Town Musician

Where are we to help those who need us?

2011-12-07T00:07:00.000-08:00

It's one thing to "occupy." I feel the plight of those who do. It's cold out there, and who are those people who sleep there wrapped in newspapers on St Nicholas' Day? This is the day for children (at least in Germany) to put a shoe in front of the door or under the bed and receive a gift when they are good and a piece of coal when they are bad.

When I was a small child after the Second World War in 1947, it was very cold and we didn't have coals to warm us. No one would dream of giving us coals no matter how naughty we had been. Coal would have been a good gift. We received apples and nuts from the trees in our yard. We also shared them with friends.

What about today? What should we put into a child's shoes on St. Nick's Day? We should leave kindness. We should leave love and forgiveness. We should bake fruitcakes as in the Truman Capote story. We should think of all the grieving children and all the grieving wives. They are all grieving about different things. Some even grieve about America. There was once such promise. Where has it gone? There is talk that the fast train might not be built.

It is now time to think about finding maybe just one person who needs our compassion for just a little while. Give them a call. See if they are still alive. Wonder whether you will miss that person when he is no longer with us!

This country is all about innovation

2011-10-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

It's all about innovation. The new thing is better than the old. If it can be made easier, it's better and it's the American way. So, in order not have to learn a language, we get a computer to do it for us, never mind the slight inaccuracies that happen in the process. And since it is so easy to do translations via translation programs, we don't need the thinking human translator any longer, or so it seems. Translation thus has become a modified product. But that's so exciting because it's in the name of innovation.

It might be a stretch to compare the process and then the product of translation to the replacement of certain body parts. When the old hip or knee is worn out, we have a more functional one implanted via an intermediary that transforms (translates) our failing body parts into something even "better"? It's all in the spirit of doing it the easy way. Hip replacements, knee replacements, a new heart, a new liver, all those things are so "easily (routinely)" translated, i.e. replaced, that it's hardly worth bothering preserving the old-fashioned way, meaning to take care not to use them up by doing foolish things. And it costs quite a bit. But never mind the cost, if it's a life we are prolonging and preserving the easy way. It has to be better because it's in the name of innovation.

Instead of eating natural food, we buy GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) foods at the store because innovation also means "better" design. Foods have to look perfect. Something that looks perfect must be better because that's what innovation is. Innovation is particularly valuable when it can make loads more money via a patent. The tomatoes have to look prettier. The apples have to be ripe all at the same time so that farmer can harvest them and get them to the market in one fell swoop. We don't buy the famous "little green apples" anymore. They are too ugly and they would spoil too fast. But never mind, we prefer the pretty ones. They have lost all their nutrients before we can find out what they tasted like when they first came off the tree. Sorry, I forgot the pretty apples don't taste as good as the old-fashioned ones used to. But we don't know any better anymore. We have forgotten what a real apple tasted like that came from a tree that hadn't been interfered with by human hands.

Potatoes get mutated into purple things for Halloween. Actually the gene probably comes from a purple eggplant (same nightshade family - the genes can easily be exchanged within the same family). Do we know where all these mutations come from? The nightshade family of plants is a very large one, and among them can be found the deadly nightshade, jimsonweed, angels trumpets (all poisonous). So extracting a gene from one of those into our edible vegetables is not that much of a leap of thought. No leap necessary. It's been done. Of course these genes are only implanted into our vegetables to get rid of "pests". Implanting these genes, that's innovation.

Innovation has made it possible for us to buy all the necessary vitamins at the store. We don't have to get Vitamin D from the sun any longer because the sun that has served us for so long is really an evil cancer-causing menace. The sun is cheap. So, it can't possibly be good.

We are really a bunch of losers in our quest for innovation. We are instituting a middleman whenever possible. We are paying for the novelty and do not think about how our bodies were put together in the first place.

What's really going on? All those things that used to come naturally, are now only available through the industry of others. It's expensive and it gives us a false sense of production.

Just consider the pharmaceutical industry. It is fundamentally not productive. It lives and makes big bucks only off of our sicknesses. It lives because we are looking for the easy way out. But when finally push come to shove, we are not the wiser for it.

The mindset of innovation at any price needs to be stopped. That's why I propose that it is sometimes worthwhile to look for the easy way out.

Start getting back to growing your own! Start baking you own bread! Start living a day without innovation! It might be surprising how novel an idea that might be.

Are the media really that powerful?

2011-09-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

They say that the media are really powerful tools for social change. Is that really true? In my opinion the media are not powerful in effecting anything. Newspapers, and for that matter other media, do not in effect cause social change because in today's climate they have become organs for corporations, churches, political action committees (PACs). The media bow to the highest bidder. The media are merely the reflection of who can pay more. It is almost impossible to find out who pays what when to the various entities. But most of what we get in the news nowadays is tailored to reflect the highest bidders' viewpoints.

Gone are the days when a newspaper article could cut down to size a pharmaceutical company as happened with Chemie Grünenthal in Germany when the Thalidomide scandal broke. Gone are the days when, led by Harold Evans, a group of Sunday Times journalists wrote a book "Suffer the Children" that gave a needed voice to the tragedy that was perpetrated in the late '50s and early '60s. The book discusses the attitudes of the pharmaceutical companies and their greed that came before conscience.

How could it happen that the media became so thoroughly dependent on the payments by those interest groups? It came with the rising power of the corporation. The culmination was reached with the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. The corporation has become "a person", and all we are now waiting for is for a corporation to run for President. How would "Monsanto for President" sound? The way to do advertisements and how to effect interest groups was laid out very well in "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays, nephew of S. Freud, somewhere around 1929. It was a book that influenced Hitler for one in his quest for power.

Can the media regain their power? Not until they realize that they have to earn their money again honestly without using special interest moneys. I hope that happens. But I am not holding my breath.

Places to vacation

2011-09-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

The rest of my stay in Germany was spent by visiting the down-town Munich area again with its many wonderful shops. We did not do any sight-seeing. But then I had to still get to Paris to catch the plane home. I got a reservation for the train. I should have also gotten a hotel reservation, too. But not knowing what hotel to choose, I took my chances and figured there would, no doubt, be a hotel right around the Gare de L'Est railroad station. The Gare du Nord and the Gare de L'Est are really close together in Paris, and there are all kinds of hotels. I wasn't going to be picky.

Wrong! After an uneventful train ride, I arrived in Paris at 22:00 o'clock in the rain. I saw the the "All Seasons" Hotel from the train windows, and that is where I was going to spend the night. I walked over to the hotel. It looked very nice, and it didn't seem too expensive, by what I could see on the price-list. The lobby was very busy.

I waited my turn, and at that I found out that there was no room available. There was no room apparently in all of Paris. Since it was still raining, the concierge offered me to sit down, and hopefully he would be able to find a hotel. So I waited, and I waited, and I waited. Hotel guests returned from their touristy night-life experiences. I watched. The hotel elevator opened and closed. I hoped someone would suddenly decide to leave in the middle of the night. But it was not happening.

I looked through the window, and suddenly a fight broke out between several young men. One of them was punched several times, and when he landed on the soaking wet pavement one of the other men kicked him several times until he was not moving any longer. The concierge ran out into the street after a short phone call, and somehow the fight broke up. I had no idea that this area was as dangerous as that. Watching someone gett beaten up in an area with lots of lighting was a bit shocking. I probably would not have walked from the train station to this place, if I had known.

Finally at about 2:00 AM, the concierge told me he had found a hotel. The man called a taxi for me, and within about fifteen minute I arrived at another All Seasons Hotel. The room was more expensive then the first hotel; but it was more centrally located, and it was quiet. The neighborhood was much better, and it had a view of Mansard designed houses that are so typical for Paris. I slept well.

After breakfast, I decided not to go sightseeing, but instead, to visit the Galeries LaFayette which is very a large department store in the middle of Montmartre. I asked at the desk for instructions of how to get there. This department store is absolutely the grandest department store I have ever visited. The store should clearly be a tourist attraction. I thought it might be called the Cathedral of Merchandise. Stepping in, the first thing you notice is a stained-glass cupola just like one you find in a church.

It's as if you had entered a church with the higher power in it being the large fashion houses of the world. You would see a whole department sell only Armani or Dior items; another section was only Prada. At the Gucci department, security was not immediately visible, but when you stepped too close to a $ 3000.- bag, somebody started following you making sure that nothing got ripped off. I didn't look wealthy enough to buy, and of course they were right. They made me uncomfortable.

I did not buy anything in those departments, even though I could have used a nicer bag than the one I had. In the end my own bag was more functional than anything they had to offer. They had a sale upstairs where I bought some underwear, that actually was expensive, too, even on sale. But you live only once.

For lunch I took the elevator to the restaurant upstairs. All the food was very reasonable and the view was out of this world. You could see all of Paris down below. The old opera building where I had seen Carmen close to fifty years earlier was visible from my window seat. The food was wonderful.

I walked home along Boulevard Haussmann. That, too, is a street to visit. It's for window shopping, and in many ways it is much more a street for people-watching than walking along the Champs Elysees that I had visited on a previous trip. I bought a T-shirt at the Hard Rock Cafe. I couldn't resist going in. But I didn't care for the atmosphere; too noisy.

I watched a bit of TV when I got back only to see more about DSK, meaning Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the fallen IMF chief. Christine Lagarde was going to replace him. It wasn't settled, yet. But that was the main news of the day. Computer-use was free at the hotel. But it was painfully slow, and it timed you out after a few minutes.

To get to the airport the next day, I reserved a spot on a bus that took me there on time. I am glad I found out about that because they are in the business, and I think an airplane would wait for these buses to arrived. Simply taking a taxi would be much too expensive. At around 20.- Euros it was worth it feeling at ease about meeting the airplane without a hitch.

In another 13 hours I would be home.

My sister's fully equipped kitchen

2011-08-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

Three places to vacation (8)

2011-08-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

My sister and her boyfriend own a farmhouse with some acreage in the country in the vicinity of Landau in Lower Bavaria. My sister and I took the train to this out of the way part of paradise.

The two-story white-washed stucco house sits at the edge of the woods down a dirt road on a hillside surrounded by all kinds of fruit trees. There is a huge barn and a ramshackle but charming outbuilding, and from all the eaves petunia baskets are suspended that lend the building its cheerful character. There is a staircase that reaches the second floor from the outside. The railing is fashioned of decorative lattice work.

The living quarters are still in a state of remodeling. Many of the windows already have stained glass installed with sometimes very intricate patterns. A number of the rooms have new fireplaces that look as if they might have sprung right out of a house Harry Potter's friends might occupy.

My bed was a king size air-mattress that lost its air over-night while I was sleeping, and sometimes I had sunk so deep into the collapsing form that I nearly rolled onto the floor. No matter, I had a pump with which to replenish and solidify the structure.

My sister and boyfriend called the main room the "Rittersaal" (knight's hall). It was huge. They had their bed in it and a place to watch movies on a television set. There was no TV because they couldn't get good reception there and the cable would cost an arm and a leg to install.

The kitchen was the place where we spent much time because the cherries were ripe and the huge baskets of fruit had to be dealt with. The candles were lit in the kitchen when I came down for my 70th birthday. Flowers greeted me, and there were several presents including a book by Bill Bryson "Notes From a Big Country" and also the obligatory Salmiak-Pastillen that my sister always remembers to give me as a little inexpensive present because I had once told her that I loved their taste. When I was a child I would put those little pieces on the back of my hand to form a star-shape and lick that black star until it was all gone. The flat pieces taste a bit like licorice.

We spent some wonderful days at the house. It rained a few times. My sister's boyfriend's business is making candles which he sells at Christmas time at various markets in the vicinity of Munich.

I helped with the candles by sticking the wick into the metal forms before the wax is poured in. We took hikes through the wheat fields and watched the dog, an Akito named Goku, race through the woods and return and disappear again. I watched how the bread starter dough is made and how there is really nothing to it other than that it is very time-consuming. It seems--no not just seems--I had another experience of a lifetime.

Leaving the place was as enchanting as getting there. As evening fell the fireflies lit up and saw us drive away with a twinkle and a glimmer.

Three places to visit (7)

2011-08-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

The first thing to do was purchase a three-day pass for the subway. The Munich subway is very efficient and a means of transportation that makes it possible for my sister not to need a car. Wherever you need to go in Munich, you can reach it by public transportation. Since my sister works, I spent a better part of the following three days fending for myself. I went grocery shopping. I went downtown to look for sales items and just to mingle with the population.

The Viktualienmarkt is a daily market where you can buy anything from fresh fish to meat to beer to vegetables and much more. Any small consumer goods may be purchased there. I went there mainly because the place is great for people-watching. I bought some mushrooms and a few other insignificant items for the next day. For lunch I had intended to eat at the Marienplatz and listen to some street musicians. I sat down at a table of a restaurant that had extended its space outdoors to part of the open area to watch the famous glockenspiel that plays around lunchtime.

But my plans to eat at that restaurant were foiled when a waiter came out to tell me that I couldn't sit there because I was by myself. He said that at lunch people could only sit there when they were in groups of at least four people per table of four. I protested. The table didn't have any sign on it saying "reserved." So the waiter quickly made up some scrap paper signs in his handwriting. I had no choice but to get up and leave. I will never recommend that restaurant to anyone. The nerve. The waiter wanted to have it easy. He wanted to make more money by telling individuals that they had no place there.

...

I took advantage of my three day pass every day. I enjoyed the people. I enjoyed the weather. I enjoyed looking at the Armani and Prada window displays. Munich is a beautiful city. I watched an archaeological dig in progress. The sign on the fence said that the purpose for this dig was to find any remnants of a synagogue that had stood in the middle of Munich in the 1300s.

The last of the three days when I went back to the subway I noticed workmen put up birch trees to decorate the mall. I asked one of the workmen what this was for. He said that it was for a holiday Fronleichnam. The day was Jun. 22. I can't imagine that the birch branches would still look fresh on Jun. 26.

I couldn't walk for long during that time because of my wrenched knee. So I went home in the early afternoon every day and watched pseudo court television similar to Judge Judy. I wanted to see how "Richterin Barbara Salesch" and "Richter Alexander Hold" were different from our American TV dramas. And they were very different.

The two shows had the same format. It appeared that the trials looked more like informal discussions than like the jury trials I was familiar with on American TV. There seemed to be an almost complete lack of procedure. At least I couldn't see anything like the typical objections and interjections you'd expect on American court TV. The cases were not trivial cases as you would see when you watch Judge Judy; some of them were murder trials. It was interesting. I have no idea whether these reenactments reflect what an actual German trial would look like. All I know is that both Barbara Salesch and Alexander Hold have a law degree and experience in real court rooms.

Three places to vacation (6)

2011-08-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Leaving Meldorf took some special arrangements. The day I was scheduled to leave I found out that the regional train company was on strike. There had been no announcement on television nor at the railroad station. It really isn't even a real railroad station anymore. There was no attendant to leave a note for potential travelers. So anyone wanting to catch the train had to find out how it was by waiting for the train that never came. I was told the engineers were striking because they wanted to make the same amount of money as those that were employed by the state railroad.

It turned out that a classmate was going back to a town near Hamburg, and he offered me a ride to Hamburg-Altona. I was saved from grief. I accepted and had a very pleasnt ride with a former classmate and his wife whom I hadn't seen for over 50 years.

I had reservations for a night train to Munich. This train was a train that also took cars (automobiles) along. So before I boarded I watched how the many cars that were queued up drove up the ramp to be fastened securely with heavy locking devices. Being able to take your car on the train is very convenient for those who don't want to take the long trip by car and who still want to use their own car at the destination. Many night trains have that provision in Germany.

I found my reserved space fairly easily. In Germany, it is easy to find the rail car for the space that you have reserved because there is a diagram of the train on the platform to show where the space for the particular car you reserved is going to be located.

