Alternative Health

Sweet marjoram (Origanum majorana) is an aromatic herb native to the Mediterranean region known for its aromatherapeutic and culinary uses. Its botanical name means "joy of the mountain" in Greek, and was used to make wedding wreaths, as Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, was believed to wear wreaths made with marjoram.1

Marjoram is classified as a perennial, and can grow as high as 2 feet tall, and sometimes a little bit higher. It has woody square stems, an upright appearance and opposing pairs of leaves.2 It's closely related to (and often confused with) oregano, because of their similarity in appearance.

To make things even more confusing, their botanical names defy logic. Origanum vulgare, which is commonly known as the common oregano, is also known as wild marjoram. It can be very tricky, so thorough research must be done first before you purchase either of these plants.

Also keep in mind that oregano and marjoram will cross-pollinate, so if you grow them near each other, you'll end up with a cross that will make proper identification near-impossible.

Top 5 Health Benefits of Marjoram

Marjoram can be used in cooking, or in aromatherapy in its essential oil form. The herb also has a long history of use in folklore medicine for gastrointestinal, ocular, nasopharyngeal, respiratory, cardiac, rheumatologic and neurological disorders, just to name a few.3

Its pharmacological activities include antioxidant, hepatoprotective, cardioprotective, anti-platelet, gastroprotective, antibacterial and antifungal, antiprotozoal, antiatherosclerosis, anti-inflammatory, antimetastatic, antitumor, antiulcer and anticholinesterase inhibitory activities.4

Oregano, meanwhile, is known for its antioxidant and anticancer activities, with the highest antioxidant activity found in Oregano fulgare ssp. Hirtum, and the lowest in Oregano vulgare L.5 Depending on how it's used, marjoram is known to provide the following health benefits:6,7

Improved digestive function — When used to make tea, marjoram can improve your digestion by increasing production of digestive enzymes that help break down food. In addition, marjoram tea can help alleviate common digestive disorders such as flatulence, constipation, diarrhea and stomach cramps.
Protection against common illnesses — Marjoram contains various compounds that have effective antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. As such, it can help reduce your risk of diseases such as the common cold, measles, mumps, influenza, food poisoning and various staph infections.
Improved heart health — Marjoram can help improve your overall cardiovascular health by maintaining normal blood pressure levels, which lowers your risk of hypertension. It's also known for helping reduce the buildup of cholesterol in your arteries, which can prevent heart disease.
Anti-inflammatory effects — When added to food, marjoram can help reduce your risk of developing inflammatory reactions. It can help with conditions such as asthma, fever, muscle aches, sinus headaches and migraines.
Psychological well-being — Marjoram, in its essential oil form, can help uplift your mood and improve your psychological well-being. It can be used to help relieve insomnia and reduce stress and anxiety.

The Various Uses of Marjoram

The beauty of marjoram is that it can be added to various dishes that use different cooking methods, such as:

Soups — It gives vegetable soups more flavor8
Roasted meats — Marjoram can add an herbal aroma to roasted meats, such as chicken9
Sautéed vegetables — Side dishes such as sautéed vegetables become more flavorful with a dash of marjoram10
Marinades — Upgrade the taste of your marinated meat and fish dishes by adding marjoram to the marinade11

Adding marjoram to your garden can reap benefits as well. Not only does it create a beautiful atmosphere, but it also helps attract butterflies and other insects that feed on pests and decomposing matter, and help pollinate plants.12,13

Oregano can be used as a substitute for marjoram if you don't have it in storage at the moment. Just remember that although these two plants are very similar in appearance, they do differ in flavor. Oregano has a stronger pine taste, while marjoram is sweeter and milder. If you want to use oregano in place of marjoram, only use small amounts to mellow out its strong taste.14

How to Grow Marjoram

Marjoram is quite easy to grow in the comfort of your own home. It can be placed in an indoor container, window box or outdoors in your garden. For basic instructions, see the video above. While marjoram can grow in almost any type of soil, for best results, use sandy and fast-draining soil, as the plant only requires minimal watering. If the soil is too wet, the quality of the plant will suffer.15

Plant marjoram seeds during the late winter or early spring, because the extremely cold temperatures will damage the plants and may even cause seedlings to die out.16 If you're just starting out, plant indoors first and when the snow has melted, transfer the plants to your outdoor site. Make sure the location has plenty of sunlight. When grown in shade, the plant tends to lose its flavor.17

Start planting seeds by placing them just beneath the surface of the soil. As the seedlings grow, thin them out so that they're spaced about 10 inches apart. The plants are ready for harvesting once they reach a height of 3 inches. To get the best flavor, harvest before the flowers start to open.

Once picked, dry the plant to seal in taste and aroma. An easy way is to simply group several stems together in a small bundle, and hang it upside down in a dark room with good ventilation. Once dry, remove the leaves from the stem. Crush or grind the dry leaves before using.18

Try This: Spicy Roast Chicken With Tomatoes and Marjoram

This recipe from Bon Appétit19 uses marjoram to provide the chicken with a wonderful aroma and flavor once it's roasted. With the addition of tomatoes and red pepper, this dish is not only delicious, but warm and inviting as well.

Spicy Roast Chicken With Tomatoes and Marjoram

Ingredients

24 ounces of cherry tomatoes (about 4 cups), stemmed
1/4 cup of coconut oil
5 garlic cloves, pressed
1 1/4 teaspoons of dried crushed red pepper
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh marjoram
4 pasture-raised chicken breast halves with ribs
Himalayan salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Procedure

Heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Toss the tomatoes, coconut oil, garlic, crushed red pepper and 1 tablespoon of marjoram in a large bowl.
Place the chicken slices on a rimmed baking sheet.
Pour the mixture over the chicken, while arranging the tomatoes in a single layer on a sheet around the chicken breasts.
Sprinkle the chicken generously with salt and pepper.
Roast until the chicken breasts are cooked through and the tomatoes are blistered, about 35 minutes.
Transfer the chicken to plates and spoon the tomatoes and juices over. Sprinkle the plates with the remaining marjoram and serve.

Marjoram Essential Oil Has Unique Benefits, Too

Marjoram oil happens to be popular among aromatherapy enthusiasts, and is known for providing a warm, spicy, woody and camphoraceous scent that can provide a vast array of benefits, such as:20

Analgesic — Helps alleviate pain related to colds, fevers, inflammation and headache.
Antiseptic — Applying marjoram essential oil on wounds can help prevent them from becoming infected and developing tetanus.
Antibacterial — Helps kill bacteria that may cause various skin and digestive infections.
Carminative — Can help solve digestive problems such as flatulence by relaxing the muscles in the abdominal region.
Diuretic — Can help increase your frequency and quantity of urination, thereby helping improve your ability to eject excess water and harmful toxins from your body.

Before using marjoram essential oil (or any essential oil), you need to be aware of any potential allergic reactions. If you have any pre-existing medical conditions or are pregnant, it's important to visit your doctor first and let them know of your intention to use marjoram essential oil.

Once you've gotten permission from your doctor, do a skin patch test on your arm. Place a drop of the oil on your arm and check for any allergic reaction or irritation. Should something occur, stop using the oil immediately.

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Categories: Alternative Health

Flavanol Deficiency Contributes to Age-Related Memory Decline

Mercola Health Care - Mon, 06/12/2023 - 00:00

A 2023 study1 published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) demonstrated that participants with poor diet quality and low intake of flavanols experienced improved memory when flavanols were added to their diets. Flavanols are readily available in certain foods, but for the purposes of this study participants took a pill-form supplement.2

The large-scale study was conducted over a three-year period with supplements containing 500 mg of flavanols and 80 mg of epicatechins, an amount normally recommended that adults consume through the foods they eat. While participants with a baseline flavanol deficiency benefited from the supplementation, researchers noted that it had "no effect on people who don’t have a flavanol deficiency."

There is a range of normal memory and learning in the elderly. You likely know an older adult who is cognitively sharp and rarely forgets anything and others who may forget things occasionally. The National Institute on Aging3 calls mild forgetfulness a normal part of aging.

However, serious forgetfulness and memory problems are an indication there may be something wrong. Poor memory and learning skills make it difficult to live independently, pay your bills and do everyday things like driving a car or using a phone.

In the featured study, researchers were interested in how nutrient deficiencies may impact hippocampal function in memory. The hippocampus is a brain structure important for encoding and retrieving events in episodic, or long-term, memories. Animal models have demonstrated that lesions in this area make it difficult to remember the sequential ordering of scent despite the ability to recognize the odor.4

The nutrient the scientists evaluated was flavanol, which is a type of flavonoid with high antioxidant properties. Flavanols are commonly found in green tea, cinnamon, red wine, grapes, apples and cocoa products.5

Flavanol Deficiency Contributes to Memory Loss in the Elderly

The result of this study brings to mind the old expression that an apple a day may keep the doctor away. It's the flavanols in apples that were the focus of the study, the first to conclusively establish that a diet low in flavanols is one driver behind age-related memory loss.6

This was the most recent study from the same team that has been researching age-related memory loss for over 15 years. The studies began with animal models and the most recent data was gathered from the COcoa Supplements and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), which involved 21,442 men and women from across America.7

The arm of the COSMOS study designed to evaluate the impact flavanols may have on cognitive aging in the hippocampus is called COSMOS-Web. Data was gathered from 3,562 older adults who were randomly assigned to receive either a daily supplement of flavanol in pill form or a placebo for three years.

At the start of the study, the researchers assessed the participants’ diet and short-term memory using web-based activities at home. These same tests were repeated at the end of years one, two and three. Additionally, roughly one-third of the participants also sent urine samples so researchers could identify biomarkers indicating levels of dietary flavanols. This offered greater accuracy in measuring if flavanols were associated with the participants’ cognitive performance.8

The researchers found what you may have expected — memory scores increased greatest when compared to baseline in the participants who had the lowest level of flavanol intake in their diet. The 16% improvement was measured in year one and was sustained for the following two years. Memory scores for the entire group improved only slightly.

These results suggest that a deficiency in flavanol is one driver of age-related memory loss, but additional flavanols over and above what the body requires does not provide added benefits. Adam M. Brickman, Ph.D., professor of neuropsychology and co-leader of the study commented in a press release:9

"The improvement among study participants with low-flavanol diets was substantial and raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults."

What Are Flavanols, Flavonols, Flavonoids and Flavones

Although the terms are very similar, the structures of flavanols, flavonols, flavonoids and flavones are different. Flavonoids are a family of polyphenolic compounds in plants. Within that family are six large subclasses of compounds. These include flavanols, flavonols, flavones, isoflavones and anthocyanidins.10

Flavones are a large subgroup of flavonoids and can be found in flowers and fruits such as parsley, red peppers, ginkgo biloba and celery.11 Flavonols have a ketone group and are the building blocks of proanthocyanins. They can be found in abundance in fruits and vegetables. The most studied of these are kaempferol, quercetin and myricetin.

Flavanols, the subject of the featured study, are also called catechins or flavan-3-ols in reference to a hydroxyl group in the compound. You may recognize two flavanols that are found in tea, chocolate and berries — epicatechin and gallocatechin.12

Flavonoids Are Key to a Sharp Mind

The results of the featured study support the results of a 2021 study13 from the same team published in Scientific Reports. In this shorter 12-week study, researchers engaged 211 healthy adults and investigated the effects of daily administration of 260 mg, 510 mg and 770 mg of cocoa flavanols. The primary outcome was an object recognition task that engaged the hippocampus.

