Get ready --- the deluge has already begun. We are being bombarded with media reports about yet another dangerous disease -- West Nile Virus. No doubt this helps to sell lots of bug repellent, and enable applications of toxic chemicals to our environment, while priming the populace to accept yet another vaccine once it becomes available (google it -- and you'll see it's in development now.)
Do news reports like this make you fearful (as they do me)? Then this post is for you. The first thing I did after I read a recent news report about the scary West Nile Virus, was to visit this CDC Page:
Do news reports like this make you fearful (as they do me)? Then this post is for you. The first thing I did after I read a recent news report about the scary West Nile Virus, was to visit this CDC Page:
Notice it says that 80% of people who become infected DO NOT DEVELOP ANY SYMPTOMS! Those are pretty good odds to begin with and certainly help me resist the urge to blanket my property with DDT. But such odds also beg the question...what might make some people MORE likely to get sick, when the majority are just fine? Well that same CDC page tells us that if you have kidney disease, cancer, or anything that might suppress the immune system you will be at greater risk of being sickened if exposed.to West Nile.
Now that is information that can EMPOWER us to improve our odds of staying healthy!
Did you know that in a recent survey, only 41% of Americans tested had normal kidney function? Kidney disease is often silent until it gets very severe -- and by that time, it has likely contributed to other diseases that often kill people before the kidney disease gets diagnosed, that's why many never realize they had it.
One of the major factors that impairs kidney function is...eating animal protein! That means that by ditching eggs, meat, fish and dairy (all sources of animal protein) and replacing these with legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds you can conserve and possibly improve your kidney function, increasing the odds that if you get infected with West Nile Virus, your immune system will be perfectly able to keep you healthy. That same dietary change will also lower your risk of developing the most common cancers, or cardiovascular disease.
But here's something else to consider. We've had evidence for some time now, that injections (including vaccines, antibiotics and possibly other things too) depress general immune function for a period of time, making one more likely to develop invasive disease rather than have an asymptomatic infection. This effect appears most significant for a month or so after getting a shot.
Debates raged after introduction of diphtheria vaccination (preceding a polio epidemic) when parents reported paralysis in their children in the very limb into which the diphtheria vaccine was injected. These accounts were discredited for a long time...but now we have pretty good evidence that these parents were right -- the vaccine did CAUSE some children to become paralyzed, rather than having an asymptomatic infection like most people did.
This could be yet another reason to forego flu vaccination. If you are wondering about the vaccine, I have deconstructed some of the evidence that supposedly supports is use in this previous post.