As compared to the train from Offenburg to Hamburg, the sleeping accommodation this time was much more comfortable than the concrete hammock that left me sleepless on that leg of the trip. This time my bed consisted of the top bunk of a compartment that contained six bunks. A clean sleeping bag and a blanket were provided. Fortunately only three of the bunks were occupied.

Getting up to the top bunk was a challenge. I had hurt my knee at some point during the trip, I can't even remember when, and so climbing up that narrow ladder, and bending my knee caused some pain. But once I was up there, I curled up continuing with "Begraben" by Elena Sender. There were little lamps for reading that made it possible not to disturb fellow travelers.

The ride was less stressful than the one that had taken me to Hamburg. However it arrived an hour late the next morning, and the announcer related to us passengers that we should all check our belongings because apparently pickpockets had taken valuables from some of the passengers. I wasn't worried because all my belongings had been kept on the top bunk right next to me. When I checked I found out that nothing was missing.

I got off the train at around 8:00 AM. But now I had to figure out how to get in touch with my sister. She works at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. I had not been able to tell her ahead of time when my train arrived because I didn't have a cell phone. I didn't want to call from the Hotel (too expensive) and I only got the reservation the day I arrived from Offenburg. What made things more difficult was the fact that my sister was at her house in the country over the weekend when I was in Meldorf. To make a long story short. I had to notify my sister that I had arrived.

I looked around for a telephone. But I didn't have a phone card for this station. This phone didn't have a provision for coins. So I ate breakfast first, and then I exited the railroad station and looked around for an Internet cafe. There was one right across the street. The attendant told me that I could just use a computer and pay for the time I used up later. Somehow that arrangement did not seem very honest. I am not sure why this place didn't have a card similar to the Internet cafe at Ile d'Yeu where you paid ahead of time for an hour's use.

I wrote Rena an e-mail saying that I had arrived, and I got an answer right away that she had gotten my message and that I should telephone her because she was on her way to the railroad station. So, I still needed to use the phone. There were phones at the Internet cafe. I was told I was just supposed to get into a booth and I would pay later. Again I had this feeling that there was something fishy going on. But none of the phones worked. What was this place about? What kind of accounting did they do?

So I had to go back to the railroad station and find the pay-phone. I was able to buy a phone card at the tobacco store. Does that seem logical? I did reach my sister. She was in the U-Bahn about four stations away. I told her where I was waiting. After about 15 minutes she walked past me and I called her name. We had found one another.

Three places to vacation (5)

2011-07-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Wiedemannsweg 3, I went to see the place, a brick-house I used to call home, and I had no real sense of belonging there anymore. The house had been altered. The once teak-framed large picture-windows had been changed into white plastic-framed windows more in design like those that used to be there when the house was first built during the Nazi times in the 1930s. Seeing all the picture windows gone made me sad. The change was made simply to save on insurance. My mother would turn in her grave if she knew. The place where the largest of the windows used to be had received a door with windows left and right to open to a little terrace. I didn't think that was appropriate.

A consolation was that the apple tree was still there. The driveway was the same as always. It had been built to last. I still remember how it had been constructed so that you would not sink into the mud when it got really wet. A ditch had been dug there many years earlier. It had been filled with rocks and bricks and boulders from the remodeling job that my step-father and my mother had done shortly after the house had been bought. We had all been involved in this project. The objective had been to get rid of construction debris and to fortify the tire tracks for all eternity so that nobody would ever get stuck in our yard. Apparently that reminder of my past was permanent.

Three places to vacation (4)

2011-07-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

Meldorf is a sleepy little town of about 8000 inhabitants. The cathedral from around 1300 in the center of town dominates the landscape. The cobblestone area around the church is also the location for the weekly market. Stores, including the 300 year old pharmacy where I worked, before I came to the United States, and cafes line the periphery of the square. The Dom cafe was always a favorite meeting place for young and old. Those things had not changed. The Hotel zur Linde was an inviting place that had been chosen by a number of my former classmates for the get-together.

Sorry, this is the only photo I have with me in it. Beggars can't be chosers.

The reunion coincided with the graduation of this year's Meldorfer Gelehrtenschule students. The band played, the speeches by teachers, parents, students and one of our "golden" graduates who had become a professor were inspiring, and the atmosphere was a happy one. The building that we had attended was not the same as the one the current students were attending. Our old school had become a museum.

The whole town seemed to have become a museum. It was a reminder of the times when Meldof was so important that it had become the bishopric for a sizable area of Northern Germany. The large Roman-Gothic cathedral bore witness to that fact. The church was much larger than needed for a town this size. Now the train to Westerland didn't even stop here anymore. Only privatized regional trains served Meldorf when they were not on strike. The main drag that used to go over the railroad tracks now ended there, and only pedestrians and bicyclist could get downtown from Wiedemannsweg where we lived using the recently constructed pedestrian underpass.

The main highway by-passed the town altogether. The city seemed dead, except for us, the classmates from 50 years ago. We all knew how it had been. We all visited and remembered who we were with shared pictures and notebooks. We saw our graduation exams that seemed so irrelevant at this time. But we all talked late into the night over some Dithmarschen Pils. It was like old times without the ambitions and without the envy that one might have detected years ago over one person's better fortune.

Life was different now, but we all decided that we wanted to meet again in another five years.

You can't go home again, but this was better. We all knew how it was and how it could have been, and we didn't envy those current graduates at all.

Between three places to vacation

2011-07-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Alas Ile d'Yeu is like any paradise not meant to be a permanent location. After just two short weeks my plans took me to the golden anniversary of my German high school graduation, my Abitur. Getting there was another matter. I was thoroughly unprepared for the trip that awaited me.

My brother had suggested this trip because he had attended his reunion last year, and he had told me that I simply had to go. I would love it because of the person who organized it.

Let me put it this way. Things are not the way they used to be. You really do need reservations, especially if you travel using a Eurailpass as your ticket. In the past I had been able to reserve my seat for the train by just getting to the railroad station about half an hour early. Nowadays you have to be aware of the fact that the train management reserves the right to only allot a certain percentage of seats to Eurailpass holders. That means the train may be half empty and you still won't get a seat.

I had all my reservations. I obtained them with difficulty at the Gare Maritime in Ile d'Yeu. The ticket sales people had never heard of Eurail. So I had to convince them of the pass' validity. In the end everything went smoothly. Or maybe not so smoothly. Unfortunately, because of the Eurailpass rules, the trip had to go in anything but a straight line over Strasbourg, Offenburg, and Hamburg-Altona to Meldorf, the former capital of Dithmarsia.

I left the island at 4:00 AM--the tides dictated that--to meet the bus to Nantes and the TGV to Strasbourg.

I arrived in Fromentine around 5:00 AM. It rained cats and dogs. There was nobody in the street. There was nobody to ask where the bus stop had moved from the last time I had been there. My suitcase got drenched all the way through. My clothes inside got wet. I asked two garbage truck operators who had no interest in helping me to find the stop. Then an early morning delivery truck arrived in front of a furniture store. I ventured over there. The men told me that I had to wait at the fish store, the one with the blue sign saying Poisonnerie. But I had already waited there. That was definitely not the bus stop.

I circled the rain-drenched square one more time and found a man who was just getting into his car. He pointed to a large parking lot right close to where the ferry had arrive. It was still dark and I couldn't see the schedule above the bench. Finally a man arrived who identified the stop as the correct one for the bus to Nantes. I was saved from doom.

In Nantes I still had a bit of time before the train left. So I walked over to the Hotel "Terminus." During the whole two week at paradise I had been wondering if the shoes I had left at the hotel would still be there. I didn't have much hope. But it was worth a shot. So I asked the concierge about the shoes I had left in room 57. In no time they were located, and I had a little more faith in people.

I caught the train to Strasbourg on time and negotiated the regional train from there to Offenburg in Germany.

In Offenburg I had a 7-hour wait. The first thing I did was buy a book to pass the time. The store owner told me that the thrillers were all best-sellers. The book "Begraben", a translation from the French of "Intrusion" by Elena Sender was my choice, and I was not disappointed. But I won't go into that. If you like thrillers, that book will keep you reading.

I read at the train station until night fell. I still had time to kill. Fewer and fewer people were milling around the station, and suddenly it was deserted. Shady figures sat down next to me, and wandered around me. I kept my suitcase and my purse close. A young man sat behind me.

Suddenly two policemen appeared and asked the young man if he carried a weapon. They asked him how old he was. He was 18. Could he identify himself? No. He was told to leave. Next a man came up to me and asked if I could give him money for the train to Budapest because somehow his ticket was not valid. I told him that he needed his own money. I later found out that he was asking everyone in sight the same thing. Only minutes later a drunk came by unable to hold himself upright.

Around 23:00 PM I ascended the train. I had reservations for a car that had "Liegesitze". This train furniture was meant to give a good night's sleep. What I saw was something like the "Night Camp at Grenada". From the first I was wondering in what country these cars might have been designed. They could not possibly have been thought up by anyone who was likely to ever use this type of accommodation. The seats were very uncomfortable, like hammocks made of concrete.

Some time during the middle of the night a man with very greasy disheveled hair sat in front of me. I didn't get the feeling that he had a ticket. And even though a conductor came by to check all the tickets, he was not asked to produce one. Was he on the train to be taken out of the country?

At about 3:00 AM he proceeded to search noisily through a bag. He found a chocolate bar with metallic foil covering which he noisily crunched and pressed until about half an hour of turning the foil and wrapping and re-wrapping this object, a man across the isle admonished the man to not make so much noise eating chocolate and crackling the metal. The greasy man said he could eat his chocolate as long as he wanted to. More words were exchanged. The man didn't stop. Then I heard: "Halt Dein Maul" and the greasy chocolate crackler retorted "Halt selber Dein Maul!" "And if you don't shut your trap, I report you. Do you have a ticket?" "That's none of your business." It finally got quiet after about an hour.

At some point the conductor came by, and I mentioned how uncomfortable these seats were. I am still curious where these seats were designed. I also wanted to know why the train had been standing in one place for over an hour, and the conductor said that he was sorry, but that there had been a person on the tracks trying to commit suicide.

Bushed I arrived in Hamburg-Altona in the morning. I took the Westerland train to Itzehoe where I had to change trains because the Westerland train doesn't stop in Meldorf anymore.

Guess why I didn't take any pictures of this leg of the trip?

Three places to vacation (3)

2011-07-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what paradise is. But if there is such a thing, it must be Ile d'Yeu. People on the island think that the name Yeu is somehow derived from the God Jupiter. I'll accept some of that. But Yeu or Oya, islanders call it that sometimes, might just simply mean island similar to the Norwegian word "øy" which means island. The island was probably visited by the vikings in their travels around the world.

It is nearly 10km long and 4km wide.

The Ile d'Yeu harbor where the ferry arrives is Port Joinville.

The real reason why it is like paradise is that it is just simply beautiful. It has a sense of place, and you feel your world has become small enough to be manageable.

The islanders love the sea, and I immediately felt at home here. "Partons, la mer est belle..." The sea is a deep jade blue. The crab-fishing boats, colorful themselves, carry black, yellow, red, or white flags on long thin poles meant to mark the crab cages that are placed in the waters around the island. Sadly there are fewer and fewer of those boats now because of the EU's quotas on all kinds of seafood. For that reason the island population that used to make its living exclusively from products of the sea, now relies more and more on tourism.

The island is very small. Its white-washed houses with their red tile roofs and their pastel-colored mostly blue or green shutters show a style reminiscent of either Portuguese or Greek villages. The island has all the necessecities for a proper little world of its own. It has a cedar forest. It has an ancient castle. It has windmills here and there. Some of them look as if Don Quixote had put them there himself. It has villages, and it has beaches, wonderful beaches and gentle waves along with dunes on the protected side that faces the French coast. Its wild winds and big rolling whitewater breakers, along a rocky coast, open the view to the Atlantic water of the Bay of Biscaye.

The little place where I stayed is secluded, and large cedar trees protect it from the elements. My brother who has planted hydrangeas and roses and hybiscus and wisterias, arranged his own garden with several tables with chairs so that he can sit outside in sunshine depending on the time of day. He is retired and putters around his place and builds and adds to his little world. It owns him and he owns it. And I have it stored behind the window of my eyes to tell me that peace is a quiet place off the French coast.

The castle is on the wild side of the island--the cote sauvage--with rocky cliffs and wonderful beaches.

Three places to vacation (2)

2011-07-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

From the TGV the landscape passed by so fast that you couldn't see any details. I tried to see what crops the fields were planted with. I couldn't make out whether the green stuff was potatoes or sugar beets. There might have been sunflowers. But they were not blooming, yet. So, no vast expanses of yellow blossoms with dark brown centers. Things were not even all that green. France was in a drought. So the corn plants looked puny and underdeveloped for the time of year.

I arrived in Nantes a few hours later, too late for the bus that was supposed to take me to the ferry to Ile d'Yeu. I made my way out of the railroad station and looked for the first hotel I could find. It said Terminus in great big letters. That seemed promising. I entered. The price was right, and I decided to stay over night. I had a view of two TGVs standing on the tracks all night long. Les "trains de grande vitesse" were asleep.

In the morning I visited the Nantes cathedral. It is one of the great Gothic
structures of France with massive portals and statues of the saints in all kinds of nooks and crannies. Biblical scenes were carved into the sandstone, but I noticed that many of the figures had lost their little heads. Had those little heads gone home with tourists or was their absence the result of gradual disintegration? What a pity. Still this was a place where the weary soul could find renewal.

I spent a few more hours at the river bank watching the birds and hiked over the bridge to see what was on the other side of the canal. Boats were tied to the banks, and the whole thing was picturesque enough for photos. After that brief visit, the bus took me through level land past the characteristic white and red or the occasionally thatched roof houses of the Vendee in Western France to Fromentine otherwise known as Barre le Mont. The bus driver apparently only knew the latter. If I hadn't known any better I would still be waiting for the right bus.

I arrived at the Gare Maritime at Fromentine. I purchased a ticket and waited another several hours for the tide to come in so that the ship could take on freight and passengers. The hour-long trip was pleasant and uneventful. My brother picked me up at the Gare Maritime at Port Joinville, the little fishing harbor at Ile d'Yeu. If anything comes close to paradise. This is it, the place of dreams for two weeks of another world.

Three places to vacation (1)

2011-07-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

The flight took me to Charles de Gaulle Airport. When I had made plans for this trip, I didn't realize that you can get right on the TGV to Nantes without having to first manage an extremely cumbersome circuitous way to reach the TGV at the Gare de Montparnasse. Instead I found out from my brother that the TGV went straight from Charles de Gaulle to Nantes without any ado. Or so I thought.

I should have been able to make a seat reservation just before entering the train. What I had not taken into account was the fact that the day I arrived was Ascension Day, a holiday in France, that happened to take everyone living in Paris to a long weekend into the country. The queue for reservations snaked around for, it seems, miles. When I got to the counter, the next two trains going to Nantes were full. That meant that the earliest train I was able to catch would leave at 18:30 o'clock. So I had an unwanted 6 hours of time to kill at the airport. Maybe the circuitous route via RER train and Metro to Montparnasse had not been the worst choice.

I learned the tune that sounded before each announcement really well (Too-tit-ataw). I also noticed people with inordinate amounts of luggage. I walked up and down and up down and up and down. I found the toilet about half a mile away. Toilets are important facilites in all airports and train stations. The cost of divesting of your drink is nearly as high as what you paid investing in it.

A tall black woman from Nigeria on crutches was occupying a bench for an inordinate amount of time and was told she couldn't stay there. Soon one of the airport officials summoned a uniformed helper to usher her to another spot. He carried everything for her. I watched all that. Then I sat at a high counter with places to plug in your laptop. Of course I didn't have a laptop. I would have liked having one. But maybe not. It would have meant too much to carry. Men in suits did their last-minute communication with whatever world they were excaping.