The findings suggested that flavanols "may be associated with memory function of the aging hippocampus and normal cognitive decline." Another 2023 study14 looked at the association between dietary intake of flavonols with changes in cognition.

The study engaged 961 people between 60 and 100 years in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. This is a prospective cohort of community-dwelling people living in Chicago. The participants were followed for an average of 6.9 years, during which cognitive performance and flavonol intake was assessed.

They found the participants who had higher levels of dietary intake had a slower rate of decline in global cognition and across other cognitive domains. The researchers wrote:

"Results suggest that dietary intakes of total flavonols and several flavonol constituents may be associated with slower decline in global cognition and multiple cognitive abilities with older age."

The key to this study was that the researchers did not use supplementation, but only looked at whole food intake. Nutritional researchers who spoke with CNN15 about the findings stressed that since whole food was used and contains many other bioactive compounds, we cannot be certain that it was flavanols that warded off dementia.

However, it's worth noting that the synergistic effect between compounds in whole food is what creates the best benefits. So, the take-home message here is that fruits and vegetables are good for you, especially for your brain.

Take Care to Include Kaempferol and Quercetin

Many people used quercetin supplements for early treatment of COVID-19 once access to hydroxychloroquine was restricted. Both are zinc ionophores, which means they help shuttle zinc into the cell where it has potent antiviral activity. Initially, researchers thought this was the only reason why quercetin worked so well against the virus but later discovered several other beneficial mechanisms that impact COVID.

For those interested in general long-term health, you can get quercetin from a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including onions and shallots, apples, broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, red leaf lettuce and green tea.16

The quercetin content in the food is dependent on light exposure, so depending on where the food was harvested, the foods that top the quercetin-rich list will differ. Aside from slowing cognitive decline, quercetin also is helpful in the prevention and/or treatment of:

High blood pressure and triglycerides17

Cardiovascular disease18

Obesity and metabolic syndrome19

Certain types of cancer20

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)21

Gout22

Arthritis23

Mood disorders24

Aluminum-induced neurodegenerative changes,25 such as those seen in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Like quercetin, kaempferol selectively inhibits the growth of cancer cells.26 Good sources of this nutrient include kale, spinach and other green leafy vegetables, onions, chives, dale, tarragon, wild leeks, asparagus and berries.27 Kaempferol is also found in ginkgo biloba and is one of the plant’s most important constituents.

Ginkgo is a tree native to China that's been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Ginkgo’s ability to improve memory and cognition and to prevent or treat dementia has also been studied for decades. In general, Ginkgo is believed to positively affect your body by increasing blood supply, reducing blood viscosity, boosting neurotransmitters and reducing harmful free radicals.28

A word of caution though — the seeds of the Ginkgo tree contain ginkgotoxin (4'-O-methylpyridoxine), an "antivitamin" that may lead to neurological problems in certain people, particularly those who are deficient in certain B vitamins.29

More Strategies to Help Protect Memory and Cognition

In addition to ensuring that you consume a nutrient-dense diet and adequate amounts of the appropriate vitamins and minerals, there are more strategies that you can use to help protect your cognitive health and memory, such as:

• Staying hydrated — In 2013,30 CBS News reported that it was possible up to 75% of Americans were chronically dehydrated. While it may be the simplest way to support your overall health and your cognitive health, it is apparent that many people have difficulty staying hydrated.

The best way to determine if you have had enough to drink is the color of your urine. Aim to urinate every 2 to 3 hours and for urine that is a light straw color.

• Keeping active — Exercise encourages your brain to work, stimulating nerve cells to multiply and strengthening their interconnections. During exercise, nerve cells release neurotrophic factors such as brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which triggers other chemicals that promote neural health and directly benefit cognitive functioning.

Exercise improves brain structure and function, and research has shown it significantly increases hippocampal volume in older adults with probable mild cognitive impairment.31

• Getting good sleep — Sleep is vital to brain health. Research from Harvard suggests that people are 33% more likely to infer connections between distantly related ideas after sleeping, but few realize that their performance has improved.32 Data have also shown that a midday nap can dramatically boost and restore the brain's learning capacity.33

You can improve the quality of your sleep by using a sleep mask to eliminate light during the night. In a two-part study, the results of the first part showed participants who wore light-blocking sleep masks had "Superior episodic encoding and an improvement on alertness."34 Further testing showed the participants perform better on word pair association tests and tests to measure reaction times.

In the second part of the study, those wearing light-blocking sleep masks had an increased ability to learn new information and form memories and had more slow-wave sleep, which may be beneficial for memory.35

• Avoiding anticholinergics — One risk factor that may impair memory development and increase the risk for dementia is a class of drugs known as anticholinergics. These compounds block acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that performs important functions within your brain such as triggering muscle contractions and pain responses and the regulation of your endocrine system and REM sleep cycle.

In your brain, it's a key player in attention, concentration,36 memory formation and consolidation,37 which is precisely why these drugs can cause symptoms identical to dementia. Anticholinergic drugs are widely prescribed for depression, motion sickness, insomnia, allergies and dizziness.

You’ll find a long list of these medications on TheSeniorList.com,38 some of which you may recognize such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl), Tylenol PM, pseudoephedrine and Xanax.

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Categories: Alternative Health, Minnesota Cremation

WHO Launches Digital Health Partnership With Europe

Mercola Health Care - Mon, 06/12/2023 - 00:00

June 5, 2023, the World Health Organization and the European Commission announced the launch of a “landmark digital health initiative to strengthen global health security.”1,2

As explained in the press release,3 as of this month, the WHO will establish a global COVID-19 vaccination certification system based on the European Union’s (EU) already existing Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC) to “help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from ongoing and future health threats.”

Eventually, this vaccine passport system will be expanded into a Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN) run by the WHO that will include “a wide range of digital products to deliver better health for all.” The vaccine passport will also, in time, cover all recommended vaccinations, not just COVID-19.4 The press release continues:5

“This partnership will work to technically develop the WHO system with a staged approach to cover additional use cases, which may include, for example, the digitization of the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis. Expanding such digital solutions will be essential to deliver better health for citizens across the globe.

This cooperation is based on the shared values and principles of transparency and openness, inclusiveness, accountability, data protection and privacy, security, scalability at a global level, and equity. The European Commission and WHO will work together to encourage maximum global uptake and participation.”

Why Implement COVID Passport When Shots Don’t Work?

As reported by The Daily Sceptic, the announcement raises many questions:6

“Vaccine passports are controversial, even in the United Nations ... June 30th 2021 ... the UNESCO World Commission for the Ethics of Science and Technology and the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee released a joint statement warning that ‘any COVID-19 certificate ... should account for scientific uncertainty regarding the degree of protection that specific vaccines, past infections and negative COVID-19 test results provide’ ...

In light of these concerns, the UN agencies proposed that ‘a research program should be developed to assess their impact on society and public health, and the risks they might bring.’

The new press release from the WHO and EU makes no mention of the progress of this research program, or whether it has been established at all. Is it not necessary to ascertain the effectiveness and cost-benefit profile of an intervention before rolling it out globally and making it permanent?

Given how leaky COVID vaccines are, and how short-lived any protection offered by them might be — some studies even show the vaccinated suffering higher infection rates than the unvaccinated — it’s hard to imagine that vaccine passports delivered any real limitation of disease transmission.

But the WHO and EU don’t appear to regard this as a relevant question to ask. Is that because they blindly assume they are beneficial, or because they have other reasons for wanting to roll out this restrictive technology globally?”

The implementation of a vaccine passport system — which the WHO claimed it did not support when concerns were initially raised about it in 20217 — is a clear sign that the WHO fully expects to take the reins on global health, and that public health is not the primary incentive behind this power grab.

WHO Takeover Moves Full Speed Ahead

Already, WHO members have approved a $6.83 billion budget for the next two years (2024 through 2025), which will require a 20% hike in mandatory member fees.8,9 “Strategic priorities” that will receive large chunks of this funding include:10

Expanding universal health coverage to at least 1 billion people who do not currently have it
Ensuring 1 billion more people are “better protected from health emergencies”
Ensuring 1 billion more people can enjoy “better health and well-being”
Developing more effective and efficient WHO support to member countries
Eradicating polio (most likely through expanded vaccination programs)

That budget increase is also needed because the WHO is being set up as the sole decisionmaker over public health globally through the proposed pandemic treaty and International Health Regulation (IHR) amendments, each of which reinforces the WHO’s authority and power through different avenues while erasing national sovereignty and human rights.

If the WHO gets its way, it will no longer be a body that makes recommendations that countries can choose to follow. Rather, its “advice” will be akin to declarations of international law. Member states will be required to follow the WHO’s “recommendations” or face costly consequences.

Once the pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments are implemented, the WHO will have the authority to impose everything from climate lockdowns and border closures to mandatory vaccinations of all kinds. We’ve also warned that the WHO would implement a mandatory vaccine passport system for population control purposes, and with the announcement above, we can consider that a done deal.

The WHO will even have the authority to dictate what is truth and what is misinformation that must be censored. The WHO will essentially outlaw democracy worldwide because democracy cannot exist unless there is freedom of speech in public discourse.

Member states will have no choice but to censor what the WHO wants censored, because each country is also required to set up an enforcement agency to ensure the WHO’s edicts are followed nationwide, and that includes censorship activities.

Understand Where We’re Headed

For a further review of the WHO’s new Global Digital Health Certification Network, see John Campbell’s video review above.

It’s now beyond imperative that people understand where we’re headed, and that the COVID measures weren’t just responses to a given pandemic, but rather were the foundation for a totalitarian one world government where human rights and freedoms will no longer exist.

Indeed, the pandemic treaty redefines human rights as “health equity” and nothing else. The IHR amendments also eliminate individual rights and freedoms specifically. IHR Article 3 is being amended as follows (strikethroughs in the text indicate that the text is to be deleted, and the additions or revisions are underlined in bold):

“The implementation of these Regulations shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons based on the principles of equity, inclusivity, coherence and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities of the States Parties, taking into consideration their social and economic development.”

In other words, bodily autonomy and personal choice are being replaced by one-size-fits-all medicine that has no regard for human dignity, human rights or fundamental freedoms. The right to opinions that differ from the WHO’s is also being removed on the national level.

IHR Article 2 is also being amended in such a way that the WHO will have the authority to take action on ANYTHING that has the “potential to impact public health,” and this includes everything from climate and pollution to agricultural land use and the food industry, as specified under the One Health agenda,11,12 which is baked into the pandemic treaty.

To understand what’s at stake, please review the article-by-article compilation of the proposed IHR amendments,13 found here, and then compare that to the proposed treaty. A “Zero Draft” dated February 1, 2023, can be found here.14

As explained by the WHO back in 2021, the treaty is the “framework that recognizes the central role of the IHR.”15 So, these two instruments are designed and intended to work as a unit, with the treaty giving recognition to the IHR, and the IHR amendments stripping nations of their sovereignty.

But that’s not all. Baked into the pandemic treaty we also have One Health, which perfectly dovetails with The Great Reset narrative. When you add these three things together — the treaty, the IHR amendments and One Health — it becomes clear that the WHO is being set up as the de facto power center of the deep state, and this One World Government will rule everything.

