Forms

Belief

The Miracle of Evolution

By Terence Gillespie April 18, 2017

Now, it seems to me, that if evolution did occur, then it would’ve had to have been a miracle. In other words, evolution is literally evidence for the existence of God.

An excerpt of the debate between Frank Zindler and Dr. William Lane Craig:

The debate, before nearly 8000 people, took place on June 27, 1993 in Buffalo Grove, Illinois and aired live on radio in the greater Chicago area.

Transcription of William Lane Craig

“Now, what about the question of evolution? Let me submit to you that is a complete red herring. The theory of evolution is irrelevant to the truth of the Christian faith. Genesis 1 permits all manner of different interpretations and Christians are not necessarily committed to special creationism.
Howard Van Till of Calvin College, a Christian school, asks, “Is the concept of special creation required of all persons who trust in the creator God of Scripture?”

An Unnecessary Component of Christian Belief

“Most Christians in my acquaintance, who are engaged in either scientific or biblical scholarship, have concluded that the special creationist picture of the world’s formation is not a necessary component of Christian belief.”

“And, I want to emphasize, this is not a retreat caused by modern science. St. Augustine, in the 300s in his commentary on Genesis, argued that the days needn’t be taken literally nor need the creation be a few thousand years ago. He didn’t even envisage special acts of creation. He said the world could have been made by God with certain potencies that unfolded in the progress of time. This interpretation was enunciated 1500 years prior to Darwin and, therefore, this is a position consistent with being a Christian.”

Scientific Doubts

“Any doubts that I might have about the theory of evolution really are not biblical, but scientific. Namely, what the scenario envisages is just so fantastically improbable. In their book, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principle”, Barrow and Tipler lay out 10 steps necessary to the course of human evolution, each of which is so improbable that before it would occur the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and would’ve burned up the earth.”

“Now, it seems to me, that if evolution did occur, then it would’ve had to have been a miracle. In other words, evolution is literally evidence for the existence of God.”

The Only Game in Town

“In fact, the Christian has an advantage over the atheist, here. We can be open to what the evidence shows us. But, as Alvin Plantinga points out, for the atheist, evolution is the only game in town. So, he’s stuck with it no matter how fantastic the odds, no matter how poor the evidence. He’s got no choice. but the Christian can be open to follow the evidence where it leads and, therefore, I think, can be more objective.”

20 Years Later

While answering a student’s question at the Veritas Forum, Craig makes a layman’s comparison between the theory of common ancestry and theories of evolution.

The Metaphysically Modest Role of Science

After deciding on the title, “The Miracle of Evolution”, for this article, I found another of the same title, by Stephen M. Barr. As a theoretical physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware, Stephen writes …

The proper ”and ultimately most effective” response is (as I have written before) to distinguish sharply the actual hypotheses of legitimate science from the philosophical errors often mistakenly thought to follow from them. We must draw as clear a line as possible between science and philosophy, not to elevate science above philosophy, but to restore science to its proper “metaphysically modest” role, to use the fine phrase Cardinal Schönborn employed in First Things last month, replying to criticisms I had made of his earlier writing on evolution.

This metaphysical modesty means not allowing philosophical systems to masquerade as science.

Belief

Discussing the Supernatural with Skeptics, Believers, and Children — Part 1

By Terence Gillespie March 4, 2017

It’s a shame to see people, who believe (or might believe) in the supernatural, engage in pointless arguments. Even more pointless is talking about it, at all, with those whose beliefs are confined to the limits of the five senses.

For the skeptic, new inventions must bring the invisible within range of the five senses. Only then are they “free to believe” in anything invisible. Prior to the microscope, the skeptic would have reported you to the looney bin for your “outrageous” belief in the microscopic. After the microscope, the skeptic thinks it was your sanity that was restored by the invention, not theirs!

Separating Skeptics from Cynics

This is the sort of “progress” the skeptic is limited to unless they take a “leap of faith”. Fortunately, for the skeptic, that leap is possible. If presented with sufficient evidence, skeptics can be jarred into a reluctant admission that invisible things exist. The cynic, on the other hand, will remain unfazed by any evidence put in front of them.

Miracles, Defined

A miracle is a natural event with a supernatural cause.¹

In other words, miracles look, sound, feel, smell, taste … normal. Their appearance is natural, their cause is invisible. So, where does that leave us with separating skeptics and cynics?