I took my bag and suitcase a few steps and sat down and watched the throngs of weekend-vacationers. Then I read a few pages of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." I was fortunate that I had bought that because it made the time go by fairly fast. I ate a bite of my sandwich. At some point I noticed a bearded man going through the trash looking for food. Where did he come from? How could a homeless man find his way to this place? Maybe he had been inspired by the movie "Airport". I mean Charles de Gaulle is really hard to reach on foot. Even by car it takes quite bit of knowledge of the mazes around the modern glass and metal structure.

Because I would not make it to Ile d'Yeu on that day, I had to let my brother know about the change in plans. Since I had not brought my cell phone (too expensive), I had to find a pay-phone. The pay-phones at the airport have the option of using coins or a phone card. A phone-card is easier because you don't have to have handfulls of coins on hand. I bought the card for 10 Euros at the book-store. I called my brother to tell him that I would be there the next day.

Finally it was time to board the train. Too-tit-ataw, the announccement reminded everyone that you had to "decompostez votre billet". Without decomposting you could not step on the train. I did all that, and off the TGV went with me to Nantes. As in Monopoly I had passed "go". I was in business.

How toxic is organic mercury?

2011-05-17T00:09:00.000-07:00

Mercury is indeed really toxic. So why is it that there are so many scientists and particularly physicians who think that that little bit of Thimerosal you get with your vaccines is not going to do any harm.

The answer lies in how we perceive poison. We perceive poison as something that harms quickly. We are conditioned to think that any deadly toxins we ingest today will have left their toxic symptoms with us within no more than a day and if we haven't had a really ill effect, the poison must not be that toxic or maybe the substance isn't toxic at all. The just stated effect is the common effect of most poisons. Arsenic will kill us if we are given a lethal dose. Cyanide will do that. It's just "common knowledge" that toxins do their dirty work fast.

So if we expect to see a lethal effect with mercury we won't get it in a timeframe we would expect. Even a 100% lethal dose will not kill right away.

The reasons for that are many. But the main one is that mercury interferes with a living beings metabolism in such a way that it incapacitates the enzymes so they become non-functioning to such a degree that survival becomes less likely depending on the dose. And with organic mercury that can take many weeks.

This is not what a doctor expects of a poison. He injects a bit of mercury together with the vaccine. We won't connect the ill effects that happen six weeks later. But we might feel awful. Since the amount is small we will not die, but the effects are there. We go back to the same doctor.

Our doctor will tell us that we have the flu or whatever other symptoms resemble what we experience. But the man, not having been taught anything about toxins, will give us the wrong diagnosis. He will tell us that we should get our mercury-containing flu shot once a year, and we do that, and forever after we feel worse after having been given a flu shot without knowing what caused it.

The opinion machine

2011-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

There is a news disease going around. It is making sure that people whose names should not ever even be under discussion are becoming so well-known that the message becomes thoroughly muddled. The media have made no bones about whom they like when it comes to future candidates for President. Both the left and the right have their favorite names, and they love to tell mostly about the bad qualities about those candidates they really dislike.

I happen to watch the liberal media more than the conservative ones. But the candidates they would prefer are completely buried under the barrage of negative news.

So here we have Donald Trump being covered to the n-th degree about a not-so-new quest for a "real" birth certificate of our current President. There was Huckabee with a similar interest. It is really unimportant who all wanted to get into the act by simply stating something completely off-the-wall in order to get noticed. There are Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and all kinds of other folk. And the media are having a field day. As a matter of fact the mantra--for anyone who wanted to jump into the fray of possible contenders--was stating something ludicrous, and the media would carry on naming these people over and over again. The media don't seem to get it. It doesn't really matter how name recognition happens. Whether in a negative context or a positive one, people become important when their names are recognized.

Now to my point: When a person says something or does something really outlandish, that person should be excluded from the news and not honored even with negative coverage.

Covering a person's negative side is awarding that person much too much attention. Many people, who listen or watch, often can only remember the name and not the context, especially if a pretty face (Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin) or big hair (Donald Trump) are associated with them. It doesn't seem to matter what anyone says today. They can say the opposite tomorrow, and tomorrow's utterance will be the valid one with quite a bit more name recognition. That also goes for the very clean-scrubbed Mitt Romney who not too long ago touted the health-plan that he instituted in Massachusetts and is now claiming is ill-advised as a plan for the United States.

It is a disservice to the serious candidate to drown him or her out with the hogwash of second-rate leaders, and these people are covered by the news media because it is more entertaining. It is no wonder that we have had such lack of leadership in government lately. The "Fourth Estate" has taken over. The money comes from who knows where. Since according to Mitt Romney corporations are people, we all of a sudden have something akin to Trojan hoses maskerading as individuals. For this reason we get people who attained top spots in government because of their entertainment value (President Ronald Reagan, the former actor, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former body builder).

The coverage should only go to contenders with a serious message, not to those who lack the quality of leadership it takes to govern a country that is in real need of somebody competent.

Selenium, Vitamin D and Mercury

2011-04-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

I just found out that selenium and Vitamin D have something in common. The two substances are involved in making glutathione.

http://bit.ly/aN5tQG
http://bit.ly/6UfUf5

Who would have thought? And glutathione is necessary for mercury detoxification.

The Danish MMR studies

2011-03-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

I have been reading several studies that investigate whether there is a connection between MMR vaccination and autism. The Danish data on which these studies are based are identical. The two studies that categorically state that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism are written up in the New England Journal of Medicine and in Pediatrics Magazine. A third study written up in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons states that there is a connection between MMR vaccine and autism.

By my standards the latter article An Investigation of the Association Between MMR Vaccination and Autism in Denmark has almost all of the hallmarks of a bona fide study. It explains in detail how the study was done and how to properly statistically assess data for such a complicated piece of work. There are tables and graphs that show clearly all the useful information to support G.S Goldman's and F.E. Yazbak's conclusion that there is a connection of MMR vaccine to autism. The other two articles do not show the same care. Indeed they seem to lack transparency and detail.

What, however, is missing in all three articles is an account of all the vaccines that were given during the time period between 1991 and 2000. Just because other vaccines (DTaP, HepB, pneumonia, flu, etc.) that were, in fact, given at the same time as the MMR vaccine do not contain mercury, does not mean that they were free of other adjuvants (aluminum, formaldehyde etc.) that might cause autism.

The truth and science

2011-03-05T23:05:00.000-08:00

I count science among my favorite subjects.

My life has not been easy. So science is an oasis. Science is dispassionate. It strives for the truth. It is logical in a world that presents so much uncertainty.

I read blogs. I read articles about my interests in Vitamin D and autism. I keep up with medical innovation, and I read everything I can about toxic events especially when mercury and fluoride are involved. I have become quite knowledgeable over the years in these subjects.

Therefore I am perturbed when I see a lack of logic in people's thinking and writing, and I regret the lack of understanding some writers of scientific articles display. I am a scientist at heart, and I would have gone into research in medical or biological sciences if my youngest son had not been mentally and physically handicapped.

What I have noticed, however, is that in certain scientific publications on the Internet there is a lack of rigor when it comes to the approach to science. It is frightening how rude and unscientific the commentaries often turn out to be and how smug and arrogant certain people act just because they can display their opinions anonymously. I am shocked about the callousness with which certain people who call themselves scientists shout down the opinions of other.

This lack of decorum is especially noticeable when those writers are not particularly well-informed. It is shocking how uninformed highly paid professionals often are. I am shocked how journalists pretend to be qualified to write with eloquence about a subject that they have not studied, and I am truly surprised about their inability to let reason prevail.

The spreading of falsehoods has become epidemic. Lying has become as common as the common cold. Is there a cure? Probably not. I there a law against it? Not that I know. The amount of disinformation that is being spread could actually kill people. So my hope is that people check the facts whenever they read or hear anything in the media because there are people around who can't keep their hands from writing down things that have no grain of truth in them.

Black Swan Theory anyone?

2011-02-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

I am against mercury in my environment.

I have not been advocating against vaccines, and yet, I see that people who think the way I do are called anti-vaccine. I am for safe vaccines. I want all the disease strains I am vaccinated with to be as safe as they can be. I want two things:

1. I want mercury out of all my vaccines, and 2. I don't like any multi-valent vaccines (DPT, MMR etc.) because it is largely unknown how the immune system deals with an onslaught of several different disease-causing agents simultaneously, especially when they are alive, as is the case with MMR (measles, mumps, rubella).

Why are those two questions not addressed by the government or the vaccine makers? The question that forces itself into my mind is "are there market forces at work that have absolutely nothing to do with vaccine safety and do they have everything to do with wilful denial of a problem?"

That brings me to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Black Swan Theory:

The Black Swan Theory or Theory of Black Swan Events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

It has been used in the context of the recent financial crisis. But it could also be applied to the vaccine debate.

The vaccine manufacturers are making sure that all the propaganda is used to deny credibility to those of us who like to err on the side of caution. Brooksley Born [http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-12-05/business/25008348_1_derivatives-complex-financial-instruments-president-s-working-group] raised objections to trading in derivatives. She was not allowed to be heard when it would have mattered in 1998.

Is the vaccine situation such a Black Swan Event? The people who are raising their voices about the possibility that certain adjuvants in vaccines might cause autism (and other adverse effects) are merely wanting to implement some basic studies to ascertain that vaccines are as safe as they can be.

I would like to see a study that compares vaccinated children to unvaccinated ones. This has not been done. Also vaccine makers should make individual vials available that have not been preserved with Thimerosal; also they should not contain large amounts of aluminum and other adjuvants. I also would like to see a requirement to make vaccines available that contain only a single disease agent.

Vaccine manufacturers and the government would be trusted more if a sincere effort were made to come up with something in that direction.

What really is it that makes science science

2011-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Long ago I learned that science is a way of thinking. It is not following a formula although that may be part of it. Science is the act of discovery. It is the formulation of discovery so it can be replicated and thus passed on as fact.

It is not science when tired old truisms are wrapped in new clothes. Following a standard formula and using big words does not science make. Description of a scientific study also is not science, although it may be a way to science. So what then is science?

Science is finding the truth through trial and error. That means you may even be wrong at first. But you keep looking, and you keep wondering until finally the revelation shines as a bright lantern. Science means observation. It means to get to know something. Science is organizing those observations into a testable statement.

Science is finding the truth through seeking. It may be a winding path. But once the goal is in sight, it will fulfill all the requirements of a deeper truth. And that deeper truth is the beginning of the understanding of science.

Science can't be corrupted. It has to be honest. It has to stand alone and wait for confirmation and discourse until more knowledge changes the concept to an even greater truth.

Birds falling from the sky

2011-01-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

Birds falling from the sky in Arkansas and Louisiana is not a new phenomenon. There have been cases in Sweden and elsewhere last year. But when I hear those stories, I think of birds falling from the sky in Minamata in Japan in the 1950s and in Iraq in the early 1970s.

Those birds fell from the sky because of mercury poisoning. In Japan the birds had eaten methyl-mercury-poisoned fish from Minamata Bay. The birds were part of the story that eventually ushered in the discovery that mercury caused a new disease called Minamata disease. Minamata disease was caused by mercury poisoning. In Iraq the birds had eaten grain laced with methyl-mercury-containing fungicide. There, too, thousands of people died of mercury poisoning because they had eaten bread made from the ground-up seed-grain.

Might it be possible that the birds that fell from the sky in Arkansas and Louisiana were poisoned by toxic seed grain or other toxins?

Setting the Optimal Dose for Vitamin D

2010-12-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) created much confusion. So I would prefer mentioning this situation as little as possible.

Determining how much Vitamin D anyone should or should not take in supplemental form is almost impossible. The IOM is, in its narrow interpretation of limiting Vitamin D (up to 600 IU per day and the maximum limit allowable 4000 IU), not keeping up with recent science. It is by now well understood that Vitamin D has receptors in virtually every part of the body. That means that Vitamin D is not just a vitamin for bone health.

Leaving that fact aside, it should be understood by any self-respecting scientist that, when it comes to vitamins and minerals, the optimum level cannot be determined by the type of controlled study the IOM seems to need in order to find the optimum level of a nutrient. The type of study could not possibly be done unless there were a standardized person at a specific weight or size or whatever.

But we all know that there are small people and large people; there are people who tend to be obese. There are people who are light-skinned who cannot tolerate the sun but can make Vitamin D very easily; those who are dark-skinned cannot make Vitamin D as easily. There are people who have absorption problems, and there are people who have kidney disease, and there are people with all kinds of genetic variations. Exposure or non-exposure to sun changes the variables enough to make a study the IOM seems to need worthless. And who says that the size and weight of that standardized person is optimal.

Granted taking large amounts of Vitamin D has its risks. But to be categorical about Vitamin D levels or any other kind of nutrient flies in the face of science.

The good die young

2010-12-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

He was never able to speak, and he died peacefully. His bones did not hold him up any longer, but he had no bad bone in his body. His mystery is taken to the grave with him. My wish is to find the answers that lie behind the image of his pale lifeless body, and he was a good man. He was so quiet in death. He was so sad and he was so glad to have been released from his suffering. In death I hope to discover the mystery of the 40 years of his life.

When he was young his proudest moment was when he learned how to walk, and he ran around the dining room table giggling the whole time round and round. He also bumped into it a number of times. He couldn't express his feelings except by laughing and crying. He never said a word. But he knew his saddest moment when a doctor took his ability to walk. He knew it and he screamed in anger and he cried in pain when he couldn't get up to walk. The wheelchair was an insult to him. But now he is safe from insult. He has no worries and he will live forever in our hearts.

I wished he could have said what he thought just once. Instead he left his imprint on all of us in his silence.

A comment about mercury toxicity

2010-11-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

Reading "The Age of Autism" by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill, I come away with such a sense of hope and yet also futility. The book describes the history of mercury and its abuses in medicine and it indicts the medical profession for having used mercury for so long as a medicine.

The media should be ever so eager to play out the subject. But they don't. Where is the outrage, where the compassion with people who have suffered from mercury toxicity? I would say this lack of outrage is manifested not because the media don't want to have a huge story; it is because they are paid not to bring a huge story.

There is an unwritten taboo that says you cannot bring any story that makes mercury toxicity convincing. And when a story about mercury toxicity is used, it is used in terms of how wrong we people are to still talk about vaccines and Thimerosal. But my experience does not come from only vaccines.

My experience comes from dental amalgam and Merthiolate (psst! another word for Thimerosal) ointment. My stepfather was a veterinarian. He used to talk about the fact that he was "allergic" to mercury. How did he know? He was a veterinarian who rubbed mercury ointment on horses' joints, and whenever he did that he would get a bad rash afterwards. By the time he was fifty years old he had lost all his teeth. He could not stand false teeth because the gums and all the connective tissues in his mouth blistered and became raw.

The "quack-salvers" of old would call that an allergy. I call it toxicity. My stepfather also had the "allergic reaction" of Alzheimer's disease.

I worked as an apprentice at a pharmacy for two years. My immediate boss was a pharmacist. She had done a lot of work with all kinds of toxic substances including mercury during her university studies. She was a very stable woman when I knew her. Two years after I left, she had an "allergy attack". She went on a rampage in which she raked all the old white apothecary jars with the salves and ointments, all the brown glass bottles containing chemicals and all the medicines off the shelves. When she was done, the floor was a mess of chemicals and broken glass and pill bottles and boxed pharmaceutical products. She was taken to a mental hospital in a distant location. Her pharmacist's licence was revoked, and last I heard she was allowed to work again at the mental institution where she had undergone treatment. She was a nice woman and very meticulous when I knew her.

My grandfather was a dentist. He must have laid tens of thousands of amalgam fillings. His wife, my grandmother, helped him at times in his office to mix the mercury amalgam for the fillings.