Treaty Expands WHO’s Power Beyond Pandemics

As illustrated in the graphic16 below, the One Health agenda is based on the premise that a broad range of aspects of life and the environment have the potential to impact human health.

In addition to the life segments listed on this graph, the scope of One Health, according to a One Health Commission document,17 also includes communications, economics, civil society, global trade, commerce and security, public policy and regulation, research, noncommunicable diseases and much more.

Under the new treaty, the WHO will have unilateral power to make decisions about all of these areas, and its dictates will supersede and overrule any and all local, state and federal laws. In short, if the pandemic treaty is enacted, the WHO will not merely have the authority to dictate how countries prepare for and respond to pandemic threats: It will have the authority to dictate every aspect of our lives.

The WHO, in turn, is beholden to and does what its funders want, and the largest funder is Bill Gates (when you add together all his various donation sources). Gates, of course, is invested in all primary Great Reset necessities, including fake food, drugs, vaccines, surveillance and climate modification technologies.

One Health Is the Subversion of Holistic Health

As noted by David Bell, a senior scholar at Brownstone Institute, a public health physician and former medical officer and scientist at the WHO, the One Health agenda is really the subversion of the age-old holistic concept of health:18

“Ill health is a lever for fear, and death even more so, especially to those who believe that we are simply organic constructs that end in dust and decay. A cult feeding off these fears, holding that the entire biosphere is threatening us with diseases and death, would therefore have real potential for mass control.

Convince followers that humans are the poison that made this world so destructive, and you will also have a means to stoke hate against non-believers whilst adding guilt to the tools for compliance.

A cult based on fear of the world and the people who poisoned it, dressed up in philanthropy and virtue, has risen amongst us. Co-opting One Health terminology, it is now funded by the spoils of COVID, and empowered by technology that can take this medieval witch-hunting sect global.

The environment, everywhere, should be managed and protected for human benefit — physical, mental, and social. The One Health concept, centered in such common sense, was once no more than this. It is a rational way to express an age-old principle ... Sanitation and improved nutrition will save more lives than the next round of profiteering brought to us by Pfizer.

However ... One Health has been hijacked by self-proclaimed philanthropists ... One Health is being corrupted in two ways, but for the same ends and by much the same people. Understanding one tells us about the people we are dealing with, the other reveals their motives.”

The One Health Ideology Is Anti-Human

As explained by Bell, One Health is an ideology that places human life and welfare on par with all other life, including plants and animals. This means that your life, and the lives of your children, are no more important than the lives of polar bears, trees, waterways and soil.

If your actions cause ecological harm, and the polar bear doesn’t, then you are the one who must be eliminated from the equation. That’s really the crux of this ideology. It’s not pro-environment but, rather, anti-human at its core.

“Within this ‘equitable’ worldview, humans become a pollutant,” Bell writes.19 “Ever-growing human populations have driven other species to extinction through environmental change, from the megafauna of ancient Australasia to the plummeting insect populations of modern Europe.

Humans become a plague upon the earth, and their restriction, impoverishment and death may therefore be justified for a greater good.

It is difficult for people to grasp that this is a guiding ideology of public figures, as it runs counter to most human moral systems or Natural Law ... We must understand the ideology driving this movement, as they intend for us to follow their dictates, and they intend to indoctrinate our children.”

Expose the Barren Ideology of One Health

One Health is also designed to control the masses through fear. We’re constantly bombarded with predictions of doom and told we must be protected for our own good.

“Expanding this approach from a single virus to any aspect of the biosphere impacting human well-being, such as climate, provides an opportunity to use this totalitarian tool of population control to reshape society to the model that the purveyors of fear desire,” Bell notes, adding:

“Through amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and a new ‘pandemic treaty,’ the WHO is coupling this broad definition of One Health with a definition of ‘emergency’ that simply requires recognition of a threat rather than actual harm.

When applied to the WHO’s broad definition of health, ‘physical, mental and social well-being,’ almost all aspects of normal life could be included in its scope. Addressed through a proscriptive public health paradigm that encompasses global mandates, restrictions and censorship, and those running this agenda have an opportunity for unprecedented power ...

[In] 2019, the WHO stated in its recommendations for pandemic influenza that border closures, quarantine, and prolonged business closures should never be undertaken in response to a pandemic. These measures would drive inequality and disproportionately harm low-income people, destroying both economies and social capital.

In 2020, refocusing priorities on a new constituency, the WHO promoted these same inequitable policies. The evidence did not change, but the constituency did. Wealthy people and corporations had become significant directive funders of WHO programs. Those who benefit from improved nutrition and sanitation cannot fund the WHO’s growing staff, but those profiting from the largesse of the COVID response can ...

Evil is not defeated by hiding from it. It is fought by exposing the ideology that drives it, the greed, the lies, and the deceit ... In the end, mad ideologues collapse under the weight of their own deceit and the shallowness of their dogmas.

The earth-mother religion of a corrupted One Health and the feudalist ambitions of its priests will be no different. We should not fear public health or a holistic view of the world. They are ours and can be a force for good. Rather, we should expose the hollowness of the people who would subvert them, driven by their own greed and barren ideologies.”

We’re Running Out of Time

Importantly, as noted by comedian Jimmy Dore in the featured video above, the pandemic treaty is not something that member nations must opt into. It’s an opt-out proposition. If a nation fails to opt out before the deadline, they automatically accept the treaty.

Based on the current timeline, the World Health Assembly (WHA) will vote on the pandemic treaty in May 2024, and it will take force 30 days later. That gives us just under a year and a half to get the U.S. to either opt out, or better yet, exit the WHO altogether.

The IHR amendments will also be voted on in May 2024. The 10-month deadline for member states to reject the amendments will expire in March 2025, and the amendments will come into force for any nation that did not reject them in May 2025. For any member that rejects the amendments, the 2005 IHR will apply.

Strangely enough, some of the IHR amendments have been adopted already. As reported by author and researcher James Roguski,20 they were adopted during the 75th World Health Assembly, May 27, 2022, even though nothing was signed. This is yet another testament to the rampant lawlessness and subversive tactics we’re dealing with.

Disturbingly, many Americans aren’t even aware that the U.S. government is about to relinquish our national sovereignty and everyone’s personal bodily autonomy to the WHO21 because mainstream media aren’t talking about it.

So, please, share this and any other articles you find on this subject with everyone you know, and continue to educate yourself. By far, these are the greatest threats to freedom the world has ever seen, and the risks apply evenly to everyone, no matter where you live.

Fact Checkers Take Advantage of Confusion

Keep in mind that while the IHR amendments and treaty address different areas of the WHO’s new power structure, they will work together to massively empower the WHO once both come into force. Also be aware that since the global takeover is happening on several fronts at the same time, it’s easy to get confused on the details, and this confusion can easily become fodder for fact checkers. As reported by The Defender:22

“The AP recently ‘fact-checked’ claims that the pandemic treaty endangers national sovereignty. According to the AP, it ‘does not overrule any nation’s ability to pass individual pandemic-related policies’ and ‘does not overrule any nations’ individual health or domestic policies.’ There would be ‘effectively no legal consequences for signatories who fail to adhere to it or violate its terms.’

The AP ‘fact-check’ doesn’t mention the proposed IHR amendments. [Author and researcher James] Roguski cited this as an example of the frequent conflation of the pandemic treaty and the IHR amendments. He said language eroding national sovereignty is not found in the pandemic treaty — but is found in the IHR amendments.

‘Everyone’s paying attention to the treaty,’ Roguski said. ‘They’re completely and totally cross-pollinating the details that are in the amendments, attributing them to the treaty, and getting ‘fact-checked’ to high heaven.”

Call on Congress to Withdraw US From the WHO

While the U.S. House and Senate have introduced identical bills to thwart the WHO’s power grab through the proposed pandemic treaty, that still might not protect us, because the treaty is specifically written to circumvent the Senate-approval process.23

A far more effective strategy would be for Congress to withhold its annual contributions to the WHO, and then withdraw the U.S. from the WHO altogether. I believe it may be worth supporting all these strategies. So, please, contact your representatives and urge them to:

Support the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act24,25,26,27,28
Withhold funding for the WHO
Support U.S. withdrawal from the WHO

We also need to protect our nation against the IHR amendments. To that end, the World Council for Health has launched a global #StopTheWHO campaign. Here’s how you can get involved:29

Speak — Raise awareness on the ground and online. Use articles, posters, videos

Act — Campaign through rallies, political mobilization, legal notices and cases and similar campaigns

Collaborate with health freedom coalitions such as the World Council for Health

Explore activist toolboxes such as the World Council for Health Stop the Who Campaign and stopthewho.com

Engage global indigenous leadership to take a united stand against the WHO’s IHR

Activate people’s parliaments, legislatures or referendums to oppose the amendments

Comments (123)

Categories: Alternative Health, Minnesota Cremation

Omega-3 May Lower Alzheimer's Risk in High-Risk Individuals

Mercola Health Care - Sun, 06/11/2023 - 00:00

Editor's Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published November 8, 2018.

More and more, scientists are confirming and validating recommendations to consume healthy dietary fats, and typically in far greater amounts than recommended by U.S. dietary guidelines. Healthy fats are, in my view, so important for health, I've dedicated my last two books to this topic.

"Fat for Fuel" details how to implement a cyclical ketogenic diet high in healthy fats, low in net carbs and moderate in protein, delves even further into the specifics of dietary fats and how to discriminate between healthy and harmful ones.

This is really crucial information, as unhealthy fats can do more harm than excess sugar. Unfortunately, if you pay attention to government dietary guidelines (or many conventional doctors), you'll be grossly misinformed about which types of fat to eat, and how much.

For example, in the past 100 years, our omega-6 intake has nearly tripled largely due to misleading or outright incorrect marketing and government health campaigns while our intake of omega-3 has decreased tenfold, causing a severe imbalance in our omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.

Hence, this was the incentive for writing "Superfuel" to set the record straight. A majority of the research for this book was compiled by James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., author of "The Salt Fix."1 In a nutshell, "Superfuel" guides you back to a diet reminiscent of that during Paleolithic times, with particular focus on animal-based omega-3 fats, specifically those bound to phospholipids.

At that time, much of the omega-3 came from animal brains. Today, brains is unlikely to make the menu, but phospholipid-bound omega-3 can still be had from krill oil and fish roe.

To learn how fats are truly an extraordinary fuel for your body and brain, and why it's so vitally important to eat the right ones, be sure to order a copy of "Superfuel" today. All preorders will also receive three free gifts.

>>>>> Click Here <<<<<

DHA Is Crucial for Cellular Health

The fats recommended by U.S. health authorities — primarily vegetable oils — are very high in processed (and hence damaged) omega-6 fats. One of the most significant dangers of vegetable oils is that the damaged fats are integrated into your cell membranes, including mitochondrial membranes, and once these membranes become dysfunctional it sets the stage for all sorts of complications and ill health.

For example, as DiNicolantonio explains in our interview, the inner membrane of your mitochondria contains a component called cardiolipin, which needs to be saturated in the omega-3 fat docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in order to function properly.

Cardiolipin can be likened to a cellular alarm system that triggers programmed cell death (apoptosis) by signaling caspase-3 when something goes wrong with the cell. However, if the cardiolipin is not saturated with DHA, it cannot signal caspase-3, and hence apoptosis does not occur. As a result, dysfunctional cells continue to grow and may turn into a tumor. DHA is particularly crucial for brain health. In your brain, DHA:

Stimulates Nrf2, a transcription factor that regulates cellular oxidation and reduction, and aids in detoxification
Increases heme oxygenase 1, a protein produced in response to stress, including oxidative stress
Upregulates antioxidant enzymes

All of this is important for optimal brain health and function. DHA and EPA are also actual structural elements that make up all of your cells, including those in your brain, so their importance really cannot be overstated.