It leaves us where C.S. Lewis arrived a long time ago:

C.S. Lewis on Cynics

… the question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been the victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question.²

The skeptics “philosophy” is, “I’ll believe it when I see it”. The cynic’s “settled philosophy” is the supernatural does not exist, regardless of what is seen.

Skeptics are worth your time; cynics are not.

Prisoners of Time

Both skeptics, and cynics, are limited by the detection devices of their day. To them, everything discovered is obvious, and that which is yet to be discovered, is fantasy. Bring evidence in front of their senses and you’re being “reasonable”. Otherwise, the matter is closed to all but the “unreasonable”.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.³

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The price of such “reasonableness” is imprisonment within the limits of their era. They are, for the same reasons, prisoners of science.

Prisoners of Science

Much of what’s left for mankind to discover is beyond the range of the five senses. Without access to an electron microscope, for example, you won’t be able to “see” much of anything in such areas of discovery. So, what do you do?

You’ll need a mediator between the known and the newly discovered; between what’s true or false, and the newly discovered to be true or false. What do you call someone who functions as a mediator between visible and invisible things?

They’re called priests. But the skeptic will use a different word for the same role: scientist.

Those who won’t contemplate the supernatural need no priest to interpret scripture. They do, however, need a mediator between themselves and nature.

As the frontiers of human knowledge push beyond the ability of the five senses to perceive, skeptics and cynics need their “priests” to be told what’s real, and what’s not real, more than ever.

The Secular Priesthood

And so, scientists have been promoted into a secular priesthood. They are the “reasonable”, and therefore trusted, mediators between what exists and what doesn’t; between what is true and false; and what is, therefore, deemed reasonable and unreasonable.

Who cares what scientists do as long as the remote control (invisible infrared beam) changes the channel of the TV?!

If that were as far as it went, there’d be reason only to celebrate. When mankind is working hard, and using the fruits of their labor to serve mankind, then everything is just dandy!

Unfortunately, Reality is not as simple, nor as benevolent, as all that.

And their ‘church’

Scientists, like priests, are not in charge. They serve their parishes, and report to their bishops, cardinals, and pope. The scientists know them as customers, labs, foundation administrators and benefactors. Can we depend on the good-spirited benevolence of this organization?

Unfortunately, we can barely trust the formal clergy, who’ve taken public vows to be Holy and good, pledging loyalty to only their Creator.

Whether we like it or not, scientists are becoming more widely-accepted as mediators between the seen and unseen realms, than priests. And though science has no purview on philosophical or theological matters, scientists and priests are two kinds of priesthoods, pitted against one another.

Priests Travel Faster

The frontiers of human discovery have pushed out of pandora’s visible box and into invisible realms. Because of this, scientists may feel like they’ve finally arrived at the big game.

But, wherever a scientist may go, his arrival will always be preceded by either a priest or a poet. These travel faster than light; at the speed of thought. They do that by combining story with imagination. And while scientists may work on practical discoveries beyond the visible (finally!), priests and poets have been contemplating “the beyond” since the dawn of humanity.

Conflict? What Conflict?

Personally, I see no conflict, whatsoever, between science and faith. Science explores and quantifies the world as the Creator has turned it over for exploration. I thank God for every discovery and invention! So far, every source I’ve investigated, claiming a conflict between science and faith, has been one side, or the other, arguing past one another. Those who’ve thought through the roles of science and faith are left with nothing but the progress of each to celebrate!

Headline News of Devils, Demons, Witches, Robots, ETs, Exorcists, AI & Terror Threats

… And that’s just in one day! Here’s a snapshot of the drudge report headlines on the night of March 2, 2017, ~8 pm.

7 Questions for Mommy & Daddy

I have an 8-year-old son who reads well, now. I know the following questions could easily be put to a parent whose child is looking over their shoulder and reading the news headlines, above:

What’s an exorcist?
Do witches really cast spells?
Is the devil real?
What’s the difference between Satan and the Devil?
Why did they murder someone for a demon?
Do people come from God or are they grown in a lab?
Are there really ETs or was that just a movie?

What are the answers to those questions, mommy and daddy?

If you’re a skeptic or cynic about the supernatural, that’s fine. Coming from your child, then, what’s your answer to this question:

If the supernatural does not exist, why is it all over the news?