My grandmother had the "allergy" of becoming senile. She was put into a nursing home from which she escaped with only a fur overcoat; yes she was naked underneath. She was found wandering around 500 km away near the apartment where she used to live asking people if anyone had seen her dog that had been dead for 15 years by that time.

I can only say: "All 'allergy attacks', those!"

A few days ago study was published in The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease that indicates that mercury may be responsible for Alzheimer's disease. Where are the media to report on that?

Reading "The Age of Autism" will enlighten any reader about why mercury is to be avoided at any cost.

The curiosity of doctors

2010-11-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

Once again Erik had to see a doctor. Erik's driver spent 3 hours to take him from Capitola to Redwood City to investigate and what we believed to be a check up of a wrist that had been swollen three week ago. The endless questionnaire was again full of unnecessary redundancy, at least for Erik. There were countless questions about whether Erik worked, and whether he was covered by insurance because he could not be seen unless he was covered fully. Erik has never worked. Erik has never been able to answer his own questionnaire. He does not talk. There is so much wasted effort. Why can't all the information be in one computer file? I believe it can't be done because there is no profit in making things simpler. Enough of that.

After the x-ray, there was another half hour to wait for the first doctor. He looked at Erik's x-ray and compared some of the x-rays we had brought. I gave an account of Erik's medical history; that doctor seemed to want to know something. I am already conditioned not to bore anyone. But none of the information (craniosynostosis, Legg-Perthes disease, Kawasaki syndrome) seemed to elicit any curiosity. Erik does not require a comment. He is uninteresting because things are so complicated that he doesn't fit into one neat little vignette in the doctors little brain. Finally the real doctor came in. She greeted us, including Erik-that was refreshing-and pronounced that Erik's wrist was not swollen any longer and that the x-rays showed some healing. Erik definitely had osteopenia. We knew that already. Good bye! No interest in Vitamin D deficiency, no interest in kidney failure and no interest in the fact that he might not live more than a couple of years. That information is non-existent because Erik, with all his problems does not have a diagnosis. For that, his kidney specialist had said, he would have to have the kidney biopsied, and that would not be warranted because he is is not likely to live much longer. Circular argument that. He has already lived with his problems for over 40 years. Where is the curiosity?

Leadership and arrogance

2010-09-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Lately there has been a lot of corruption. People in leadership find themselves suddenly in a position of power. My question is: Are many of our recently elected officials really leaders? Today I heard on the radio that it is really hard to lead in a democracy.

How is it that it has become hard to lead in a democracy? The only way that happens is if those elected officials are not really leaders. They were elected without proving anything to anybody other than that they can talk. But rhetoric has never made anyone a good leader. If there is no substance behind the talk, there is also no soul behind the face of a candidate.

Many of our current officials are really only at the top because they can stand the imposition of running for office. Running for office requires corruptibility nowadays because without it the ordinary person with leadership ability is getting nowhere.

Leadership ability is not necessary when there is a whole organization behind you to coach you and prop you up and make your cardboard figure into an arrogant puppet. The election campaign becomes a formula. The money comes from up above (lobbies etc.), and chances are if you look good on TV you'll be elected with the right kind of backing.

What does the electorate really know about the candidate? Very little. And what does the candidate know about the electorate? He or she knows only what a poll transmits. The direct connection is almost always completely lost. Thinking back--how long has it been that we have had a homely but capable President? It was so disingenuous when one of our recent Presidents pronounced that he was not interested in nation-building (his eyes were so twinkly, and his charm was irresistible), and how was it that a recent candidate promised something and when elected said that things are promised during campaigns and when that is over, reality sets in.

The cynical attitude and the arrogance are the show-stoppers of the campaign and they hold us back. A nation can only get a hold of itself when smirks and the glossing over of ineptitude are replaced with honesty, hard work and and genuine leadership.

It has become common that a candidate will not even display real abilities because it might expose him to scrutiny. So it's better not to say anything worthwhile than to expose yourself to future untold vulnerability. Throwing platitudes around as if they were pearls is the motto nowadays, just as long as you look good. So here we have it--the corrupting influence of good looks and money. Ignorance can be hidden very well when all you need is money for sound bites.

Searching for answers

2010-09-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

For several years now I have been wrestling with the futility of conveying what I know about just that one toxin: Mercury. I feel I have the duty to inform about how insidious the toxicity of mercury is. I used to feel an urgency to point out how mercury doesn't let you know that you might be affected until sometimes weeks after you have been exposed. At that point it will be too late for any blood tests because the mercury will have done its damage in the brain or it will have destroyed portions of your kidneys or other organs. Mercury is like that. It does not give you the common signs of toxicity. It takes its time.

When I talk about what I know, the common reaction I get from friends and strangers alike is that of disbelief. The eyes glaze over, and I know what they are thinking. It's written right there in their body language and it says: "She can't possibly know what she is saying. She is not a doctor."

I am searching for answers. How can I convey my knowledge? And I am not even a crusader. I have merely found out about something that should be of great importance to others.

Newt The Reptilian

2010-08-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

How far removed from reality are the elected few? How can we even tell who they are? For all I know they are pre-programmed to spit out their talking points without thinking that maybe there are real people out there. I had not thought about it before, but that a man named Newt might have a reptilian mind is plausible. He seems to think that unemployment compensation is the same as welfare. First of all the amount of money a person gets from "welfare" is not enough to allow you to fare very well.

But the Newt didn't really mean welfare. He really meant unemployment compensation, something that every working American pays for. Does Newt, the reptilian, mean that the mortgage should be abandoned? Does he think the unemployed should move back in with the parents?

He seems to think that it is fun to draw unemployment. He seems to think it is fun to worry about mortgage payments. A person who loses his house because he defaults, will still have to pay rent, and that rent nowadays is similar to what the mortgage would be.

In postwar Germany (1946-1948), I understood what it was like to be hungry and cold. The whole family went mushroom hunting in the woods for a meal. When there was nothing, we were still able to find food on the side of the road such as young stinging nettles. They taste like spinach, or blackberries. Some people cut down linden trees for wood to heat a small room in the kitchen in the dead of winter. My grandfather made sure that didn't happen in our street because he kept bees that made honey from the blossoms. That was the trade-off. Either you were warm for a few days or you had food to share with others. People knew what it was like to have nothing to eat. They knew how cold it can get without fuel to make a fire.

Now how about the reptilian mind? Does he know what the difference is between a toadstool and a chanterelle? Has he ever tried to do what we did? We gathered beechnuts and chestnuts in the woods, and the time we spent on gathering was a necessity. The reptilian mind might be in for a surprise when he does not know the difference between an amanita and a common field mushroom. They are not that different in the way they look.

And when it comes to the test, I wonder where the Newt will be.

Mercury and Vitamin D Deficiency

2010-07-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

I often ask myself where an autistic person's missing synapses went. Where did the thread break, and where can it be mended? How can the broken fabric be stitched back together? What if it were really as simple as giving a pill? There are two substances that are being mentioned in the context of autism. One is mercury; the other is vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency seems to be common in people with autism.

Mercury makes the most sense in connection with autism; after all many symptoms of mercury poisoning are similar to those in autism. What is more puzzling is the connection to vitamin D.

Why does vitamin D deficiency happen in mercury poisoning? It happens because mercury poisoning causes kidney damage, and kidney damage causes vitamin D deficiency. The following question then needs to be asked: Does vitamin D deficiency actually cause autism or is the deficiency an expression of what happens in the body of an autistic person due to mercury poisoning? In other words: Does vitamin D deficiency cause autism or does mercury cause autism which in turn causes vitamin D deficiency with all its related symptoms?

It has been established in the last 10 or 12 years (a vitamin D test has become available in the late '90s) that vitamin D deficiency is important in all kinds of bodily functions including diabetes, cancer and other serious illnesses. A lot more studies are needed to firmly establish a connection. What is really important to note, though, is that vitamins need to be taken seriously especially in our increasingly toxic world.

Now here it is one more time: Mercury is toxic! It causes vitamin D deficiency! And regardless of whether the two cause autism or not, lack of attention to those two facts may become very expensive in the long run.

Reading "Callous Disregard"

2010-06-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

Reading "Callous Disregard" by Andrew Wakefield I come away with disdain for the medical establishment who condemned him. I come away with much greater admiration than I had wanted to bestow him. I had known of Andrew Wakefield for quite a while. I had nearly come to believe that he and his assertion that the MMR vaccine might be of interest as a cause for autism could easily be dismissed as a footnote in medical history.

But as is so often the case, certain people become larger than life through the accusations of others. Dr. Wakefield might have become a tragic figure left boiled in the churning cauldron of the science world and serve as a feast for the medical establishment.

Strangely Dr. Wakefield's forthright, caring demeanor through his ordeal of being accused and then condemned by the GMC, losing his licence to practice medicine because of a "perceived conflict of interest" for authoring a case study of 12 autistic children in The Lancet, makes him a person of integrity and strength.

In his book Wakefield describes a scenario that can only come from a nightmare he himself experienced and worked through to become an enlightened persona for the families and the children wracked with autism. He displays the forthrightness of someone who has gone through the trial by fire and is emerging as a hero to those who needed a caring voice.

False paradigm

2010-06-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

The worst false paradigm was the assumption that mercury was effective as a medicine. This paradigm lasted for thousands of years. Mercury was used as an antibiotic. It was used as a diuretic. It was used as an antiseptic in the form of gray ointment. It was even used as a pain killer in the form of a teething powder. Many of these uses were still listed in medical textbooks when I was a child, i.e. in 1940s. The notion that mercury was the greatest miracle drug is not easily dispelled.

How did this false paradigm evolve? The false assumption that mercury worked was due to the fact that it alleviated pain. It also seemed to work as an antibiotic, at least when it came to syphilis. The question now arises: Is it true that mercury is an antibiotic? Or is mercury, in fact, not an antibiotic at all? Is it a pain killer? Or does it in reality simply kill the nerves so they don't feel pain? Mercury is known to disassemble nerves and to rob them of their ability keep on growing. It is known that the deadly nature of mercury is even potentiated by certain antibiotics like neomycin as well as other heavy metals such as lead and aluminum.

The first substance that was quietly taken off the shelves was teething powder because it caused acrodynia or pink disease. It is mercury(I) chloride, a chemical compound with the formula Hg2Cl2, also called calomel. It took much sleuthing before doctors discovered its ill effects. Merthiolate and Mercurochrome were also taken off the market without much fanfare after a number of babies died. I guess the medical profession didn't want to alarm patients by telling them that what they had been given as a healing medicine was actually a sometimes deadly poison. The use of mercury as a diuretic was also discontinued very quietly.

The paradigm shift occurred without public awareness, and it is not complete. Doctors are still injecting vaccines with mercury preservatives, and dentists are still filling teeth with mercury amalgams. When will the false paradigm become public knowledge?

The scientific method

2010-05-17T00:24:00.001-07:00

I keep thinking there ought to be a good way to explain the study of science that leads to a useable result. Francis Bacon is supposedly the inventor of the scientific method. He first proposed to write down all findings for any investigation. He had a point. His writings were valuable in their attempt. The place where he ran into snags was when he included religion in his scheme. Religion is not science. It is a state of belief. It lacks the concept of unshakable certainty.

My conclusion is that the scientific method is based primarily on gathering information and writing down all of it, not just what fits the hypothesis. First and foremost it requires telling the truth. A true scientist tells the truth. He will not compromise. He will tell the truth even if the findings of the investigation show nothing in the positive results basket. It is disappointing, but the knowledge of not having obtained results is also a valuable thing because it tells the scientist that the hypothesis does not have to be investigated any longer and energy may be directed towards another attempt for a solution.

Science is an attempt to find the truth about what matters in natural phenomena, and the truth may wait a long time to materialize. Indeed it may never be found. But the attempt of finding it and the joy in the process is a never ending quest for greater understanding of what matters in the material world.

It's toxic

2010-04-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how much work has gone into proving that the mercury from amalgam is not toxic. It is even stranger that study after study comes back saying that there is no danger in injecting ethyl mercury into babies. Why is that?

I believe it is because people have a very short attention span, and they don't want to believe that mercury works by poisoning slowly. The slowness of the process is the culprit. To understand how mercury poisons, it has to be understood that it actually doesn't kill anything very effectively.

What it does is hitch a ride on any suitable molecule in the body. It occupies the places on many enzymes and vitamins and denatures them. It occupies certain amino acids to keep them from doing their jobs. It goes into cells and pretends, mimics, to be something it isn't. It is the great impostor. It is the wolf in sheep's clothing. It is the hitchhiker that doesn't want to leave at the end of the ride.

It doesn't kill unless it overwhelms the capacity of the organism. It just goes to a place in the body and stays and makes life unpleasant. Mercury doesn't care. It just loves to adhere to sulfur, and where the sulfur goes, it goes. It occupies the endocrine system and exhausts it. It robs the body of energy. It disassembles the tubules of nephrons or nerves. It is just plain a nuisance, and it also kills when there is enough of it. It kills by rendering organ systems useless.

The prospect of hope

2010-04-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

What a thing to say: The prospect of hope. Hope is so forward looking, and to have a prospect of hope is, the way I look at it, all I can do. It is sort of like mining for hope, being a prospector for a cherished good. Now let's see. "Hope" where have I heard that before? Sounds similar to "Nope." I really don't want to go there. Hope is positive. Nope is negative. I guess I have to consult my trusty dictionary again to put me in place.

And here it is. Hope according to the The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots derives from keu-² meaning "to bend" whence "a round or hollow object." So they are trying to tell me that when you are on bent knees you are in a state of Hope? Well I guess that would be something like praying. I can see that. But looking at it that way then really means that the word Hope comes from a state of despair as in having been brought down to your knees.

I didn't expect that. Hope is supposed to be a good feeling, something that makes you look up. How's that? Looking up? Oh, yea, you can only look up when you are down.

I guess I'll stop prospecting for Hope. Since I am not down, I can't have any Hope. I am not on bent knees. Still, I would like the idea of Hope to be more like a Cup of Kindness. Interesting, the word Cup is derived from keu-² as well, and hive, and cube, and cupola, and incubate, and at the end of the dictionary entry there is one from Middle Dutch, and there it means "one who squats" or peddler. Nope, I can't win.

Injecting a non-medicinal toxic substance

2010-03-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

I am putting myself into the shoes of a scientist in 1929. There weren't many jobs for a scientist fresh out of school that year. Those were the bad times after the stock market crash. So what was there to do? You went to work for a pharmaceutical company testing ways to treat illnesses. The FDA did not yet exist. There was nothing to stop the budding scientist to use just about anything as an erstwhile antibiotic. As a matter of fact, what we now know as antibiotics, did not exist at that time. The most promising substance was an organic mercury compound to try to cure meningitis.

For millennia, mercury had been used to treat all kinds of diseases, and so when a meningitis epidemic erupted that killed all it afflicted, the use of an ethyl-mercury compound seemed like the ideal compound to try out, to see if it might work. The patients would most likely die. But what was there to lose? So nobody could fault the scientist to try something that might work. It had been tried out on animals already, and those animals, rabbits, did not die--at least not before they were killed--about a week after the start of the trial. Mercury was known to be very toxic even then; so these trials were surely not done frivolously.

The fatal error in these trials lay in the presumption that mercury was a fast toxin, that it was so toxic that it would kill right away. As is now known, organic mercury takes a long time to kill. Scientists discovered that not too long ago when an unfortunate researcher died at Dartmouth in 1997. It took her almost a year to die from a dose consisting of two drops of colorless liquid that she didn't recognise as being as toxic as it really was.

If, in 1929, the scientists had waited an extra five weeks, the rabbits most likely would have died from mercury poisoning. But as it was, the results looked good enough for the ethyl-mercury compound to be used as a topical antibiotic for wounds. It was then called Merthiolate. Some time in the early '30s it was also included as a preservative in vaccines.