However, the source of your DHA also matters. Industrially processed omega-3 fish oils can actually cause problems similar to those caused by excessive amounts of omega-6. This is a topic we examine at greater depth in "Superfuel."

About half of all fish oils also have problems with oxidation. So, when buying a fish oil supplement, you really need to look for a product that tests the hydro peroxide levels. The lower the level the better, but I recommend staying below 5%.

The Importance of Phospholipids

For years, I've recommended krill oil over fish oil if you don't regularly eat cleaner, small fatty fish such as anchovies and sardines. Krill has a number of benefits over fish oil, but one in particular has been highlighted in research, namely that of phospholipids.

While fatty acids (including DHA and EPA) are water soluble, they cannot be transported in their free form in your blood. They must be "packaged" into lipoprotein vehicles such as phospholipids.

In krill oil, the omega-3s DHA and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are naturally bound to phospholipids, which makes them more readily absorbed by your body compared to fish oil, where the omega-3s are bound to triglycerides.

Phospholipids are also one of the principal compounds in high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which you want more of, and by allowing your cells to maintain structural integrity, phospholipids help your cells function optimally. Importantly, your brain cannot absorb DHA unless it's bound to phosphatidylcholine, and while krill oil contains phosphatidylcholine naturally, fish oil does not.

When you consume fish oil, your liver has to attach it to phosphatidyl choline in order for it to be utilized by your body, and this is yet another reason for its superior bioavailability. As the name implies, phosphatidyl choline is composed partly of choline, the precursor for the vital neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which sends nerve signals to your brain.

Choline is important to brain development, learning and memory. Since it plays a vital role in fetal and infant brain development, it's particularly important for pregnant and nursing women.

Research Highlights Value of Phospholipid-Bound DHA

Research2 by Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D., highlights the value of DHA bound to phospholipids — such as that found in krill oil — showing this particular form may actually reduce the risk of Alzheimer's in those with the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) gene.

The APOE4 gene, which predisposes you to this degenerative brain disorder and lowers the typical age of onset, is thought to be present in about one-quarter of the population, so this information could prove invaluable for many. Having a single copy of the gene raises your risk two- to threefold. Being a carrier of both copies can raise your risk fifteenfold.

Two hallmarks of Alzheimer's are amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles, both of which impair normal brain functioning. Alzheimer's patients also have reduced glucose transport into their brains, and this is one of the reasons why plaque and tangles form and accumulate. As explained by Patrick in her press release:3

"DHA promotes brain glucose uptake by regulating the structure and function of special proteins called glucose transporters located at the blood-brain barrier, the tightly bound layer of cells that limits passage of substances into the brain …

DHA … naturally occurs in a triglyceride form and a phospholipid form. Eating DHA-rich fish slows the progression of Alzheimer's disease and improves symptoms in APOE4 carriers. However, some evidence suggests that taking DHA supplements, which largely lack the phospholipid form, does not."

DHA in Phospholipid Form May Be Ideal

According to Patrick, this variation in response appears to be related to the different ways in which the two forms of DHA are metabolized and ultimately transported into your brain.

When the triglyceride form of DHA is metabolized, most of it turns into non-esterified DHA, while the phospholipid form is metabolized primarily into DHA-lysophosphatidylcholine (DHA-lysoPC). While both of these forms can cross the blood-brain barrier to reach your brain, the phospholipid form does so far more efficiently. Patrick explains:4

"Whereas non-esterified DHA passes through the blood-brain barrier via passive diffusion, the phospholipid form, DHA-lysoPC, enters via a special transporter called Mfsd2a.

Previous studies have found APOE4 disrupts the tight junctions of the blood-brain barrier, leading to a breakdown in the barrier's outer membrane leaflet and a subsequent loss of barrier integrity. One end result of this loss is impaired diffusion of non-esterified DHA."

According to Patrick, people with APOE4 have a faulty non-esterified DHA transport system, and this may be why they're at increased risk for Alzheimer's. The good news is that DHA-lysoPC can bypass the tight junctions, thereby improving DHA transport, and for those with one or two APOE4 variants, taking the phospholipid form of DHA may therefore lower their risk of Alzheimer's more effectively.

"When looking at the effects of DHA on cognitive function in people with APOE4-related Alzheimer's disease, it's important that researchers consider the effects of DHA in phospholipid form, especially from rich sources such as fish roe or krill, which can have as much as one-third to three-quarters of the DHA present in phospholipids," Patrick says.5

"That's where we're most likely to see the greatest benefits, particularly in vulnerable APOE4 carriers."

Omega-3 Fats Linked to Healthy Aging

In other related news, researchers have again linked omega-3 intake to healthier aging. This prospective cohort study6 included data from more than 2,600 seniors collected between 1992 until 2015. Blood levels of omega-3 were obtained at the beginning and end of the study.

In that period, only 11% of participants experienced healthy aging, quantified as the number of years a person lives without physical or mental health problems or disability. Those with the highest omega-3 blood levels were 18% to 21% more likely to live longer, healthier lives.

Interestingly, EPA was found to be the most important factor in this study. Those with the highest levels of EPA were 24% less likely to experience unhealthy aging, compared to those with the lowest EPA levels.

Other omega-3s measured included the animal-based docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) and the plant-based alpha linolenic acid (ALA). DPA was the second-most important factor, while ALA, like DHA, had no significant impact on healthy aging. The researchers speculate that one of the reasons for these findings is omega-3s beneficial impact on heart health. For example:

Two parallel studies7,8 published in 2008 found fish oil supplements worked better than placebo and the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor in patients with chronic heart failure.
Research published in 2016 found eating fatty fish and other omega-3 rich foods may lower your risk of a fatal heart attack by about 10%.9,10
Heart attack survivors who took 1 gram of marine-based omega-3 per day for three years were found to have a 50% reduced risk of sudden cardiac death.11

EPA Also Lowers Heart Disease Risk

EPA specifically has also been linked to a lower risk for heart disease. A different study12 involving a highly-processed form of EPA (a proprietary prescription formulation of fish oil called Vascepa) found it lowered cardiovascular health risks by 25% compared to a placebo containing mineral oil. This included heart attacks, strokes, bypass surgery and chest pain requiring hospitalization.

The drug trial was called REDUCE-IT and was done for five years. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this trial is that they used a far higher dosage than is typically used in these types of studies. Participants received 4 grams of EPA per day, which is two to four times more EPA than typically given.

A 25% reduction in cardiovascular risk is typically what you see with the use of statins, and this significant reduction is believed to be a byproduct of EPA's ability to lower triglycerides. Now, while this study strongly supports the use of marine-based omega-3s, it's important to realize that Vascepa is a highly-processed form of omega-3.

With a price tag of $2,500 a year, it's also one of your more expensive alternatives. Aside from being far less expensive, I still believe krill oil may be a superior choice, in part because it's bound to phospholipids, which increases absorption and may be particularly important for those at high risk for Alzheimer's. Krill also naturally contains astaxanthin, a very potent and powerful antioxidant, and the reason krill oil is far less prone to oxidation than fish oil.

Studies such as the REDUCE-IT trial do confirm and support health predictions made in "Superfuel," though, with a key point being that most people need far higher doses than previously thought. As suggested in the REDUCE-IT trial, an ideal dose appears to be between 3 and 4 grams of DHA and EPA combined (although the only way to be sure is to measure your omega-3 blood level, which I'll discuss below).

To learn more about the ins and outs of omega-3 and omega-6 fats, be sure to order your copy of "Superfuel." Remember, all preorders will receive three free gifts, so place your order today.

>>>>> Pre-order now <<<<<

Your Blood Level, Not the Dosage, Is Key for Optimization

While identifying an ideal dosage is important, it's not the most crucial consideration. The fact that some studies have failed to find any health benefits from omega-3 suggests dosage is a flawed parameter. For example, a Cochrane Collaboration review13 concluded omega-3 supplementation has little to no discernible benefit for heart health or longevity.

One explanation for this is the fact that many nutritional studies look at dosage rather than blood levels. GrassrootsHealth vitamin D researchers have clearly demonstrated the importance of looking at achieved blood levels of a nutrient.

When studies look at dosage, no apparent benefits of vitamin D supplementation are found. However, when you look at people's blood level — the concentration of the nutrient in the body — truly dramatic effects are detected. A similar situation exists with omega-3, as the most important parameter is your blood level, known as your omega-3 index, not any particular dose.

The reason for this is because people metabolize nutrients at different rates, and while one may need a very small dose to achieve a certain blood level, another may need several times that dose. Requirements for omega-3 will also vary depending on your lifestyle; your intake of fatty fish, for example, and your level of physical activity.

For this reason, I recommend getting your omega-3 level tested on an annual basis, and to adjust your dosage based on what you need to achieve an omega-3 index of 8% or higher. So, while a general recommendation is to take 3 to 4 grams of omega-3 per day, the only way to really know whether this is too much or too little is to get tested. We offer a convenient, no doctor required, omega-3 index test for your convenience.

Comments (26)

Categories: Alternative Health, Health Care

EMF Exposure — A Major Factor in the Development of Autism

Mercola Health Care - Sun, 06/11/2023 - 00:00

This interview was recorded in November 2018 at the annual Academy for Comprehensive and Integrative Medicine (ACIM) convention in Orlando, Florida, but this is the first time it was ever run on the site. At the time there was concern that the topic was too controversial, but now that five years has passed and COVID changed the controversial landscape we thought it would be good to release the video on this important topic.

I had the opportunity to interview two experts on autism and dirty electricity, Peter Sullivan and Dr. Martha Herbert, who cowrote “The Autism Revolution: Whole-Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be.”1 Here, we discuss some of the toxic factors that contribute to the development of autism, especially the role of electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) and dirty electricity.

Sullivan’s Journey

Sullivan has struggled with electromagnetic hypersensitivity, and still does to some degree, which was his primary motivation for learning more about it. He’s become a fount of knowledge as a result. As a software engineer in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, he was passionate about personal technology.

“I studied in Stanford. I did all kinds of human-computer interactions. I worked at multiple companies: as a troubleshooter in Silicon Valley, an engineer and a software designer at the very end. I worked at Netflix and some other companies people would know of,” he says.

In the early 2000s, problems began to take root. Fatigue and food allergies cropped up, and his children were struggling with developmental delays. He eventually realized he had toxic levels of mercury in his system.

“I eventually just took time off from work, in about 2005. I just said it’s ridiculous, with all these things going on, to have two people in the family working. I was focusing on my kids’ health and my health and really had some time and energy to really go deep and find out what was really out there.

I had a great doctor, Dr. Raj Patel … an integrative medical doctor who would talk about Candida overgrowth, mercury and all that stuff. He got us on track. Eventually, the kids slowly got better, but even after detoxing, I did not. I kept getting worse.

I got down to 131 pounds. I became electrically sensitive. My brain kept telling me, ‘All the stuff is safe and well-tested. I love technology.’ But my body was reacting like there was something really wrong. I was catching myself just throwing a cellphone away — feeling cellphones and then transformers when I plugged them in.”