Hollywood, Game Developers, or You?

A worldview without a handle on Realities beyond the limits of the five senses, is so incomplete it leaves one unable to even discuss the news. I would prefer to lead such conversations with my children, not merely keep up, or react to the news.

When introducing a book called “The Unseen Realm”, and its more easily read version “Supernatural”, to friends, I say that, if we (parents) don’t teach our children about the supernatural then 20-something game programmers, and Hollywood screenwriters, will gladly fill in the gaps.

I would prefer to teach my children what I believe to be the truth about the supernatural aspects of the world. I don’t want it to come from the imagination of a screenwriter or game developer. And, I don’t want it to come from the imagination of a paperback writer who’s decided that vampires or demons are “Hot” subjects, right now.

My 8-year-old has me gasping for breadth (pun intended) with his questions. It’s astounding how discerning, and naturally oriented towards the supernatural, children are. If you have kids, you already know this. If you don’t, just watch one for 5 minutes. Your world may be limited by what you can see. But, their world isn’t.

More than Child’s Play

Discussing the supernatural is more than child’s play.

“In the contemporary world where there is a strong current of postmodern relativism…many people are far more interested in their own feelings, or what “works for them”, than in the question of what is actually true. But there is a price to be paid for rejecting the truth.”⁴

End of Part 1

Attributions

Main Article Photo by Felipe Posada, The Invisible Realm, Toy Boat
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial”

David Pawson ↩
C. S. Lewis, Miracles, A Preliminary Study, Pg. 1 ↩
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) “Maxims for Revolutionists” ↩
John Lennox (from, Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism) ↩

Communication

Equations in Words

By Terence Gillespie May 6, 2016

Equations are shorthand for words.

The symbols can be so mesmerizing we forget they’re a form of shorthand.

This equation…:

… Is shorthand for these words:

“. . .the net change of a smooth and continuous quantity, such as a distance travelled, over a given time interval (i.e. the difference in the values of the quantity at the end points of the time interval) is equal to the integral of the rate of change of that quantity, i.e. the integral of the velocity,” said Melkana Brakalova-Trevithick, chair of the math department at Fordham University, who chose this equation as her favorite.”¹

The equation and the paragraph describe identical truths with two different forms of notation. To the extent the equation represents truth so do the words behind them.

What’s Your Bias?

Which do you trust more: The equation or the words?

Equations seem to have escaped the post-modern distrust of the ability to know absolute truth. They’re more likely to be accepted as truth by contemporary Joe. In Reality, equations and words are equally prone to error.

Sock Loss Index

To advertise a new washing machine Samsung asked a psychologist and statistician to team up and develop a formula to predict the likelihood of losing a sock.

“The probability of sock loss equals the laundry size plus the complexity of the wash minus the product of the level of attention being paid to the task multiplied by the persons attitude towards doing washing.”

Where, ‘L’ stands for ‘laundry size’, based on the number of people in a household (p) with the frequency of washes (f). ‘C’ stands for ‘washing complexity.’ Types of wash (t) is multiplied by the number of socks washed in a week (s). ‘P’, or ‘positivity towards the laundry’ is subtracted from the sum of ‘L’ and ‘C’

Compounding Error

Only one “minor” symbol in an equation, or word in a sentence, need be wrong to invalidate the statements. This has profound implications.

When vetting the underlying truth of a situation it’s often required to combine the vetting of many component truths before putting them all together. A seemingly minor error may compound to dangerously false conclusions. The first result may be only a little off. Over time the conclusions drawn are exponentially wrong.

95% True!

If the sock loss index equation is 95% true you lose a few socks. If the fundamental theorem of calculus is 95% true it means untolled human misery. Some things in life must be 100% pure or they can’t be used, at all.

There’s another name for things that are 95% pure: Poison. Rat poison is 95 – 98% natural food². With 2 to 5% impurity you don’t even have to wait for the errors to compound. The rat dies in a day.

“The 11 Most Beautiful Mathematical Equations” (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-11-most-beautiful-mathematical-equations/) ↩
“In a most preferred range, the rodenticide composition can include the natural carrier matrix in a percentage by weight of about 95% to about 98%.” Rodenticide Patent, US 8574638 B1 (http://www.google.com/patents/US8574638). ↩