The substance was never tested under current FDA standards. There were no drug trials for Merthiolate. Merthiolate was available at drugstores to put on boo boos and it was used as an antiseptic in hospitals for larger wounds.

Merthiolate has been taken off drug store shelves now. It's deemed not safe on boo boos any longer. You can't buy that pink fluid that was also sold as Mercurochrome. But for some reason vaccine preservative is still available by way of an injection of a flu shot. How is it that this substance is off the shelves topically but has just been deemed safe as a preservative in vaccines.

The preservative Thimerosal has been deemed safe by the vaccine court to inject into babies. Let me ask this question: How alright is it to inject a toxin into babies when the toxin is really just a preservative for the vaccine? How alright is it to inject a non-medicinal toxic substance into anybody?

A modest proposal

2010-03-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

The families with autistic children lost their case, and now pediatricians and other scientists are breathing a sigh of relief. Science has prevailed. Hooray! It is a hollow victory for the vaccine makers and physicians. How much satisfaction can any one get from winning vaccine cases in court against parents who have nowhere else to go.

I don't know whether vaccines made those children autistic. I don't know anything about the lawyers' motives taking these cases. One thing I do know is that the last word has not been uttered on this subject.

First of all where is the science the special masters are talking about. These special masters are no scientists. They trust the statements of experts and put much credence into expert opinions. So how does a scientist actually tell whether his science is good or bad?

In general the gold standard is a double blind study. Did anyone do a double blind study to prove whether children did or did not get autism after they were or were not given Thimerosal? Of course not. That would be unconscionable, giving someone a substance that is suspected of causing autism. The only test of Thimerosal ever done was done on 22 meningitis patients in 1929. All of them died. Still after that small study Thimerosal was considered a useful preservative because it was apparently not the cause of death (death in those subjects was caused by meningococcus).

The one good thing about today's decision is that, since the special masters have decided that there is no chance that the Thimerosal in vaccines could have caused autism, a meaningful study should now be feasible. Since scientific evidence shows that Thimerosal is harmless, its testing should now not have any more obstacles. So that there won't be any further lawsuits or appeals, I have a suggestion: At birth, one group of babies will be given Thimerosal with Hepatitis-B vaccine, and the other group will be given Thimerosal-free Hepatitis-B vaccine. The representative sample size could be an even 100,000. Who will volunteer their babies? The first in line would surely be the special masters' and judges' and pediatricians' children. The vaccine/autism question can then once and for all be laid to rest.

How much do you want to bet that my suggestion won't fly?

What it takes to tell the truth

2010-02-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

It used to be easy this thing about the truth. When we were children we knew. So it must be easy since even children learn to tell the truth. The problem comes when we grow up. We know the truth, but there are so many confounding factors. So we think twice, three times and more what exactly is meant by the truth.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary its etiology derives from the word deru, meaning "tree". The reasoning for why a tree is used to be a symbol for truth comes from the solidity of wood. It is something that lasts. It implies steadfastness and trust. It implies faith in its strength.

How does truth measure up today? Placing solid trust in what is being said, does not appear to be important anymore. And where would the truth be coming from? Would it be coming from our leadership? Who are those men and women who give us the supposed solidity that trust is made of. Can we trust what is being said when most of the things being said are twisted to a greedy end?

I hear parents tell their children things they don't mean. "I'll be at your soccer game." "I'll come to your piano rehearsal." "Mom and dad are promising to be at home early on your birthday." To children promises such as that are as if a tree had been planted, knowing that it would grow forever, a very solid presence. The truth is forever. It is not like a blade of grass that sways in the breeze and falls flat when a storm comes.

Trust has a long lifespan. If it is violated it cannot be restored easily. Broken trust is like a tree felled from lightning that cannot be put back. Conversely, new trust is like a sapling that must be nourished and tended so that it can become strong and hard and steadfast. Where is the trust in our leadership. Where is the truth we were promised when we were children?

How can the truth be reestablished with so little tending being done? How can a sapling become a tree when it is being trampled on so much? Let's be careful with what we say so that the trust we expect remains a sturdy tree we can lean against and where we can find restful shade after a strenuous day. Truth is a very restful place.

What's the difference

2010-02-22T00:03:00.000-08:00

Visiting Erik yesterday was enjoyable; meaning he didn't seem out of it as he had been the weekend before.

At that time my concern was his creatinine level that, according to the nephrologist, was too high at 1.9. That last visit with the doctor had not been quite satisfactory. She had insisted that a 25(OH)D3 level of 22ng/mL was just right for Erik even though that was the level at which Erik had been given Calcitriol otherwise known as 1,25 (OH)2 D3 two years earlier. I was frustrated by the doctor's insistence on her opinion about parathyroid and Vitamin D level without being willing to discuss the subject in more detail.

I was annoyed. I would have liked to have gotten advice about foods that might be helpful in giving Erik's kidney as much of a chance to improve as possible. After that visit I had to leave with my feelings being solidified that Erik didn't matter to anyone but his mother. His medical care seemed again to be a matter of take it or leave it. The doctor had asked the caregiver what medicines Erik was taking, and the answer was that he was getting the same as last time. That apparently was a good enough bit of information. It didn't satisfy me, though. With an upswing in the creatinine level there should be a little more curiosity on the doctor's side.

Two days later we got a phone call from the caregiver saying that Erik had blood in his urine. I was alarmed. We drove to Capitola to see Erik's primary care physician as well as the urologist at the hospital in Santa Cruz, and as it turned out in a case like Erik's that is not all that unusual. We were reassured that Erik's situation was such that the little tinge of red in the bag would hopefully go away.

Meanwhile I got more curious about the medicines Erik was actually taking. One of those was amitryptilin, the other was polyethylene glycol.

Checking into this a little further, it turns out the first drug is an antidepressant that was apparently given not for depression but instead to make Erik sleep. So, now we knew why Erik had seemed so out of it. The other drug was a laxative. I went to some length to find out if there were reasons to believe that it might interfere with kidney function. Neither of the two drugs had anything to do with Erik's kidney failure, it seemed.

It turns out that I found an article about a study done in Taiwan that indicated a potential problem in patients with kidney failure. Upon finding that information I asked the primary care physician if these two medicines could be discontinued. She had absolutely no objection. She had not prescribed them, she said.

The drugs were discontinued and the next day already Erik was much more alert. He smiled and giggled. He made his needs known by pointing to what he needed. He pushed off with his toes on the leg that could reach the floor to turn the wheelchair to the TV set because he wanted to watch Shrek, his favorite movie. Taking the antidepressant away made the difference. Hopefully the polyethylene glycol removal will lower the creatinine level. We'll have to wait a while before we get the lab tests done again. It was gratifying to see Erik in good spirits. There can be joy in the small things. That's the difference. In the end everything depends on whether somebody cares.

Time to think about my vegetables

2010-02-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

I am planning a potted vegetable garden. Last year I had deep purple eggplants, and I am going to have them again this year. I have the pots already. All I need is some good soil and the plants. I am not very successful with seeds. So I buy my plants. I am glad to be planning for that. It keeps me from screaming out loud about the most recent campaign to discredit Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

They call him a fraud now. The Lancet has withdrawn a 12-year-old paper about a vaccine that might or might not cause autism. Just the fact that the Lancet is throwing Wakefield to the wolves is not enough. After all the article will always be in the Lancet of that date, and retracting it now makes me suspect that there really is an ulterior motive to malign him, to make him look more and more like a fraud now.

The vaccine/autism connection may or may not be a connection; but Dr. Wakefield tried to make sense of the epidemic that has been raging for nearly 20 years now. So why is it that this man's possibly questionable study is again in the news after so many years? Trying to find an answer stirs up my natural sense of suspicion.

Why now? Why didn't the Lancet do a better job in the first place? Why did the editors wait as long as they did? I tell you why. It is because an article that was just published with Wakefield’s name on it does find a connection between certain types of essential survival reflexes in newborn rhesus macaques and the mercury vaccine preservative Thimerosal. Is Dr. Wakefield a threat to the scientific community? Is he getting too close to the truth?

My guess is as good as yours. But still I wonder. I shall plant my eggplants and I shall maybe grow some lettuce as a distraction, but to me my question is still a good question. My question to the scientific community is: Why "protesteth thou" too much against a man who would not have had much credence if the media had not spread his name around to begin with? I smell fish-manure in my vegetable garden.

What can I say?

2010-01-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

What can I say to really make a difference. I get all kinds of e-mails from all kinds of political organizations. These messages have become so repetitive that I don't even open them anymore. I have the feeling that many of those e-mails contain quests for more donations without really convincing anyone that these donations can change the drift of this country. It seems that wherever you look there is a sense of globality without a sense of community. It isn't just the phrase "think globally, act locally" that disturbs me. The casualness with which that sentence is uttered, that phrase has become so pat.

It is the lack of anyone actually paying any attention to the need right here in our midst. There is a neighbor next door who needs a kind word. There is a stranger across the way who needs to be noticed, who needs to be taken as a sign of life in this neighborhood.

My handyman and his brothers from Mexico know what it is. They act like real people who ask question. They want to know. They are interested in the world around them. How about you out there. Have you seen any children in the street lately? They are not out getting some sunshine.

I remember a child from two houses down striking up a conversation, asking all kinds of questions. But that was a long time ago. Where are the children? Where is that curiosity? And when can I tell them that this world is so beautiful, and, that there is so much to learn?

"No child left behind" leaves so much behind. It assumes that learning can be entered into a person as if it were a double-click on a computer icon. Children don't have a funnel on their heads that receives information. It's not as if they were geese being noodled to become obese from knowledge. Enough said!

The past gives seed material for the future

2009-12-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have a son who has been sick enough all his life so that it seems doctors have given up on him. I haven't, and that really annoys the doctors no end. When I go in to see a specialist, he or she asks me the standard question: "What can I do for you?" And since the referring doctor usually does not inform the specialist about Erik's ailment, it is up to me to fill the doctor in telling him or her all I know about Erik.

I start at the beginning: "He was born premature; he weighed 3 lbs. 2 and one half ounce. At that point I get interrupted: "I don't need to know all that. Tell me what brought you here!"

I start again but at a more recent date, and I say all this very fast so I can get as much information into my sentences as possible: "In 1998 Erik had surgery on a Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis; the growth plate of the femur had slipped. This surgery left him in a wheelchair. If that wasn't bad enough he only weighed 34 lbs., and I wanted to know why. So Erik was referred to a gastro-enterologist to see if there was a malabsorption problem. After a biopsy of the small intestine, I think, the conclusion was drawn that Erik did not have celiac disease. I then kept asking for referrals to a kidney specialist..." Again I get interrupted. "I don't need to know all that," says the doctor. "Why do you want to delve so far back into the past?" He or she asks me impatiently: "Why are you here?" The doctor has not looked at my son."

The doctor apparently did not expect Erik to be a basket case. I sometimes even want to say that I am sorry to inflict such a sight on this mighty profession that believes in itself to cure the sick and only rarely misses a diagnosis. I want to shout: "Give me a diagnosis that Erik can live with. And I want it in writing." The diagnosis is kidney failure, please, write it down for me so that the next doctor Erik goes to doesn't have to guess. Erik has a record a foot high. The past and the future would be ample material for studies. But this seed material has become old and just not interesting enough any longer. Where do we go from here?

When we still pushed a hoop with a stick

2009-12-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a child I still pushed a hoop with a stick. Hoops, better, bicycle rims from old bicycles were toys we were able to afford. The other day, I heard someone say something like "you act as if you only know how to push a hoop with a stick." The implication was that the days when people were still pushing hoops with sticks were really primitive days. Yes, I lived in those primitive days. We children did not have Transformers, those morphing toys that all the children seem to have to possess to somehow stimulate more of their imagination. We also didn't have computers. There was no television. The information we got came from a radio made before the beginning of World War II, and we listened to the Voice of America.

The Voice of America was our window to the world, and we loved anything American. Never having had an orange or any other tropical fruit, I accepted a black banana peel to have a taste of what it was. We were deprived, but we didn't know it. We were full of curiosity, and we had the world in front of us and we were not afraid.

Anyhow, we pushed hoops with sticks, and we were glad to have those. The days were filled with laughter, and joy and tears and crying when one of us scraped a knee or stubbed a toe with our bare feet. In those days the street was ours. We used it because the asphalt surface was nice and flat, and we laid pennies on the streetcar tracks to watch them get flattened. It was a carefree time. We had a minimum of supervision and we had to learn from our mistakes, and yes, I watched a large German Shepherd dog get run over by the streetcar. We learned to be careful. I watched a neighbor's dog named Toad run along the side of cars coming by at moderate speed. The dog furiously darted about, attacking the car as if it was a disobedient sheep barking at it while trying to bite its tires.

Those were simpler days where an organ-grinder played his tunes and a scissor-sharpener pushed his cart going from house to house, and we teased the old lady across the street who promptly threatened us with her great big iron grass shears saying she would cut off our ears if we didn't stop that. Of course she was not serious.

Did we live primitive lives. Yes, we pushed a hoop with a stick. But we truly knew things from our own experience. We knew how to push a real hoop with a real stick. We did not play vicarious games on the computer. We knew the reality of death from the war. We saw a dog die. But we also knew how to play, and we knew how to push a hoop with a stick.

Formula Thinking

2009-11-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

It happens all the time. But more so in health care than any other place, and we know that doctors are the cream-of-the-crop, the intelligentsia of our days. That doesn't mean that it happens only in a doctor's office. Politicians do it, neighbors do it, even your best friends do it. They are in lock-step with formulaic thinking.

At the doctor's office it goes like this. "Doctor, I have itchy toes, my skin is very dry, and, look here--pointing to the inside of the mouth--my throat is sore. I don't have a fever. I am unable to sleep at night." The doctor then says: "I don't know what your problem is. Your symptoms are very vague." "But doctor, I am not vague. I am telling you, those are my symptoms. I can write those symptoms down for you." The doctor gives up and writes out a prescription for a cortisone cream to be applied three times a day until the tube is empty. Also there is the invariable blood test that is supposed to instill confidence that the doctor knows what he is doing. The whole encounter takes no more than ten minutes. Meanwhile the patient is fully clothed. The doctor does not do as much as look at any part of the body. He trusts the patient to give him all the buzz-words, as if the patient has already figured out what ails him. The doctor expects a set sequence of words that can be fed straight into the doctor's robotic mind, which then spits out the robotic answer. The doctor does not ask questions because that might hold up the doctor's need to see the next patient in the allotted time-frame. The next patient might have a more important ailment or possibly be more interesting.

I've got news. Patients do not know what their problems are most of the time. Patients also don't have the standard terminology that rings a bell up there in the belfry to make the answer simple. A patient goes to the doctor for his extra special brain, and because he has an extra-special ability to analyse his or her own personal bodily complaints.

Formulaic thinking happens in other areas as well. Not long ago I attended a meeting that dealt with the health of Mexican American immigrants. The question was posed why immigrants who arrive in this country are relatively free of medical complaints when they arrive but experience a downturn in their health after about five years. Statistics for this fact exist. In this meeting, the prevailing thought and most of the answers to this phenomenon related to the lack of access to good health care, a general consensus that that population group is more stressed and simply less able to cope with the discrimination, the vagaries of living in a new country and other societal pressures.

It is very likely that all those features are very important. This mind-set that allows some human rights groups to only look at the problems from that one human rights angle, a formulaic angle, does not leave room for other reasons to take a place in thinking about a remedy for the seemingly inevitable course of events: family arrives, everyone is well; family is here in the Bay Area for five years and health deteriorates. This happens even with families who have no financial woes.