He eventually learned about dirty electricity, and once he started addressing his exposure, he regained 10 pounds in a couple of months, along with his health. Today, he’s passionate about sharing information about the dangers of EMFs and dirty electricity, and how to address electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

“We’re just trying to share the information, make the field credible, because it’s very credible, and make sure people don’t have to suffer,” he says.

He even created an EMF-free tent that he brings with him to different seminars and conferences that people can sit in, as many of these events are held in places where you’re exposed to very high amounts of EMF. He’s also funded some of Herbert’s research.

Herbert’s Story

I first met Herbert at a Cure Autism Now event (now Autism Speaks) in 2009. Herbert’s two children struggled with symptoms of autism when they were young. Today, they’re both grown and have fully recovered. Her initial focus was on mercury toxicity, looking at ways of doing noninvasive screening for toxic metals.

A lifelong environmentalist, Herbert went to medical school after getting a Ph.D. in history of consciousness at the University of California Santa Cruz. She studied pediatric neurology, and fell into working with autism after inheriting magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from the first MRI study performed on autistic children in 1989.

“I was one of the first people — but not the only one — to identify white matter abnormalities in autism through brain imaging, not through gray tissue,” Herbert says. “That really violated the paradigm that behavior comes from the cortex. I was already kind of a whole-body person. I was seeing patients.

[Few of them] had these rare neurogenetic diseases that you’re trained for in pediatric neurology. But everybody was coming in with diarrhea and eczema, and they couldn’t sleep. It was almost like primary care in neuropsychiatry. That’s where I sort of edged my way into the whole-body approach.

I had an epiphany in 1999 … that all the stuff I was seeing in my patients really could connect with the environment … I started putting together and figuring out that this was really a systems [biology] approach to these conditions.”

A Systems Biology Approach to Autism

Systems biology looks at everything in biology as a web, in which everything is connected to everything else. When you tug at one part of the web, the rest of the web changes. In conventional science, individual components and variables are studied in isolation. That’s how clinical research is designed.

“We’re looking for pure forms of disease. But mostly in these conditions that we’re talking about, it’s a mess,” Herbert says. “Everybody has a bunch of different [symptoms], some of which are more prominent than others. Early on in figuring out autism as a systems problem, I was looking at specific language problems or developmental language disorder.

But if you look at these people carefully, they have coordination issues … You see this subtle breakdown of the precision and fine-tuning of the brain … I finally … I found a great article about the networks in the brain that are messed up in psychiatric illnesses (not just autism but also schizophrenia, depression and so forth).

The hubs of these networks have very high-frequency gamma frequency … It turns out that this gamma frequency is driven by cells that are very high-energy demand mitochondrially centered cells …

We now have enough studies showing that the metabolic stuff going on in the brain match onto the networks going on in the brain. The proportion of network disturbance in some of these cases has been shown to be proportional to the amount of mitochondrial dysfunction.”

The Transcend Research Program

Herbert has created a brain research program at Harvard called TRANSCEND2 (Treatment, Research and Neuroscience Evaluation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders). They use MRI, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalogram (EEG). MEG measures the magnetic activity of the brain, whereas EEG measures the electrical activity.

“When you have electrical activity, the magnetic is at 90 degrees. They measure the same thing, but in somewhat different ways,” Herbert explains. Her hypothesis is that autism is not something you’re born with. It’s something you develop in response to environmental factors.

“In order to study that, I started studying babies from the time they were in their mother’s womb. We got biosamples from the mothers. We got biosamples at birth, and then — until the mothers stopped nursing — we get biosamples from them, plus EEG and autonomic … using wristbands … to see how things deteriorated in the kids who developed autism.

What we found was something that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. We’re working on publishing this. We have EEG dated of 2-week-old babies, predicting their outcome at 13 months.

Now, I just finished saying that I think that autism is something you developed. That would sound like something you’re born with, but you can’t say that they have autism. The way I think about it is if their brains are really excited and irritated. So, it matters very much what happens [in their early environment to make them] more predisposed.”

Whole-Body Wellness Approach Can Minimize Autism Risk

Using this early predictive ability, a small number of primary care pediatricians have started implementing whole-body approaches to the parents and children, showing that when whole-body lifestyle modification is implemented, such as avoidance of toxins and allergens, virtually none of these predisposed babies actually develop autism.

“My feeling is what we need is a public health intervention where people are taught how to keep healthy from preconception to pregnancy to infancy. If they get an EEG that says that their brain is irritable, you don’t want to do a drug … You want to do safe and healthy things, because [drugs and toxins are] the problem in the first place,” Herbert says.

There are many anecdotal stories from families with autistic children suggesting EMF causes problems, and Herbert and Sullivan are working on setting up an online database to capture this data.

“That when you reduce the Wi-Fi, the symptoms abate a lot. I know a kid who was stimming like crazy. He liked to stim by the dishwasher. Guess what, there was dirty electricity in this dishwasher. They fixed it and he stopped that, and a lot of his symptoms remitted,” Herbert says.

Common Risk Factors

Essentially, Herbert believes autism can be predicted by looking at the level of brain irritability in the child. But what might contribute to this kind of irritability? Sullivan believes mercury, EMF and glyphosate are three major triggers, even more so than vaccines.

Herbert believes processed food is another major contributor. “Simply reducing allergens in the mother’s diet from preconception to pregnancy is a really big deal,” Herbert says. That said, it’s really the total load that matters, not any particular given factor.

“There are 10,000 different ways to injure mitochondria. It all piles up. All these little seemingly innocuous exposures add to the pile, so they all matter,” she says. Sullivan has created a video talk and booklet, “Simplifying Autism Improvement and Recovery,”3,4 which includes a list of suspects for parents to consider.

One big one that few people consider is de novo mutations resulting from sperm being exposed to wireless radiation from cellphones and laptops. Men desiring healthy children would do well to avoid carrying their cellphone in their pants pocket while it’s on, as the cellphone radiation can mutate the genes in the sperm. If you’re going to keep it in your pocket, make sure it’s off or in airplane mode.

Herbert is currently enrolling patients for her Child Health Inventory for Resilience and Prevention (CHIRP) study, which will gather information about the associations between the total burden of environmental stressors and exposures and chronic disease in children. If you have a child between the ages of 1 and 15, you can apply5 by filling out two prescreening questionnaires to determine your eligibility.

Most Parents Start Treatment at the Wrong End

Herbert and Sullivan have worked with autistic children and have advised parents for a long time. What are some of the common mistakes they see people make? Sullivan replies:

“People assume it’s a problem with the child. They jump in and start treating the child. They assume it’s genetic or whatever, and they’re doing behavioral therapy. The things that I would do again for myself, if I could do it all again, is I would start with the environment. I would start with EMF, especially at night.

We turn off the baby monitor, the cordless phone base station, Wi-Fi, and even sometimes the circuit breaker for the bedroom … A wired baby monitor is safe … Plug everything into a power strip. Put the strip in the wall. When you go to bed, just pull out the power strip. In the morning, plug it back in. It’s not hard. Or, put it on a timer.

I would say it’s a state of overload not just for the kids, but for the entire family … There are [many] things you need to do [to clean up your environment]. The key is in the sequence. Do the easiest things that get you the most impact.

That’s why we’re starting with EMF. Because once you reduce that, you start sleeping better, and then you start to have more capacity. You want to build a spiral of capacity. You start an upward spiral …

Martin Pall’s paper6 on the neuropsychiatric effects from microwaves and EMFs show it’s a big factor, as is sleep, because sleep and [lowering] inflammation are fundamental to good mental health.”

More Information

For more information about autism and wireless radiation, how EMFs affect sleep, and recommendations for EMF meters and tips for EMF safety, see Sullivan’s website, ClearLightVentures.com.

On Herbert’s site, HigherSynthesisHealth.com, you can find information about how to improve your overall health and lower your total body stress burden for a healthy pregnancy and baby.

Comments (48)

Categories: Alternative Health

How the Censorship Industry Works, and How We Can Stop It

Mercola Health Care - Sun, 06/11/2023 - 00:00

In this video, I interview Mike Benz, executive director for the Foundation for Freedom Online. Benz started off as a corporate lawyer representing tech and media companies before joining the Trump administration, where he worked as a speech writer for Dr. Ben Carson, the former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and President Trump.

He also advised on economic development policy. He then joined the State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Communications and Information Technology. There, he ran the cyber desks at state, meaning all things having to do with the internet and foreign policy.

“This is toward the end of 2020, which was a really fascinating time to witness the merger, in many respects, of big government and big tech companies themselves,” he says. “I had grown up, I think, like many Americans, with a belief that the First Amendment protected you against government censorship.

The terms of engagement that we had enjoyed from 1991, when the worldwide web rolled out, until 2016, the election in the U.S. and Brexit in the U.K., which is, really, the first political event where the election was determined, in many respects, by momentum on the internet.

There was that 25-year golden period where the idea of being censored by a private sector company, let alone the government, was considered something, to me, very deeply anathema to the American experience.

What I witnessed at the State Department — because I was at the desk, basically, that Google and Facebook would call when they wanted favors abroad, when they wanted American protection or American policies to preserve their dominance in Europe, or in Asia or in Latin America.

And the U.S. government was doing favors for these tech companies while the tech companies were censoring the people who voted for the government. It was a complete betrayal of whatever social contract typically underlies the public-private partnership.”

The Internet Was Founded by the National Security State

Ostensibly, the rapid expansion of censorship started post-2016, but you can make a strong argument that the internet was never intended to remain free forever. Rather, the intention for it to be used as a totalitarian tool was likely baked in from the start when the national security state founded it in 1968.

The worldwide web, which is the user interface, was launched in 1991, and my suspicion is that the public internet was seeded and allowed to grow in order to capture and make the most of the population dependent upon it, knowing that it would be the most effective social engineering tool ever conceived. Benz comments:

“I totally agree ... A lot of people, in trying to understand what's happening with the net censorship, say ‘We had this free internet, and then suddenly there was this age of censorship and the national security state got involved at the censorship side.’

But when you retrace the history, internet freedom itself was actually a national security state imperative. The internet itself is a product of a counterinsurgency necessity by the Pentagon to manage information during the 1960s, particularly to aggregate social science data. And then, it was privatized.

Opening it up to all comers in the private sector, it was handed off from DARPA [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] to the National Science Foundation, and then went through a series of universities on the infrastructure side.

And then, right out of the gate in 1991, you had the Cold War coming to an end, and then simultaneously, you had this profusion of Pentagon-funded internet freedom technologies. You had things like VPNs, encrypted chat, TOR.

All of the early internet freedom technologies of the ‘90s were funded by the Pentagon, the State Department, and developed by the intelligence community, primarily, as a way of using internet freedom as a means to help dissident groups in foreign countries be able to develop a pro-U.S. beachhead, because it was a way to evade state-controlled media.

This was, basically, an insurgency tool for the U.S. government, in the same way that Voice of America and Radio Free Liberty, and Radio Free Europe were tools of the CIA in the Cold War, to beam in, basically, pro-U.S. content to populations in foreign countries in order to sway them towards U.S. interests. It was a way of managing the world empire.

The internet served the same purpose, and it couldn't be done if it was called a Pentagon operation, a State Department or CIA operation. But all of the tech companies themselves are products of that. Google started as a DARPA grant that was obtained at Stanford by Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

In 1995, they were part of the CIA and NSA's [National Security Agency’s] massive digital data program. They had their monthly meetings with their CIA and NSA advisers for that program, where the express stated purpose was for the CIA and NSA to be able to map so-called ‘Birds of a feather’ online ... so that they could be neutralized.”