It is curious, but the answer for this problem might not be found by examining societal stresses. It might simply be found by looking at an environmental factor. Mexican Americans come from Mexico. Mexico is closer to the equator. Mexicans experience more sun that shines the right amount of Vitamin D producing UV-B rays on them year-round. The move for Mexicans to the Bay Area, where UV-B hits the whole population for only about five months of the year, causes Vitamin D deficiency because most Mexicans living in Mexico would not have had to take Vitamin D pills. They would not know to add them to their grocery list as a necessity.

Black persons may be in the same boat as far as Vitamin D goes. In that population group, there is no obvious reason for why they wind up in jail much more often than the white-skinned population. No doubt, discrimination plays a huge role. But no obvious statistics give a clue that there might be an environmental factor. Most blacks haven't arrived here from a lower degree of latitude within the last five years (although in Minnesota the Somali immigrant population can be statistically assessed and should be). So the question is not even asked why they are suffering more from disabilities. This question should be asked much more forcefully.

I remember that during the O.J. Simpson trial, it was pointed out that O.J. had rickets when he was a child. Did anyone ever mention a connection between Vitamin D deficiency and altered behavior? I don' think so. This connection has not been explored. But it should be. The discoveries about what Vitamin D deficiency does to the human body are very young because an inexpensive Vitamin D test has not been available for more than 10 years.

It is now known that sufficient Vitamin D might prevent depression. I can attest to the fact that large doses of Vitamin D can help a person tremendously in all kinds of ways including depression and mood swings.

Formula thinking is rampant. It is rampant in the media, among politicians and your friends and neighbors. They might even look at you with distant eyes, might turn away and roll them so you might not be offended. There are reasons for certain conditions that are not garnered from the mathematics of an obvious formula.

The first frost

2009-11-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

This morning I found the first frost on the roof. My car window had to be defrosted and I am pretty certain that the loquats will not bear fruit next year. I am not surprised.

Nothing surprises me anymore. The predictable nature of things to come almost leaves me with a sense of inevitability. My wild garden helps. I have control over the plants. I water them and they do as well as their nature allows. Watering gives me a sense of power. I could, if I wanted to, let them wilt and wither to wood and straw. I just can't let that happen. I am human. I don't want to leave things untended. That's my nature. Does nature thank me for that? Who knows?

Violets in October

2009-10-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

It's October, and again my loquats are blooming. It's wrong. The blossoms will not form viable fruit. Winter is coming and the blossoms will freeze before any fruit can develop. And this year I have violets. Violets in October. I like violets; aren't they suppose to be spring flowers? The seasons are turning at the wrong time. Fall becomes spring. What gives? Right now I look at the violets to give me hope as spring does after a normal rainy winter season.

But this is too strange. Explanations, please!

My real worry is not so much that nature is turning tricks on us. It is much more disconcerting that our government is unable to put it together. Logic in health care is flagging. Government is acting like a doped up child, a child who knows little besides greed and deceit. Violets in October are not normal. But what our Congress is doing is even worse.

The canary in the coal mine:

2009-09-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

My next door neighbor was very upset when his doctor did not want to see his whole body, did not even ask him to undress. I got to thinking about that and thought they are treating him just like Erik. I always thought the doctors didn't listen to his heart because Erik is mentally and physically handicapped, and the doctors were too upset about the sight of this small wasted body with broken bones. I haven't been to a doctor for a while. So, I can't say I was not being looked at. The last time a doctor saw me, I had a mammogram. I guess the doctor couldn't help but look at my breasts. That doctor actually felt for lumps. But apparently the physical exam is dead. To get to the point, I had noticed that often doctors don't examine their patients any longer.

The eye-opener came with a book Every Patient Tells a Story, by Lisa Sanders, M.D. (Sanders has been advisor to the popular TV series "House"). She writes in her book that doctors rarely perform physical examinations any more. She goes into great detail why that is the case and points out how important this exam is and how much time and expense is wasted because the skill of the physical examination is being lost. Three paragraphs point out what her thoughts are on that subject:

In many ways the heart exam stands as a symbol of the entire physical exam--the neurological exam is probably the most complex. Nor is it the most technically difficult exam--looking at the retina of the eye may get that honor. And it's not the most time-consuming exam--that would probably be the psychiatric exam. But the heart exam was the first examination developed in modern medicine and the one most strongly linked with the physician's role as diagnostician and caregiver.

Moreover, the heart exam is a subtle exercise and requires well-developed skills to detect the nuanced variations from expected heart sounds. A thorough understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the heart and the circulatory system is essential in interpreting these quiet deviations and identifying the lesion they suggest. As such, it has the function as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the first alert that physician skill and interest in the physical exam was waning.

Salvatore Mangione chose the heart exam to test in his 1992 study of doctors' skills not only because it was an area in which he had noted waning skills but also because of this position in the pantheon of examination abilities. He describes it as the "tip of the iceberg" of the physical exam--the most apparent component to doctors and patients alike of this much larger practice, this sensual science of the body, the physical exam. Technology is eroding, melting away this ancient, massive, and essential part of the way a physician knows the human body.

If and when the physical exam is saved, says Mangione, we will know it when the heart exam is restored to its former preeminence as the signal of a highly skillful well-trained physician.

Physicians rely too much on technology; they are neglecting the more subtle signs of beginning illness by avoiding the healing touch. In order to save time and money the physical exam by a doctor should be an essential part of their set of skills.

A disturbing trend

2009-08-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I watched a clip from a health care town hall meeting, and it doesn't really matter where this took place and who the senator was. I can't remember word-for-word what was said, so I am paraphrasing the question and the answer.

An elderly lady asked this no-name senator if there might be help available for her husband who was gravely ill. During her question she started to cry. The senator's reply was that she might be able to find some help by calling his office. But then he seemed to change his mind and he said that it would be best if neighbors were there to help her. The whole room full of people applauded as a response to the senator's advice.

Yes it would be nice if neighbors could help out. But the whole room including the senator grossly missed the point. Did they really not get it? Was that lady attending that meeting to find comfort in the possibility of her neighbors lending her the thousands and thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars? The first question came to my mind was whether she actually knew her neighbors. And if I look around my neighborhood I would have to say that I have no neighbors that I could go to for help in a medical emergency even though they live in really expensive houses.

I happen to have health insurance. What if I didn't have any, would my neighbors chip in? I doubt it. Here was a room full of people who didn't like socialism. They seemed to think that there should be neighbors to help out in a pinch. Surgery, kidney dialysis, radiation, x-rays, and hospitals cost money up front. Some entrepreneur has to first invent the machines, and then build them and then put them in hospitals and stock the hospital with qualified help. The risk in accomplishing all that can only be taken if there is a chance of a return in the form of profits. These technological marvels would not exist without socialism. Let's call it what you want, but health care the way we prefer it can only be delivered when a large portion of the population believes that there is strength in numbers. Does no-name really think about that? Does he really think the neighbors ought to chip in?

The teeth and the rest of human health

2009-08-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

There are the teeth and then there is the rest of the human body. Or is it there is the human body and then there are the teeth? Does the jaw belong, or doesn't it? It's as if these two structures are two separate entities. That's the impression you get when contemplating health maintenance on the one hand, and tooth maintenance on the other. That's how our two health insurance systems are set up. They are like paying for two different car-repair insurances: one for, let's say, the transmission, the other one for the rest of the car. That situation, i.e. having two separate insurance systems, should be alarming enough because one doesn't know what the other is doing. What's most alarming is the fact that a dentist doesn't know beans about what his action s do to the rest of the body, nor does the physician know what untoward ingredients the dentist has put into the divide behind the nebulous boundaries of the no-mans-land between the teeth, the jaws, and the far reaches of the other side called the mouth, the ears, the nose, and the throat.

I have gone to the dentist often enough. But I cannot remember him ever mentioning to take more Vitamin D, not that my family doctor volunteered that information. No, he never suggested taking more because my teeth were bad. But the dentist should be the first person to suggest that Vitamin D helps improve the teeth and might improve the state of one's jaw bone. It might even prevent cavities. When the dentist sees cavities, he sees dollar signs. He doesn't seem to know that when he puts mercury by way of amalgams into a mouth that this mercury contributes to the ill health of the jaw. Mercury is known to cause the infamous pockets that eventually cause the patient to be toothless. Should I really be that cynical and say that a dentist cultivates his patients to become cash-cows with the help of dental amalgam? I am not even talking about the other bad things that mercury does.

Now this is how it is with the physician. He'll see me. I'd complain about depression or irritability, or tingling in my hands and feet. I'd be complaining about the bad headaches, the forgetfulness etc. He would think that I am getting older and prescribe some Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and send me home. Silently he may think I am turning senile. Fortunately I don't have those problems, but I know plenty of people who do. The fact that mercury damages the kidneys is almost never mentioned when talking about dental amalgam. And when after many moons a person starts having a hip replacement or a knee replacement or, as I did, a bone transplant from one part of the jaw bone to another, the physician will not be privy to the possibility of mercury and the lack of Vitamin D being connected.

The connection lies in the fact that mercury damages the kidneys in such a way that the kidneys do not make the active form of Vitamin D as well any longer.

Getting back to the two systems, maybe if there were only one system, the dental and medical entities would talk to one another because they are connected. After all there is only one human body. The teeth really cannot exist without the body or vice versa.

Our healthcare system

2009-07-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

Voices are saying that health care is going to be socialized medicine if President Obama gets his way. If we are in such good shape that we don't need a socialized health care system, why is it that it took doctors 10 years to diagnose my son Erik's stage 5 kidney failure. This is what our reality in this country looks like, even with Medicare and Medicaid. Erik had to sit through years of futile doctors' appointments. Not once during that time did a doctor look at Erik's whole body, took his blood pressure, checked his stacks of records even though Erik had numerous broken bones. The kidney failure could have been diagnosed 10 years ago. The 20 something doctors that pretended to have seen Erik did not see it necessary to take a closer look at him. Instead they repeated a false label of "cerebral palsy" that a doctor attached to his name to cover up his mistake. All those doctors were paid with tax payer dollars while Erik's condition worsened. At one point Erik's leg was supposed to be amputated. It didn't happen because I prevented it.

Is treatment like that really better than socialized medicine? Given what I experienced with Erik I take it gladly. In the countries where it is practiced, you may need to wait a few more weeks. But after those extra weeks, you get a valid diagnosis and and you get treated with compassion, and the doctor actually looks at you. Erik wound up in a wheelchair even though his mother was his mouthpiece. She told the doctors what to look for.

I find this system barbaric, a crying shame and more. The reason why Erik did not get help is not because we have a system that failed him. I would rather say that this country has lost its social conscience. Is it really cheaper to remain mired in merciless technology and doctors that act like robots or should we not instead stop quibbling about words and get with it and do the right thing even though it might look a bit like socialized medicine?

Granted there were doctors, few and far between, who eventually helped him. But it certainly was not because we have a superior system.

Get it right

2009-07-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

Mercury does have a place among toxins. It's so strange to see the scientific world be in denial. Mercury is a toxin. Why is that so hard to understand?

Just a week ago I finished a translation of a paper written in 1966 Theoretical Contemplations about the Etiology of Sclerosis Multiplex -- Multiple Sclerosis a Mercury Allergy, by Dr. Ernst Baasch. The paper asks the question whether dental amalgam is connected to Multiple Sclerosis (MS). He makes a pretty good case connecting the two, i.e. MS and dental amalgam. He points out that MS is a geographic illness that affects people who have spent time in Northern or Southern latitudes over 40 degrees from the equator. This fact is a given. From there he explains why dental amalgam is the triggering factor.

So far, all that makes good sense. What is not explained is the question why people are afflicted with MS in those latitudes.

I think I have an explanation for that. Mercury is the reason for that -- be it from dental amalgam or from any other source.

First it has to be explained that the kidney makes a hormone called 1,25(OH)2D3 (Calcitriol). This hormone is derived from Vitamin D that is obtained when the sun's UVB rays shine on a person's skin. Passing through the liver it becomes 25(OH)D3 which in turn reaches the kidney where it becomes Calcitriol. Calcitriol is made at the proximal tubule of the Kidney. Calcitriol is the active form of Vitamin D. This has been known since 1970.

Now, mercury is known to cause kidney damage. Mercury damages the proximal tubule of the kidney's filtering system, i.e. it damages the area where Calcitriol is made. That means mercury poisoning causes Calcitriol deficiency meaning Vitamin D deficiency.

What does that have to do with MS? I mentioned earlier that MS is a geographic illness that happens in latitudes over 40 degrees from the equator. It is virtually unknown in latitudes near the equator. Why would that be? It is because the UVB of the sun's rays is abundant in those areas and not in the higher latitudes.

There are confounding factors to this theory. MS is not common in Norway and Alaska. So why would those countries have less MS? The answer lies in a diet high in Vitamin D containing foods eaten in those areas.

So why would Vitamin D deficiency matter when it comes to MS? It is postulated that mercury is the toxin that causes MS. Mercury is the agent that damages the human body's system. Vitamin D happens to help fix it in all areas (Vitamin D intervenes at the DNA level inside the cells) not just the bones. Vitamin D helps make glutathione, a major detoxing agent. That means when Vitamin D is missing, mercury can do more damage everywhere.

Letter to the President

2009-06-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Mr. President!

I elected you to do a hard job for me. If you can’t do the job of bringing our healthcare system into the 21st century, who can? Show me some backbone.

My son Erik who is wheelchair-bound and cannot talk demands it of you. In all his 38 years of his life he depended on strong leadership to bring a better life. He is suffering from stage-5 kidney failure. He has about 30 broken bones because it took five doctors, some of them “specialists?” In their fields more than 10 years before one of them finally acknowledged that his osteomalacia was connected to the kidney failure.

The fact that kidney failure causes Vitamin D deficiency is not common knowledge. It should be. I found out simply using Google. I harassed those doctors until they finally had no way out but acknowledge that I was right. If the system had served Erik better, he would still be walking. My guess is that his care now costs the American taxpayer at least twice as much as it would if he were still walking.

Our system is sick. Mr. President, I need you to serve as Erik’s backbone. He doesn’t have it. Some of his vertebrae are broken. He was abandoned by the medical profession, but nobody expected that Erik could hold on as long as he has. He fooled them. Unfortunately for him he got his medicine about 30 years too late.

What have we seen instead of a working healthcare system? We have seen a number of wars. We have seen companies side-step anti-trust laws or lobby to change them. We have seen lobbyist cater to greed only. We have seen our elected officials aid and abet their every wish because they have only their own future in mind.

We have seen our nest-eggs shrink to half of what it was just a year ago. I trusted that you would keep your promise of a healthcare system that would serve all Americans. Please, do that! I elected you because you are intelligent.

Unfortunately I have had to deal with my son’s healthcare more than I care to elaborate. By dealing with doctors and hospitals I have come to realize that the people who should know better are lacking in the basics of why health insurance should not be run by corporations.

I have recently written in a blog that healthcare is not a commodity. Healthcare needs to be free of corporate interference. The more fortunate among us need to see that it is for their own benefit when everyone is well. Does the average American ever think about the fact that all the hospitals and doctors’ education and health innovation can only happen with the help of the contributions of all Americans?

Expensive MRI machines and kidney dialysis machines only exist because there is a critical mass of tax payers that pay for those things. Vaccines can only be developed if a critical mass of tax payers is available to pay for them. When we pay taxes we pay for students to go to school starting with elementary school, high-school and college where they can become doctors and nurses. Even private universities would be up a creek if children came through the system only on the backs of their parents’ willingness to pay tuition. We all have to contribute so that pursuit of happiness can happen. It’s a no-brainer.

Surely everyone understands that having to pay for healthcare only when you are sick is like being self-insured. If one carries the concept of self-insurance to an extreme, it means that an individual would have to build a hospital and all its equipment and all its staff right at the time when he needs it the most; i.e. when he is sick.

Are we so far gone that collectively we are not bright enough to understand what other countries have done without hesitation. They still have compassion over there. Do we have to wonder if we are in another land “East of Eden?” Health cannot be a commodity. Health care is for the sick, not for those who never need to benefit from it. What we purchase with healthcare is a right to care. The security that comes with it is priceless.

Now Mr. President, I need you not to cave in to special interests. Special interests are on the wrong side of the track. Are you with me? Are you on the right side of all Americans?

Do women judge differently?

2009-06-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

During my undergraduate years at UC Santa Cruz I took mostly language and linguistics classes. But among the most memorable in the area of language was a class called Language and Gender taught by Sociology Professor Candace West. She had written several books on the sociology of language, and she gave us some thoughtful commentary on how men use language differently from women.

We were told about how men are more likely to interrupt women and how women tend to show more frequently a style of uncertainty in their language by using tag questions. My final exam was an essay. The paper dealt with interactions between male and female doctors and patients. Part of the class was supposed to compare conversations between female doctors and their patients. Another part of the class was given transcripts of conversations between wardens and male and female prisoners. We were to use similar counting procedures for both population groups. By counting the frequency of tag questions and filler words in the transcripts, it became obvious that the male doctors or, as the case may be, the male wardens used fewer of those devices and interrupted more than the female doctors did. They aslo did not leave time for female interruption. This language behavior had varying effects on the patients/prisoners.

Using language this way, the female doctors came off more sympathetic and less authoritarian than their male counterparts which served them well in their roles as doctors.

The objective was to show how different population groups use language effectively in different ways. I came away from this experience understanding how men use a difference in language style to assert their power. They tended to appear more bossy than the women. This is not to say that they were more effective in the long run. It was mainly meant to show communication styles.

Whether this style leads women to judge differently from men, is a question that may never be answered. That they do have different styles became obvious in the transcripts.

It seems certain that various experiences shape a person's judgment. The language people use also reflects their experience. The more you learn, the more likely it is to have better judgment. Language is the expression of experience, and without the understanding and experience of language there is no judgment. Does it really matter whether a person is male or female, white Anglo-Saxon, African-American, Chinese or Indian? It does matter.

A person is shaped by the culture he or she grew up in. But to put more value into a man's judgment than a woman's ignores the fact that society is made up of all kinds of characters. If this were not so, we wouldn't need nine Judges on the Supreme Court. We would only need one.

The reason for the desirability of more than one judge is that we have diversity in the general population, and that includes women. The judgment in a court of law should reflect what the general population deems to be just.

What to do now

2009-05-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

My son's care giver died. The care giver's wife doesn't drive. So how is she going to get Erik to the doctor in an emergency? These are questions I ask myself.

A handicapped persons handicaps magnify when the care situation changes. Not that I don't trust the care giver's wife. But it still is a source of worry.

The rights of a handicapped person, especially one who does not talk, are compromised in so many ways, not just by their handicaps, but also because of the lack of compassion among the medical profession. It takes imagination to know how difficult life is when you can't talk nor walk.

Erik's life was so much better when he was still able to walk around, go to the bathroom, reach for a glass of juice on the kitchen table, walk away from a bothersome situation. Erik is dependent on another person for his very survival.

All that worry might have been avoided if only the doctor in charge had paid attention to details. Erik probably has had Vitamin D deficiency all his life.

A piece of advice for all who are sick and can! talk. Take your vitamins seriously. Contrary to popular belief vitamin deficiency can make you very sick or kill you.

Health insurance - a commodity

2009-05-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

The other day someone on television said that all these elderly well-to-do citizens receiving Medicair are so much better off than the youngsters who are often uninsured. The young folks complained that it was unfair that they had to pay into the system but didn't receive anything in return. Of course it's true that, the way the system is set up, old folks benefit. It seemed to them a system in which rich are taking from the poor. If there were a universal, even better, a single-payer health care system, this problem would not exist.

The concept that health care is a commodity, at the moment there is even a discussion about whether it wouldn't be fairer to tax it, is one that seems to have taken hold. It's as if health, i.e. well-being, can be purchased. It is presumed that the more a person pays for his or her well-being the healthier the person will be. It does not take into account that wealthy people are not necessarily more healthy. Health often is a matter of luck. It may be a matter of better health provision. But it is not something you can purchase like buying an expensive fur coat. Many of the Medicair recipient are wealthy. They paid into a system that promised them health security that they knew they could never buy late in life, no matter how solvent they are now. The reason for a any insurance is not whether you can later cash in on it. It is so you can rest assured that you or your loved ones do not put you in the poor house when disaster strikes. The money spent when you are ill does not go to the sufferer. It goes to doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmaceuticals etc.

The gift of gab and truth

2009-05-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

Does the gift of gab guarantee us the presumption of truth? I am always so amazed when people from the media talk a blue streak. They are so eloquent. How do they do that? Everything they say is polished. It is like slick ice, so cold and frankly so transparently truth-less. But who knows the facts anymore? As long as it sounds good, it must have been said by an intelligent person. Who really cares whether that bird over there was a blue bird or a blue jay? They are both blue. So when you see a flax flower, it doesn't mean it's a forget-me-not even though both flowers are blue. California Lilac is blue and it isn't a lilac at all. The facts are not all I am talking about.

Telling the truth is a gift. It is just not appreciated as much as gab is. You have to know enough to know gab is not the truth. Also, it is much harder to cobble together a coherent sentence and tell the truth at the same time.

I wished the truth were always connected to the gift of gab.

In that context Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome comes to mind. It's a strange condition that is marked by confabulation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernicke-Korsakoff_syndrome

This syndrome is a result of Vitamin B1 deficiency or Beriberi.

Strange signs of global warming

2009-04-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

I won't have any loquats this year. The reason is that my tree bloomed last November, i.e. before winter had even started. Then we got frost. All the loquat blossoms, if you want to call them that, died one night. My micro-climate in Los Altos is such that I get about at least two months of night-frosts every year. That means scraping windshields and throwing warm water on the car nearly every morning during January and February and sometimes March. No wonder that those trees get deranged.

What's more when we have frost it doesn't rain. That's because the weather gets really cold only during sparklingly clear starry nights. Global warming means no clouds. That's the paradox. We have cold weather because of global warming. Cold weather and no rain are the signs. It is clearly happening even though it leaves us confused.

Then the apricots start blooming, also way too early, and what do you know the bees are still hibernating. They live in a different micro-climate. They have to travel a few miles. I am lucky to see enough bees reach my yard to pollinate those flowers. Nature has become confused. Global warming is real.

Think Earth, think butterflies and bees and the survival of the trees!

Do doctors own the illnesses they treat?

2009-04-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

There is supposedly a distinction between physical and mental illness. Consequently when an illness descends on a person, it gets treated by the appropriate doctor, a physician. People presume almost automatically that a physical illness is treated by a doctor and a mental illness is treated by a psychiatrist. Both are doctors and yet the psychiatrist is a specialist in his field, the field of the soul, of the intangible. A person with a personality disorders, a schizophrenic person, an autistic person, they are all assigned to a psychiatrist. It's as if the psychiatrist owns these illnesses. This phenomenon might be equated to the assignment of the teeth to a dentist. It's as if the teeth are disconnected from the jaw.

This division separates body and soul. It as if the physician is not responsible for the vagueness of the mental whatever that is. This assumption would be nice and good if the mental did not have a physical seat. There is no question that the mental state is always dependent on the soundness of the physical body. Where is the actual boundary between mental and physical?

I believe this boundary does not exist. Just as the dentist cannot really claim that he only treats the teeth -- after all he has to take the gums into consideration -- and a psychiatrist cannot just treat figments of some one's imagination, a physical doctor must weigh the effects of medical treatment in the form of drugs or surgery in terms of psychological ramifications. There is no real boundary between mental and physical. A doctor does not own an illness. He may treat only by taking the whole body into account no matter how inconvenient it is. Who says the mental is not based in the physical?

Because drugs are right in the middle they need to be treated with utter respect.

I have two tulips in my garden

2009-03-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

The tulips are what is left of my efforts 15 years ago to make something out of my otherwise wild garden, and I have to reiterate it's beautiful to all the living things around. I hear woodpeckers in the morning indicating that there is life in that telephone pole. I see squirrels, black ones--they are descendants of the ones Leland Stanford Jr. imported from Europe over a hundred years ago. My garden is left to itself much of the time. There are so many more birds than 15 years ago. They all can find food there. The hummingbirds can still find nectar in the red fuchsias that are seeming to bloom year-round. They even try to suck from the red camellias. No offense to the owner of that plastic lawn down the street. But what worms can live there under that fake green carpet? What chemicals are evaporating from it? The birds are going to avoid that place very soon.

My thoughts go to the shooter in Germany. When will that nonsense end. What caused him to shoot? Was it his plastic garden or was it his psychiatric treatment with chemicals he didn't need? I keep coming back to mercury.

How it is with the long noses

2009-03-04T22:33:00.001-08:00

There is something called the Truth Movement (Ball State University) afoot. It strikes me as a very interesting development. The interest in the truth got me to thinking about persons with long noses.

Now the first thing to know is that Pinocchio lied first and then his nose grew longer and longer. I think with certain people the idea that lying comes first and the nose grows longer as a result has become muddled. There seems to be a growing number of folks who think that first the nose grows and that that physical sign then allows us to detect the lie.

It goes like this: Look at him/her: The nose is long; he/she must be lying. Could it be that the need to see the physical evidence first--in this case the long nose--has started to deceive us and has made us into patsies who can only detect a lie when there is a physical sign? I don't think so.

I believe that assessing the truth comes from knowledge. It comes from having the curiosity to detect what's logical and the need to know what's right simply because we have the logic and the facts firmly on our sides.

How it is with he long noses

2009-03-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

here is something

A question of interest

2009-02-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

The other day I inquired with Dr. F. whether he could take a look at my son Erik. I was told no, he was no longer practicing. Dr. F. said that he was retired, and that he did only research at this time.

So I asked if he could refer me to someone else. He asked me where I was located, and I said I was right here at Stanford. I also told him that I needed an explanation for all that had happened to Erik. I said Erik has had about 30 broken bones, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, Kawasaki's syndrome, a slipped capital femoral epiphysis. I said that he only weighed 34lbs and that we had checked all the reasons why this might be the case, and that it took 10 years and 5 nephrologists and several endocrinologists until we finally found an interested doctor, not at Stanford, who discovered Erik needed 1,25(OH)2 D3, (Calcitriol) a Vitamin D hormone made by the kidney. That doctor did not want to continue to care for Erik. I guess it wouldn't look good if he were waiting with other patients in the waiting room.

The other doctor, also not at Stanford, this time a capable nephrologist at Valley Medical Center, told us that Erik was in stage 5 kidney failure.

When I told Dr. F. which doctors Erik had seen at Stanford, I gave him the following names: Dr. L., Dr. A., Dr. P., Dr. K., and others. He said he was sorry that Erik had not been helped. He thought these physicians were all quite capable. But I knew that these doctors would rather have had other patients other than Erik, somebody more on the order of normal, somebody that can be helped, some cute little baby with a curable defect.

What I don't understand is the question he asked me at the end of our conversation, and it truly shocked me. He asked: "Why do you want to know about something that happened so long go?"

I couldn't answer him because it left me speechless and at odds with the world. I know the answer now. My answer to his question should have been: "I want to know because I am interested." I would have also, in turn, liked to ask him why he himself was doing only research. I presume he would have responded: I want to know because I am interested. Would he have answered that or would he have been as dumb-founded as I was?

I can't help mourn the loss of interest in science among our physicians. Dr. F. was not the first doctor ever to ask me that question. I cannot believe that a question like that is posed out of compassion. This question was asked because of lack of curiosity.

Something about zinc

2009-01-24T23:40:00.000-08:00

The importance of zinc for human health was first documented in 1963. Ananda S. Prasad had studied it first in Iran and then in Egypt where he discovered that a syndrome marked by short stature and hypogonadism, which delays bone maturation, was caused by zinc deficiency. As late as 1991 he wrote that it is required for DNA synthesis, cell division and gene expression. It is needed for enzyme activity as well as cell mediated immunity.

Discovery of Human Zinc deficiency and Studies in an Experimental Human Model, by Ananda S. Prasad; Am J Clin Nutr 1991;53:403-12.

I was first made aware of the need for zinc when my son Erik was found to be deficient in that element in 1999. This was discovered through a set of circumstances I do not want to go into right now. The story is too long. But what is significant is that his deficiency was discovered many years after Prasad's first report. Erik is very short and his bone age in 1999 was at about age 12 at a time he was already 28 years old. It leaves me at a loss that zinc supplementation long ago might have kept him from suffering. Erik has many broken bones. With zinc supplementation he might have reached his genetically intended height, and he might have had fewer broken bones.

I discovered by reading this report that there is a connection of zinc to Vitamin D. Without zinc in the intestines a person cannot absorb calcium very well from food. Interesting, isn't it?

Is it genetic?

2009-01-17T00:32:00.000-08:00

The term genetic keeps coming up. They say autism is genetic. It seems to me everything alive has something to do with genetics, at least loosely speaking. But when it comes right down to it, an affliction is genetic only when one gene is affecting one expression of that gene, and it is expressed or it is not expressed depending on whether it's dominant or recessive. I'll leave it at that even though there is a lot more to it than just that.

Now getting to autism, is it genetic? It is probably genetic, meaning there is a genetic susceptibility. But while brown hair is truly depending on just one gene, autism depends on much more than just one gene. If autism were indeed as solidly tied to just one gene as brown hair is, there would be many more cases of autism because of the Mendelian laws of genetics.

Taking it from there, true autism also is not likely to be passed on within a family because truly autistic people are not likely to have children. But let's say they do. Let's say a mildly autistic person gets married and has children. The children might be mildly autistic or severely autistic. The severely autistic offspring would not be likely to have offspring. That genetic material would not be passed on. Generally survival of the fittest allows offspring with better genes to have a better chance at survival. Because this is so, eventually most severe cases of autism would be eliminated unless there are mutations. That, of course, is quite possible in autism.

In order for mutations to happen in large quantities, there have to be triggering factors. So what are triggering factors? Triggering factors are events or substances in the environment. Toxins such as mercury might be good triggering factors for mutations of genes toward autism. In any case genes do not do it by themselves, and that is all I want to convey this time.

Feathers Permitting, I'll Fly

2009-01-04T00:59:00.000-08:00

My motto for 2009 is: "Feathers Permitting I'll Fly." Since I don't have any wings nor feathers, it is as good a statement for next year as any. I am not sure I'll be able to grow wings but let's hope comparable miracles are possible.

The idea of flying is there in my dreams if only on gossamer wings. Let's hope they work well enough to take me where I wish to go.

Merry Christmas?

2008-12-27T00:27:00.000-08:00

The question pertains to the news of so much greed and so much deception in the world. Looking back, I cannot remember a time when it became so obvious that American culture has lost its way. Someone comes dressed as Santa Claus and spreads ill will. That is what our world has come to. Maybe things like this happened before. They probably did. We just didn't know about it.

What makes our lives so toxic that we can't expect goodness coming from our fellow man? Even our highest government figures have lost their way. When President Bush says he understands, it is obvious that he doesn't. He has no clue what it is like for a person not to know where the next meal is coming from. When the Vice President admits that he approved torture, it shows his blatant denial of civility.

But what's worse is the acquiescence of the population. How can we stand by and not object. They say it starts with me the citizen. But where can I get a handle when I have a hard time with the supposedly simple request of getting a written diagnosis for my son who cannot speak for himself? When those who cannot speak have lost the chance for help by those who can and who should help and who are willing, where can a person turn.

I am looking for answers, and even my best attempt falls on deaf ears. Can someone tell me where to go to get heard? Risk management is afraid when someone actually finds them. They are so afraid that they think they need to move because my husband has located their offices. That's a sad state of affairs. That means to me that they are not doing their job. That tells me that they usually do not help solve problems but only add. They are in an avoidance mode. Is that what this country has come to? Risk assessment? And if the risk is not great enough then it's only money. What a shame. Please, lets have good will! The German way of saying it would be: Friede auf Erden allen Menschen, die guten Willens sind! That means: Peace on Earth to All Men of Good Will. At least that's what the translation should be.