How It All Began

As noted by Benz, the idea of having the intelligence community map political “Birds of a Feather” communities in order to either mobilize or neutralize them was (and still is) justified in the name of counterterrorism. Nowadays, as we’ve seen during the pandemic, it’s used to control public discourse, suppress truth, and promote propaganda angles.

The technology used to control public discourse is an artificial intelligence (AI) technique called natural language processing (NLP). It’s a way of aggregating everyone who believes a certain thing online into community databases based on the words they use, the hashtags, the slogans and images.

“Emerging narratives, all manner of metadata affiliations, all that can be aggregated to create a topographical network map of what you believe in and who you're associated with, so that it can all be turned down in a fast, precise and comprehensive manner by content moderation teams, because they're all birds of the same feather,” Benz explains.

“The fact that this grew out of the U.S. National Security state, which is running the show, essentially, today, to me says that there's a continuation between the internet freedom and internet censorship. They simply switched from one side of the chess board to the other.”

What Is the National Security State?

For clarity, when Benz talks about the "National Security State,” what he’s referring to are the institutions that uphold the rules-based international order. Domestically, that includes the Pentagon, State Department, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), certain aspects of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the 17 intelligence agencies.

Of those, the Pentagon, State Department and the intelligence community (IC) are the three central ones that have managed the American world empire since the 1940s. None of them are supposed to be able to operate domestically, but in a sense their power has expanded so much that they essentially control domestic affairs.

As explained by Benz, the Pentagon, State Department and IC are not supposed to be able to operate domestically. “But in a sense, they really control domestic affairs, because their power has expanded so much that they've developed an extraordinary laundering apparatus to be able to fund international institutions that then boomerang back home and effectively control much of domestic political affairs, including discourse on the internet.”

As for the CIA, it was created in 1947 under the National Security Act. It was created as a cloak-and-dagger mechanism, to do things the State Department wanted done but couldn’t get caught doing due to the diplomatic repercussions — things like election rigging, assassinations, media control, bribery and other subversion tactics.

The Birth of Hybrid Warfare

Benz continues his explanation of how and why internet censorship emerged when it did:

“So, there's the U.S. National Security State, and then there's the transatlantic one involving NATO. The story of Western government involvement in internet censorship really started after the 2014 Crimea annexation, which was the biggest foreign policy humiliation of the Obama era.

Atlanta's School of Foreign Policy was deeply inflamed by this event and blamed the fact that there were these breakaway Russia-supporting entities in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea on a failure to penetrate their media, and this idea that hearts and minds were being swung towards the Russian side because of pro-Russian content online.

NATO then declared this doctrine of so-called hybrid warfare — this idea that Russia had won Crimea not by a military annexation, but by winning, illicitly in a sense, the hearts and minds of Crimeans through the use of their propaganda. And the doctrine of hybrid warfare, born in 2014, was this idea that war was no longer a kinetic thing.

There hadn't been a kinetic war in Europe since World War II. Instead, it had moved sub-kinetic into the hearts and minds of the people. In fact, NATO announced a doctrine after 2014 called ‘From tanks to tweets,’ where it shifted its focus, explicitly, from kinetic warfare to social media opinions online.

Brexit, which happened in June 2016 ... was blamed on Russian influence as well. And so all of these institutions that argued for control over the internet in Eastern Europe said, ‘Well, it needs to come now. Now it's an all-of-Europe thing.’

When Trump was then elected five months later, explicitly contemplating the breakup of NATO, all hell broke loose. This idea that we need to censor the internet went from being something that was touchy and novel, in the view of Pentagon brass and State Department folks, to something that was totally essential to saving the entire rules-based international order that came out of World War II.

At the time, the reasoning was, Brexit, in the U.K., was going to give rise to Frexit, in France, with Marine Le Pen and her movement there. Matteo Salvini was going to cause Italexit In Italy, there’d be Grexit in Greece, Spexit in Spain, and the entire European Union would come undone, just because these right-wing populist parties would naturally vote their way into political power.

They would vote for working-class, cheap energy policies that would make them more closely aligned with Russia naturally, because of the cheaper oil prices, or cheaper gas prices. Then, suddenly, you've got no EU, you've got no NATO, and then, you've got no Western military alliance.

So, from that moment, after Trump's election, immediately, there was this diplomatic roadshow by U.S. State Department officials, who all thought they were getting promotions in November 2016. They thought they were going to get promoted from the State Department to the National Security Council. Turns out, they all got fired, because someone with a 5% chance of winning ended up winning that day.

So, they took their international connections, their international networks around the Atlanta Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the entire think tank, quasi-intelligence, quasi-military, government-funded NGO soup, and they did this international roadshow, starting in January 2017, to convince European countries to start censoring their internet ...

Out of that came NetzDG [Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, the Network Enforcement Act] in Germany, which introduced a necessity of artificial intelligence-powered social media censorship.

All of that was, essentially, spearheaded by this network of State Department and Pentagon folks who then used their own internal folks in the government to procure government grants and contracts to these same entities. Eventually, they all rotated into those tech companies to set the policies as well.”

Threat From Within

So, to summarize, the infrastructure for worldwide internet censorship was largely established by IC veterans who were forced out by the Trump administration, and that infrastructure was then used to catalyze the international censorship response during COVID in late 2019, early 2020. Benz continues:

“Right. And those veterans were not alone. The full story is not just the shadow security state and exile. The fact is this. The Trump administration never had control of its own defense department, State Department or intelligence community.

It was the intelligence community that, essentially, drove his first impeachment, that drove a two-and-a-half year special prosecutor investigation that rolled up 12 to 20 of Trump's closest associates. You had a chief of staff there who was hiding the military figures from the government. The careers at state threatened the political appointees from the inside. I experienced that myself.

This permanent aspect of Washington, with unfireable careers in high places, combined with a turf war in the GOP [Republican Party] between the populist right and the neo-conservative right, with the neo-conservative right having many well-placed Republicans in the Defense Department, State Department, in IC, to thwart the previous president's agenda there, allowed this political network and exile, on the censorship side, to work with their allies within the government to create these censorship beach heads.

So, for example, that's how they created the Department of Homeland Security’s ... first permanent government censorship bureau in the form of this entity called CISA [the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, founded in November 2018], which is supposed to just be a cybersecurity entity.

It was done because of media and intelligence community laundering of a never-substantiated claim that Russia had potentially hacked the 2016 election, hacked the election machines or voting software, or might be able to do so in the future, and so we need a robust armed-to-the-teeth DHS unit to protect our cybersecurity from the Russians.

It's the mission creep of the century. After the Mueller probe ended in June 2019, this unit, CISA, within DHS [Department of Homeland Security] — which had set up all of this, and which is only supposed to do cybersecurity — said ‘Well, if you squint and look at it, discourse online is a cybersecurity threat because if it undermines public faith or confidence in our elections, and it’s done using a cyber nexus, i.e., social media post, then that’s a form of cybersecurity threat, because democracy is essential to our security.’

And so you went from this cybersecurity mission to a cyber censorship bureau, because if you tweeted something about mail-in ballots in the 2020 election, that was deemed to be a cyber attack on critical infrastructure, i.e., elections.

When they got away with that in 2020, DHS then said, ‘Well, if you squint and look at it, public health is also critical infrastructure.’ So, now, DHS gets to direct social media companies to censor opinions about COVID-19.

Then they worked their way into saying the same thing about financial systems, financial services, about the Ukraine war, about immigration. It got to the point where, by late 2022, the head of CISA declared that cognitive infrastructure is critical infrastructure.”

Cracks only appeared after Republicans got a majority in the House of Representatives in November 2022 and Elon Musk acquired Twitter. Public support for government also dwindled as Musk’s release of the Twitter Files revealed the extent of government’s involvement in the censoring of Americans.

So far, though, public awareness hasn’t changed anything. The very entities that once stood for internet freedom, like the National Science Foundation, are still actively funding and furthering government censorship activities.

AI Gives Censors God-Like Powers

Benz first became “gripped by the stakes of what was happening on the internet” in August 2016, after reading a series of papers discussing the use of NLP to monitor, surveil and regulate the distribution of information on social media based on the words used.

“DARPA provided tens of millions of dollars of funding for this language processing, this language chunking capacity of AI in order, ostensibly, to stop ISIS recruiting on Facebook and Twitter,” Benz says.

“As part of the predicate for putting military boots on the ground in Syria, there was a lot of talk about ISIS coming to the U.S., and they were recruiting on Facebook and Twitter. And so the Pentagon, DARPA and the IC developed this language spyware capacity to map the dialectic of how ISIS sympathizers talk online, the words they use, the images they share, the prefixes, the suffixes, all the different community connections.

And then, I saw that this was being done for purposes of domestic political control instead of foreign counterterrorism, and the power that it has. It is what totally changed the internet forever. Before 2016, there was not the technological capacity to do mass social media censorship. That was the age of what censorship insiders like to call the whack-a-mole era. Censorship was reactive.

It was done by forum, by moderators, essentially. Everything had to be flagged manually before it could be taken down, which meant millions of people had already seen it, or it had already gone viral, it had already done its damage, so to speak, and you were just cutting off the backend with an act of censorship.

You could never have a permanent control apparatus in that setting, because there would always be a first mover advantage to whoever posted it. What AI censorship technology breakthroughs enabled after 2016 was a kind of nuclear weapon, if you will, on the censorship side, to be able to end the war immediately.

You don't need a standing army of 100,000 people to censor COVID. You need one good developer, working with one manic social scientist who spends her entire life mapping what Dr. Mercola says online, and what he's talking about this week, what his followers are saying, what they're saying about this drug, or what they're saying about this vaccine, or what they're saying about this institution.

All of that can be cataloged into a lexicon of how you talk. And then, all of that talk can just be turned down to zero. At the same time, they can super amplify the language that they themselves are doing. So it gives a God-like control to a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people who can then use that to control the discourse of the entire population.

What's also so terrifying about the National Security State's involvement in this is, when they discovered the power of this by mid-2018, they began to roll it out to every other country in the world for purposes of political control there — to the Ghana desk, to the Ecuador desk, to Southeast Asia, all over Europe.”

Can We Get Out of the Grip of Censorship?

At the time of this writing, we’re in a lull. The COVID pandemic has been declared over and aside from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there are no major political crises going on that warrant heavy censorship. The networks and technologies for radical suppression are already in place, however, and can be turned up at a moment’s notice.

We’ve also recently seen just how easy it is for alternative media to be infiltrated and upended, so the fact that there are alternative platforms doesn’t guarantee that future censorship efforts will fail.

“There are so many threat vectors,” Benz says. “There are a lot of questions about what's going on, for example, at Project Veritas, with how quickly it ousted James O'Keefe after releasing the most viral video ever, on Pfizer. It was about one week later — after their biggest accomplishment, perhaps, ever — that it was totally overthrown.

A similar thing has happened with Fox News with [the firing of] Tucker Carlson, the most popular cable TV host in the country — the guy who gets three times more concurrent viewership than CNN, in the opposing spot. Institutions can absolutely be penetrated and co-opted when enough pressure is applied.”

Transatlantic Flank Attack 2.0 Underway

As mentioned earlier, the U.S. censorship really began with NATO. Benz refers to this as the transatlantic flank attack. Basically, when U.S. intelligence want to impact the internet domestically, they first work with their European partners to enact regulatory changes in Europe first. This then ends up spilling into the U.S. market, and the IC appears to have had nothing to do with it.

The first transatlantic flank attack took place in early 2017 with the NetzDG. We’re now under transatlantic attack again, through the Digital Markets Act. This law, Benz says, will make it very difficult for Rumble and other free speech platforms to maintain that posture during the next pandemic. Once these platforms are forced to comply with the Digital Markets Act on the European side, the changes will be felt everywhere.

Cause for Cautious Optimism

While Benz remains hopeful that solutions to global censorship will present themselves, he still recognizes that the forces at play are enormous and the risks are high.

“It's one of these things where the more you see what we're up against, the more sobering it becomes. I think you need to maintain hope in order to maintain energy, to maintain momentum. With momentum, weird things can happen, even if you're not supposed to win. Strange things break, or take a life of their own, or resurface.

All the little weaknesses of the system get tested, simply by a momentum here and there. For example, Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter is probably the reason that the GOP got over the hump in doing all of these congressional investigations into the government's role in censorship.

They felt like they had an ally at Twitter, that they had billionaire backing. There was a waterfall, cascade impact. So, I am hopeful. DHS is on the run right now. They purged their website of all their domestic censorship operations that they listed and were loud and proud about for two whole years after the catastrophe of the disinformation governance board in April 2022.

They already had a Ministry of Truth at DHS. They just gave one hypothetical board the wrong name. They didn't call it the CISA. They made the mistake of calling it by the right name, and that's what ended the entire political support for the underlying apparatus.

So, the importance of an Orwellian name is essential for maintaining the political support. But I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm hopeful, and I'm honored to be a part of this rebel fleet of folks trying to take on the empire behind the censorship situation.

But having seen, in so many iterations the toolkit they use, it is a medieval torture toolkit that can do strange things. Pressure can do strange things, even to great people. And so I'm cautiously optimistic.”

Essential Internet Backbone Is Not Politically Neutral

In my view, internet decentralization is one key innovation that could break the grip of censorship. That said, other aspects, such as cybersecurity, must also be reinvented.

CloudFlare, for example, a content delivery and cloud cybersecurity service, basically controls the internet because they protect online businesses and platforms from hackers using Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. Without it, you cannot survive online if you’re a big business. Even with a decentralized internet, CloudFlare might still be able to exert control by leaving sites open to DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks.

Disturbingly, CloudFlare got political for the first time after 2016, when it decided to remove protection from a site called Kiwi Farms, which expressed anti-transgender views. As a result, the site had to move over to a Russian server to get back online.

Basically, U.S. citizens had to look for internet freedom in Russia because their architecture could not be supported in the U.S. — all because a government-integrated backbone of the internet made a political decision, likely at the behest of the IC.

“If there is another pandemic, for example, and there's a push for certain medical interventions or countermeasures that certain sites don't go along with, the CloudFlare, absolutely, could be a weapon in that respect,” Benz says.

“One of the things I found so troubling is that CISA, this DHS censorship agency, after the 2020 election set up a private sector liaison subcommittee for mis- and disinformation policies in the private sector. It was a seven-person subcommittee, with all of the top censorship experts at the University of Washington and Stanford.

Vijaya Gadde, the former head of censorship at Twitter, was a part of this board. I thought it was very troubling that the CEO of CloudFlare was also one of the seven people on the DHS censorship board.”

Major Challenges to a Decentralized Internet

Benz continues:

“To proceed to the various challenges to a decentralized internet, when you move up the stack of censorship ... they can move up to cloud servers, to payment processors, and even to things like CloudFlare and your infrastructure protection.

In the early era of censorship, there was a rebuttal by censorship advocates that if you don't like what private sector companies are doing, start your own social media companies. Build your own Google, build your own YouTube, build your own Facebook, build your own Twitter.

And then, what started to happen as censorship got completely insane, when it went from being troubling to disturbing, to saturating ... you started to see these alternative social media platforms like Gab and Parler ... that tried to escape the content moderation policies with Big Tech. But what started to happen is, those social media companies, like Parler, were completely destroyed.

Parler was de-platformed from, basically, the entire internet, when the president had just moved there, after being kicked off Twitter. That was a very instructive moment, and one that censorship insiders have reflected on, I should say, many, times as a moment of, ‘Should we have done that? We did it, but it costs us a lot of political capital.’

Parler was kicked off of Amazon Web Services. They were kicked off of all of the banks. They were banned from email providers. They could not hook to the internet, essentially, to even maintain the ability to post anything there. So, it went from build your own social media company to build your own bank.

Now you need to build your own bank and get a banking license for the payment processors. You need to build your own email distribution. You need to build your own cloud servers.

You need to build your own software service providers. And, eventually, are you going to need to lay your own subsea cables across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans? The social media companies didn't invent the internet. They are superimposed on Pentagon infrastructure.”

The House Needs to Defund the Censorship Industry

Without doubt, there will be another crisis, whether it be another pandemic or war or something else, that will send the censorship machine into full gear yet again. Right now we’re in a lull, so this is the time to think ahead and get prepared. The question is, what can we do? How do we prepare and fight back?

According to Benz, one of the most effective strategies that would have immediate effect, and could be done right now, would be to strip the censorship industry of its government funding. He explains:

“Right now, there's a Republican controlled House. The advantage of the House is that it controls appropriations, the purse strings of the federal government. If the House Appropriations Committee took seriously the government subsidization of censorship networks in the private sector, you could defund the speech police, even though, on the AI side, it only takes one good coder to be able to take out an entire political philosophy.

The fact is, they can only do that job because of an army of social science folks across 45 different U.S. colleges and universities who get paid. There are tens of thousands of them who are paid through the National Science Foundation, through DARPA grants and State Department grants, to map communities online as a matter of social science, and then provide that to the computer scientist to censor it.

My foundation, the Foundation for Freedom Online, has detailed $100 million, just in the past 18 months, that have gone from the federal government institutions directly into social media censorship insiders. Censorship is not an act anymore, it's an industry, and you can cripple their capacity building.

When you pump it full of money, you go from having a couple of people do it, to tens of thousands of people doing it. The censorship capacity is built on an infrastructure of an industry that relies on government to pay for it, and it relies on government to spearhead their penetration into the institutions.

Right now, there are about eight different congressional committees trying to solve this problem from different aspects. I've personally briefed eight different congressional committees ... But only a few of those committees are taking it seriously enough to pursue the issue deeply, and where that will shake out remains uncertain.

CISA worked with dozens of social media companies and private sector cutouts to launder censorship from the government into the private sector, but the institution I worked with more than anyone was the University of Stanford, the Stanford Internet Observatory in particular.

Jim Jordan's Weaponization Subcommittee just subpoenaed Stanford for what I call the perfectly preserved First Amendment crime scene. Stanford meticulously kept logs of all of its censorship activities with government officials for the COVID-19 pandemic, and for two election cycles.

They detailed 66 narratives that they censored online, having to do with everything about vaccines, efficacy of masks, opposition to lockdown mandates. And then, they had a fourth category for conspiracy theories, basically anything that someone said about the World Economic Forum, or Bill Gates.

They're now refusing to comply with that subpoena. But the stakes keep getting escalated, because who's going to enforce that subpoena? Steve Bannon, regardless of your opinion of him, just got indicted for not complying with a subpoena, but is this Justice Department going to pursue criminal penalties against Stanford, for withholding congressional subpoena for their government?

This is for their government, because they were the formal partners. They had a formal partnership with the DHS. That stuff should be FOIA-able, first of all. You shouldn't even need a subpoena for it. The only reason you can't FOIA it is because they laundered it through Stanford. Standord holds the records rather than DHS.

I tried to FOIA that from DHS, and DHS says, ‘We don't have it, even though they were our communications.’ So this is the way the CIA structures in an operation, through a web of cutouts and offshore banks, so you can never really get transparency. They're now doing that for the censorship industry at home ...

Whether they will continue to raise the stakes is now a terrifying open issue. And the fact that it's the inside guys who are running the censorship situation means there may be other tactics that need to be pursued here, which is why I talked about, simply, going to the appropriations committee and zeroing it out, so you don't even need to enforce subpoenas, necessarily.”

Building a Whole-of-Society Solution

As explained by Benz, the censorship industry was built as a so-called whole-of-society effort. According to the DHS, misinformation online is a whole-of-society problem that requires a whole-of-society solution. By that, they meant that four types of institutions had to fuse together as a seamless whole. Those four categories and key functions are:

Government institutions, which provide funding and coordination
Private sector institutions that do the censorship and dedicate funds to censorship through corporate-social responsibility programs
Civil society institutions (universities, NGOs, academia, foundations, nonprofits and activists) that do the research, the spying and collecting of data that are then given to the private sector to censor
News media/fact checking institutions, which put pressure on institutions, platforms and businesses to comply with the censorship demands

What the Foundation for Freedom Online is doing is educating people about this structure, and the ways in which legislatures and the government can be restructured, how civil society institutions can be established, and how news media can be created to support and promote freedom rather than censorship.

To learn more, be sure to check out foundationforfreedomonline.com. You can also follow his very active Twitter account Benz on Twitter.

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Categories: Alternative Health, Health Care

Concussion Repair Manual: A Guide to Traumatic Brain Injury

Mercola Health Care - Sat, 06/10/2023 - 00:00

Editor's Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published March 18, 2018.

Dr. Dan Engle, board-certified in adult psychology and neurology, and who completed psychiatric fellowships in child, adolescent and forensic psychiatry, has written an indispensable guide to recovering from traumatic brain injury (TBI), "The Concussion Repair Manual: A Practical Guide to Recovering From Traumatic Brain Injuries."

TBI is incredibly pervasive. An estimated 80% to 90% of people have had some form of TBI. Military personnel and athletes such as football players and boxers tend to be at particularly high risk, but TBI can happen to anyone, for a range of reasons. Engle has had personal experience with it, which is what motivated him to pursue this discipline of medicine and write a book about it.

"I went to college to play soccer … Boxers … who get slugged in the face — that's about 20 pounds of pressure to their brain. Soccer players, if you go in for a full volley or a full header, take 70 pounds of pressure to the brain … I had a series of concussions that led up to me choosing medical school," he says.

"Two weeks before medical school, I broke my neck. That was a big entry point in a recalibration of my direction … I started [medical school] in a Halo Device, where they screw it into your skull and you're walking around fixated.

For the first three months of med school, I was in this Halo. It was the first thing that finally slowed me down. It helped me self-reflect. It helped me realize that I was driving at a level of intensity in my life that I didn't really enjoy.

I ended up having much more fun in med school and residency than I did in high school and college, just because I wasn't so intense with everything. It oriented me from ER and surgical medicine into neurology and psychiatry.

[My focus] was … the neuroreparative aspects of brain injury and spinal cord injury, as well as the more humanistic side of understanding people, the stories of what make us who we are and the mindset of healing, and how very [important] that is to recovery."

TBIs Are Pervasive, yet Many Don't Get Proper Rehabilitation

A common myth is that unless you've suffered complete loss of consciousness, you didn't have a concussion or significant head injury, but this simply isn't true, Engle says. Generally speaking, a concussion is a mild TBI, and will score higher on assessment using the Glasgow Coma Scale (a scoring system that grades your level of consciousness after a TBI). More severe TBIs that are moderate or severe will respectively score lower.

An estimated 4 million to 6 million people are on disability due to chronic severe conditions resulting from their TBI, but many more have undocumented TBIs — be it from a car accident, slip and fall incident or simply hitting your head on a cabinet. Most of these injuries are mild and heal on their own, but even mild TBI can have lingering effects that can become chronic unless you address them.

"Most people, if they just hit their head on the door or cabinet, it's not going to be enough to have a significant neurological sequela moving forward, but sometimes, it will. Oftentimes, the thing that happens in the home that will have negative long-term impacts is a fall.

If you slip on a rug or slip going down the stairs, there's a significant momentum that jostles the brain inside the skull to what's called a coup contrecoup injury, or back-and-forth kind of injury. That's going to be noticeable," he says.

Telltale Signs of TBI

Oftentimes the injury doesn't seem severe enough to have caused TBI, which is why telltale signs are often overlooked — things like poor concentration, mood changes or changes in your ability to focus and follow through on mental tasks. Word recall may also suffer. Emotional dysregulation, irritability, foggy thinking and sleep problems are also common effects.

Whenever you experience an injury to your head, regardless of how severe it appears to be, pay careful attention to any psychological changes that might occur over the coming week or two. Signs such as those just mentioned are indications that your nervous system is on high alert due to an inflammatory cascade, which presents itself as psychological and cognitive downstream effects.

"The old adage, ‘Go home and rest. It'll be OK,' has some merit," Engle says. "But when I had my concussions — the last of which was after I broke my neck … — I knew something was off because I had problems with attention, focus, concentration, memory, sleep, kind of like the classic post-concussive syndrome …

This was 20 years ago. We didn't really have appreciable technologies and therapeutics to heal it. I put myself in the lab. It was not fine for me that things were going to continue to be subpar. I wanted to try everything out … The things that worked for me or had worked significantly for friends, family and clients are the things that I ended up putting in the manual …

Some people will experience hypersomnolence, particularly in the acute concussion phase, because the system needs to go into a quiet mode, convalesce and rest … So, get into a low stimulation environment. Being away from electronic stimulation, stressful work, stressful engagements at home; being able to really bring the energy home or rest the nervous system [is important]."

TBI Assessment

There are now novel and portable infrared imaging techniques that can help assess TBI damage, such as whether there's active or acute bleeding inside the skull. In professional football, they now have neurodiagnostics and a neurologic exam that will allow the doctor to assess whether the player is fit to return to the field.

"We've seen variable efficacy of that in the National Football League just this last year. Those protocols are getting more specific and refined all the time.

But suffice it to say, it's important, as soon as somebody has a significant injury, to be able to get evaluated, whether it's by a professional on the sideline, in the emergency department or somebody who's trained in concussion care management, to assess what their level of safety is, and what their level of potential risk should they have another impact," Engle says.

Adults injured at home will be able to self-reflect and notice psychological and neurological changes, but what about children? It's important for parents to know how to assess their child's neurological state, and be observant enough to notice changes in behavior. "Because kids are rambunctious … if there is a significant injury and there's a change in function within the next few days to few weeks, then that means further workup and more assessment is needed," Engle says.

If your child plays soccer or football, Engle recommends having a "really clear conversation with the coach about what their stylistic tackling profiles look like. Are they asking them to lead with their head? Is there a clear discussion about the importance of brain health and the necessity for recuperation after a concussion? Do the players themselves know what the long-term potential downstream effects are? All of those things."

Long-Term Effects of Accumulative TBIs

Long-term, chronic traumatic encephalopathy — low-grade accumulation of concussions over time — accelerates the process of dementia, raising your risk for neurological dysfunction and disease later in life. Many football players and boxers start showing these signs in their 30s and 40s. If you are genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's by having one or two ApoE4 alleles and suffer a TBI, your risk of Alzheimer's increases at least tenfold.

"And, if you look at dietary issues and chronic inflammatory issues, for example [eating a] high-sugar diet, not fasting and these sorts of things, and then you stack on lifestyle mismanagement or not being optimized for brain performance, then you're going to accelerate that process even further," Engle warns.

Engle discusses a number of prevention strategies in his book, including nutritional components that optimize brain function and help repair neurological function in case of injury. Among the most important are the animal-based omega-3 fats docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).

According to Engle, the department of surgery at Oregon Health and Science University now even advocates use of omega-3 supplements presurgery, because outcomes are better. Another potent anti-inflammatory is curcumin. Both of these are also valuable for the prevention of dementia.

The Benefits of Floatation Therapy

Engle is a strong proponent of floatation therapy, noting "flotation therapy is on the front line of many different recovery and regenerative medicine protocols, because it has the opportunity to reset so many different systems."

"When somebody drops into a float tank experience or a sensory deprivation experience, it's essentially the first time since they were conceived that they're without environmental stimuli … [Y]ou're floating in about a foot of water. [The tank] is about the size of a king-size bed. There's about 1,000 to 1,200 pounds of Epsom salts [in it]. It's very buoyant, kind of like the Dead Sea. There's no gravity; there's no appropriate [sensory] reception.

There's no skin temperature differentiation, because the water is the same temperature as the skin, not core temperature. It's hard to tell where you end and the rest of the universe begins. There's no sight and there's no sound. Everything is offline, so to speak. Eighty percent of what the brain is consistently bringing in is environmental stimuli. Now, there's more energy toward the recuperative mechanisms.

It's both a brain technology and a consciousness technology, because … [the] flotation tank [experience] is like meditation on steroids. If somebody's using [for] recuperative and regenerative [purposes], they may well find more peace in their lives outside of the tank as well … because it starts to reset the neuroendocrine system.

Cortisol levels normalize. Global inflammatory markers normalize. Blood pressure normalizes. The relationship between the brain and the endocrine or the hormonal systems starts to optimize …"

Engle recommends doing a series of eight to 10 floating sessions within a three to four-week period. By the end of that series, you should notice significant improvement in your symptoms. You may also find yourself more at ease in general, sensing a better "flow" in your life. For maintenance, do one or two sessions per month.

Other Treatment Aids

Other helpful interventions include:

Hyperbaric oxygen — By saturating your tissues with oxygen, the oxygen is able to get into all of the neuroreparative mechanisms in your entire neurologic system from head to toe. It accelerates all wound repair processes, be it in peripheral vasculature or in central vasculature, around the nervous system, brain and spinal cord.

An alternative for home use would be Exercising with Oxygen Therapy (EWOT). It's not as effective as hyperbaric oxygen treatment for neurological recovery because you're not saturating the tissues with oxygen, just your blood, but you can still benefit if you have a low partial pressure of oxygen (low oxygen in your blood).

Low-light laser therapy (LLLT), also known as photobiomodulation, which can be done using either lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

"There are a lot of different studies that show light is beneficial," Engle says. "When we're talking about neurologic recovery or building adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production, driving mitochondrial function, there are certain wavelengths that seem to be optimal for that.

Most of the wavelengths for neurologic recovery are going to be in the near-infrared (810 to 830 nanometers) and far-infrared spectrum. There are some handheld devices that can be used." Red light in the 660 nanometer frequency is also beneficial, and many technologies will combine red with near- and far-infrared.

Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) — Engle explains, "If we're optimizing voltage and frequency into the cell, then there are going to be energy thresholds below which disease happens, and above which optimized function happens. PEMF tends to raise the voltage and the energy in the cell, in the system globally, to improve physiologic function …

I use a combination of both low-voltage systems and high-voltage systems. There's a low-voltage system called a Bio Electromagnetic Energy Regulation (BEMER). There's a high-voltage system called the Pulse. I found benefits in both … There's also a subset of pulsed frequencies called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is more based in magnetic impulse to the brain."

Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) — TDCS provides a more global stimulation, so while some patients experience good results, others do not, due to lack of specificity. According to Engle, if it's going to work, you'll notice results quickly. If no benefit is noticed in the first few sessions, move on to some other therapy.

Electroencephalography (EEG) and neurofeedback are similar technologies of varying complexity.

"You go in to master your ability in real time to see where your brainwave patterns are firing, and then to lock into the necessary thought modalities and internal states to be able to consistently access an alpha state," Engle explains. Alpha states are indicative of calmness and centeredness.

"If I can access that and find that place within myself, then I'm starting to generate my own sense of personal empowerment." The Evoke system is an easy one to use. It involves watching a movie for 20 to 30 minutes. Your focused attention will keep the movie playing. When your attention drifts, it slows down and loses volume.

Cannabidiol (CBD) oil — "CBD is up there with fish oil for neuroreparative support," Engle says. "Cannabis has two primary therapeutic components; one is tetrahydrocannabidiol (THC) and one is CBD. THC has a psychoactive component. CBD has a neuro-reparative component.

There seems to be an upregulation effect or an enhanced effect if there's a little bit of THC with CBD. The CBD to THC ratio will be like 20-to-1. We've consistently seen benefit in the neurologic system, whether it was stroke recovery, concussion recovery or seizure and epilepsy support … There seems to be this neurologic repair effect.

The CBD receptors are globally affiliated with neurologic function throughout the entire brain. When we're engaging and stimulating those receptors, we see the neurochemical cascade toward repair, regardless of the input, but particularly with concussion.

That's why during the acute phase, if somebody has an injury that is significant, I say, first and foremost, do [these] things: 1) Lifestyle management. Get quiet. Float if you can. 2) Take fish oil, take CBD, vitamin D and melatonin, particularly if there are issues with sleep. Boost the antioxidants." CBD may actually be a really potent stimulator of nuclear factor-like 2 (Nrf2) pathway, which stimulates the hermetic production of antioxidants in your body.

More Information

If you have TBI or you know someone who does, be sure to pick up a copy of "The Concussion Repair Manual." You'll need it. There are far more details in the book than we have time or space to discuss in this interview. It's an amazing resource. Engle spent the last 20 years doing the research for you, so you now have it all in one convenient place.

In addition, if you've had a concussion or TBI, Engle has put together a free Concussion Repair Checklist to help you recover. It covers exactly what you need to know, along with the Top 10 foods for supporting your brain health. You can download it free of charge at ConcussionRepairChecklist.com.

"I wanted to write it as a fairly available user's manual for the person going through the experience," he says.

"There are a lot of different methodologies, a buffet of options. The encouragement is to get clear on what tools are available tools in your immediate environment that you can try, and then stay consistent with that methodology while tracking your symptom over a 30-day period. If there was improvement, great, then continue.

If there was improvement but you think there could be more improvement, then you may need to up the intensity or the frequency. We didn't even talk about ketogenic diet. It might be going even more keto, going even lower carb, or doing that in a more intense way, stacked with flotation and low-level laser therapy. Find a hyperbaric oxygen tank and do that regularly.

Pick the top two or three methods that you want to try. Stay with that over a period of time, be diligent, get support and make sure you're tracking your top symptoms from the concussion or the neurologic injury — sleep, irritability, focus, concentration and so on. I put a part in the book as a workbook to make it easy to track [symptoms] on a daily basis.

Even more important than that, I think, is staying diligent and knowing deeply that everything is possible to heal. The brain is super plastic. We know that being consistently engaged in optimized modes of thinking, optimized modes of inspiration and empowerment, affect people's healing. It's as much of a mindset as it is a neuroanatomy and a neurochemical thing."

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