Brain enhancement for the mentally competent

2008-12-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

I just read the Nature article Towards Responsible Use of Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs by the Healthy. What strikes me as a little strange is that someone who is responsible and clear-thinking would see the need for brain enhancement. It's a little bit like saying I am not sure whether I am able to think clearly. But, to be sure that I am in top form, I need to take a pill. The article assumes that someone who knows he needs brain-enhancement also knows he is responsible. To complete the circular statement one would have to take a cognitive enhancement pill in order to know whether one is responsible. I always thought that those kinds of drugs are given by the doctor because the patient comes for help not knowing what is wrong.

The only other other reason to take drugs like Adderall or Ritalin is to prove to yourself that you need enhancement, kind of like a brain-lift. Up-lift your brain and your memory will perform. Is that really always desirable?

I read in the German paper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, something quite revealing about a study of some of these drugs. The article said that they give you a hyper-focused brain. That might mean that you may know your test material well, but you won't be as capable of action outside of that focus, like not being able to find the class-room where you need to go to take the test.

Comparing a good night's sleep or eating the right foods really should not be confused with taking Adderall or Ritalin.

The drug Ritalin was invented in 1944 by Leandro Panizzon who named it after his wife Rita. He then used it to improve his ability to play tennis with her. Do the authors of the Nature article allow Ritalin as an enhancer for playing tennis? Or does that come too close to doping in sports?

Another thing I don't like is that these substances are being pushed before relevant studies have been completed. To give an OK for those drug just on a hunch is not very scientific.

I am puzzled

2008-12-05T15:25:00.000-08:00

Mercury preservative was removed from house paint in the early 1990s. I posted in my webpage Dental Amalgam and Mercury (http://www.stanford.edu/~bcalhoun/amalgam.htm):

In August 1989, a previously healthy 4-year-old boy in Michigan was diagnosed with acrodynia, a rare manifestation of childhood mercury poisoning. Symptoms and signs included leg cramps; rash; itching; excessive perspiration; rapid heartbeat; intermittent low-grade fevers; irritability, marked personality change; insomnia; headaches; hypertension; swelling; redness and peeling of the hands, feet, and nose; weakness of the pectoral and pelvic girdles; and nerve dysfunction in the lower extremities. A urine mercury level of 65 ug/L was measured on a 24-hour urine collection. Treatment with intensive chelation therapy increased his urine mercury excretion 20-fold. Examination of his mother and two siblings found urine mercury levels greater than or approximately equal to his; his father had elevated, although lower, levels. Parents and siblings were asymptomatic, although electromyographic abnormalities were detected in one sibling.... identified inhalation of mercury-containing vapors from phenylmercuric acetate contained in latex paint as the probable route of mercury exposure for the family; 17 gallons of paint had been applied to the inside of the family's home during the first week of July. Samples of the paint contained 930-955 ppm mercury, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limit for mercury as a preservative in interior paint is 300 ppm. During July, the house was air conditioned, and the windows were not opened...
The preceding quote is an excerpt from an article by Aronow R, Cubbage C, Weiner R, Johnson B, Hesse J & Bedford J, Mercury Exposure from Interior Latex Paint - Michigan, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 39(8):125-126 (1990)

Because of this case a study was done to see if mercury from latex paint can produce toxic levels. The result was described in the New England Journal of Medicine; Oct. 18, 1990; Volume 323:1096-1101, Nr.16 "Mercury Exposure From Interior Latex Paint", by MM Agocs, RA Etzel, RG Parrish, DC Paschal, PR Campagna, DS Cohen, EM Kilbourne, and JL Hesse:

We found that potentially hazardous exposure to mercury had occurred among persons whose homes were painted with a brand of paint containing mercury at concentrations approximately 2 1/2 times the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended limit.

It is puzzling that no one doubts that the mercury in the paint was clearly the cause of toxicity. Mercury apparently caused damage to the family that had lived in that apartment. There was only one complaint, and with little ado and without huge epidemiological studies it was accepted that the mercury was the cause of toxicity. The vehicle to get the mercury into the body was the inhaled mercury-containing air.

Now, when it comes to Thimerosal also a mercury preservative, this substance is apparently not dangerous enough to cause toxicity when it is injected. One might say the reason is that much more mercury was inhaled than was injected. Really? I am puzzled about the duplicity.

What to be thankful for

2008-11-23T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have a hard time this year to thank anyone other than the voters who elected our new President. I am looking forward to a brighter future. Other than that my heart is heavy. Is it because I almost stopped reading the book "Slavery by Another Name", by Douglas A. Blackmon?

The first third of the book describes a part of United States history I had not been aware of. It describes story after story how blacks in the South after the Civil War were incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit. They were given a fine. Then a plantation owner would pay the fine for which the black convict then had to work for many months.

I am still reading the book because history changed in 1904 with a new President. Apparently when Theodore Roosevelt became President, he started investigating the abuses of blacks in the South, and there then was hope. I am now looking forward to read on. So, there is hope.

My heart wants to believe in the strength of the people to buck the trend of complacency. But my head looks at the situation and is still full of worry. This country needs to wake up. Rip van Winkle is a man of the past. I hope each of us keeps believing in inner strength. I hope there is compassion. So I give thanks to hope!

The plot thickens

2008-11-08T10:14:00.000-08:00

A recent study Autism Prevalence Rates and Precipitation Rates in California, Oregon, and Washington Counties indicates that there is an environmental component to autism. Apparently autism occurs more often in areas with increased rainfall.

What the article says is not that more rain causes autism. It says that there is a correlation. The way to interpret that is to say that there is either something in the rain that causes a toxic effect--that may be mercury blowing over from China--or simply that children who don't get as much sun and with that lack Vitamin D are more more susceptible to autism. Both hypotheses make sense. But a third hypothesis that both mercury-laden rain as well as the lack of Vitamin D work together is an even stronger argument.

Whatever the case may be the proposition that the lack of Vitamin D in conjunction with mercury coming from any source might cause autism is a very compelling supposition. I have already proposed that the reason for the difference in the outcomes of the Faroe and Seychelles studies might be explained by correlating the Vitamin D status of the children (Faroe Islands children are deficient due to their northerly geographic location, Seychelle Islands children have plenty due to their location close to the equator (~ 10 degrees latitude) with year-round UV-B exposure.

It would be interesting to see if children whose mothers are Vitamin D deficient are more likely to be autistic. It might also be interesting to see if adding high doses of Vitamin D given shortly after a mercury containing flu shot or after applying mercury amalgam to teeth or for that matter after eating mercury-laden fish would lower the incidence of autism.

Vitamin D helps to make glutathione and gutathione is necessary for mercury detoxification.

Day before election eve

2008-11-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

I have hope that things will turn out for a better world. I came to this country 44 years ago. I had hopes that my choice to come to America for a life free of prejudice would free my soul. Things were not quite what I expected, and the last eight years were a rude wake-up call. I could not have foreseen that the collective decision-making power in this country has slowed to a snail's pace. I started to doubt that my choice had been made wisely. I knew that the place where I came from was not where I wanted to be. I completely embraced the American way-of-life. Often people tell me that I don't have an accent. I took great care to fit in because I loved the place I was able take in society, and that it was of my own choosing.

What I didn't realize, as I studied to be as American as could be, was that I was chasing a dream that was more elusive than just being reborn into a new world. I wanted it but it did not present itself the way I had anticipated.

That's why this election means much. I hope we do not expect too much. America is looking for new leadership. I for myself am only looking to a time when starting small will again be possible. Let the young be again able to fully realize their potential. Let it be possible for anyone to come from humble beginnings again.

Our economic system is like a puffed up balloon. All it takes is a pin prick to make it collapse. Let the lies die that promised great riches to only the few. It's time that this country wake up from its slow leaden ways and honor again the self-made man or woman. Let's share again and maybe let's accept ideas again that come as they did when Phoenix arose from the ashes.

Vitamin D and some of the mercury studies

2008-10-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

Recently Vitamin D deficiency has been connected to autism. Nobody gave a reason for why there might be a connection. My contention is that the reason why people with autism might have vitamin D deficiency is not only because autistics often have intestinal absorption problems but also because mercury attacks the kidney in the place where the Vitamin D hormone 1,25 dihydroxy cholecalciferol (calcitriol) is made. That place would be the kidney's proximal tubule.

I learned of another reason that connects mercury and Vitamin D to autism. It turns out Vitamin D is necessary for making glutathione and glutathione is all important for the mercury detoxification process. Autistic kids can't detoxify well enough to prevent autism. Who would have thought? So here we have a double whammy. There is not enough calcitriol being made because mercury destroys the kidney and for that reason there is not enough glutathione made to detoxify mercury.

Any comments? Please!

***

And here is more: I read Dr. Jane Hightower's book "Diagnosis: Mercury". It is a well-written book and gives a great account about the conflicts of interest that surround the mercury debate. A must read! It gives lots of insight into the politics of mercury.

As I was reading the book it occurred to me that the reason why the Seychelles and Faroe studies show such divergent outcomes. The Seychelles children had no ill effects from eating mercury-laden fish, the Faroe Island children did. One might be able to explain the discrepancy by relating it to the abundance of Vitamin D in the Seychelles and the relative lack of it in the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands are at a latitude where Vitamin D deficiency is very likely even with high fish consumption. The Seychelles are close to the equator. That makes children who live there much better able to make Vitamin D and with that more glutathione for better detoxification.

Trickle up economy

2008-10-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

I never thought that I would ever see Ronald Regan's "Trickle Down" to become "Trickle Up". But now we have it. It defies gravity. The poor are lifting the rich out of their desperate straights. Funny, I don't feel good about it. So something coming out of our taxes is handing out welfare to the rich. Sounds like Robin Hood in reverse: Robbing the poor to give to the rich. Can anybdy explain that to me. Aren't we supposed to have a lot more power than that. Isn't democracy the form of government that gives the people the power to determine who leads us?

The mess we are in now was all foreseeable when we voted for a man whose speeches went as deep as cutely batting his eyelashes and declaring that he was not going to do any nation-building. Seems to me that making a mistake once by electing that man, might have been forgiveable. Voting that way twice can only to be attributed to deficient IQ.

Now we have another version of that in a woman cutely winking and taking money for Alaska for a bridge to nowhere, and then not returning it when the bridge to nowhere was not built. If I asked for money that way and then did not do with it what it was earmarked for, I would have to return it. Let's not compound the problem by doing it again. Are we not once burned and twice shy?

Mindset of mediocrity

2008-09-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

Isn't it disturbing that it doesn't seem important how intelligent our Presidential candidates are. McCain is not ashamed to state that he graduated fifth from the bottom in his class. The Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin changed schools several times and is mostly noted for her ability to shoot something from a helicopter--she is not noted for her IQ--but instead for how well she knows how to read a speech from a tele-prompter?

The attributes McCain stresses in his campaign are not those of mental prowess but of having learned much from defeat.

Let's see, our current President was not noted for his good grades. He was also not noted for his business sense when he was running for President. I remember that he lost money and was then rescued by parental connections. His money came from daddy who got rich through his daddy who got rich, I wonder how.

Barack Obama does have the mettle to be President, and yet he does not stress that he knows more than your average Joe Blow. He doesn't want to be called elitist, I hear. Now, what's wrong with being an elitist. Doesn't that mean that he is thought to be from the elite? Has anyone asked that question? Those people making Obama into an elitist apparently are themselves not from the elite. Where does it come from that it is better for a Presidential candidate to be slightly daft, and not from the elite. Do you really have to appear lacking in your faculties and otherwise not as principled in your thought processes to qualify?

I recently read in E-Week that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel is listed among the top 100 IT personalities. Among all world leaders she is thought to be the most internet savvy in the world. She is a physicist by training.

Why can't we elect someone like that and know that we are doing it because that person has a superior intellect. Where did we get this wish for mediocrity? Or are we all mercury impaired? In 1926 Alfred Stock said "Quem Mercurius perdere vult, dementat prius". That means "Whom (the God) Mercury wants to destroy, he afflicts with dementia." Are we all toxically impaired? Are we that far gone? Have we already gone down the road of old Rome? Or are we just pretending.

When doctors lie to you

2008-09-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

My doctor didn't lie to me. Erik's did. Erik is completely helpless. He sits in a wheelchair, and now he is tied to it by a tube that emanates from his abdomen. He has a catheter that comes from his bladder. Eleven years ago he still walked. He was helpless then, but he walked, and he ran. He has never talked, and he has never been able to take care of himself.

That's why it hurts even more to know that one of his doctors lied to him. Since I am Erik's conservator, I take this lie personally. So this doctor lied to me. He told me in 1997 that Erik did not have rickets when Erik in fact did. I know that now after Erik suffered thirty broken bones and kidney failure that should have been discovered then. We have the lab values to prove it.

When a doctor lies to you, the notion of a physician's care is lost; it becomes a questionable entity. It leaves you bare of the security that once was bestowed upon the sick, it leaves you questioning that there once was a trustworthy learned person behind that white coat. The Staff of Aesculapius was like the scepter of aid for the weak and helpless. There was a powerful iconic meaning behind the hospital facade. Should I take the snake winding around the scepter as icon of betrayal? I once was naive. I once trusted all that. I know more now, and I find myself helpless, even more so because there are so few healthy people who can understand why I might want to try to tell them about all this. I am alone in my knowledge. I wished I were naive again.

How does it feel when a doctor lies to you. It feels like Adam and Eve losing their innocence.

McCain's me-too thing

2008-08-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

With McCain choosing a celebrity, Sarah Palin, it becomes increasingly obvious that he is chasing Obama's shadow. What do we have here with McCain. Is he engaging in old fashioned dialectic or is he just chasing something elusive like a rainbow that dissolves every time he nearly reaches it.

I know the republican party has its talking points. But this presidential candidate seemed to be turning around everything that comes in his way to make it seem like something favorable before he has actually thought about it carefully. First he says Obama is a celebrity and then he chooses a celebrity as a VP candidate. He complains that Obama goes to Europe to gain experience and then he sends his wife Cindy to Georgia--no not in the US. Was that mission designed to get her to gain experience for him? Or did he really want to check out the Vogue cover in person without Cindy's interference.

One more. Why is McCain going to the gulf coast? Isn't that the President's job? Why get himself into harms way if he really thinks that people might be harmed down there? Or is he a risk taker as becomes obvious looking at his biography, or is that really merely grandstanding and getting in the way in a potentially dangerous situation? That kind of President we don't need.

Another autism theory to chew on

2008-08-16T12:29:00.000-07:00

In the website of the Vitamin D Council, Dr. John Jacob Cannell, Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council, Vitamin D Theory of autism connects the theory of Vitamin D with that of toxic heavy metals (mercury, zinc etc.) as a combined cause for autism:

Does vitamin D explain the role of vaccines, mercury, and heavy metals? Vitamin D's role in increasing glutathione levels may explain the link between mercury and other heavy metals, oxidative stress, and autism. For example, activated vitamin D lessens heavy metal induced oxidative injuries in rat brain. The primary route for brain toxicity of most heavy metals is through depletion of glutathione. Besides its function as a master antioxidant, glutathione acts as a chelating (binding) agent to remove heavy metals, like mercury. Autistic individuals have difficulty excreting heavy metals, like mercury. If brain levels of activated vitamin D are too low to employ glutathione properly, and thus unable to remove heavy metals, they may be damaged by heavy metal loads normal children easily excrete. That is, the mercury in Thimerosal vaccines may have injured vitamin D deficient children while normal children would have easily bound the mercury and excreted it. These studies offer further hope that sun-exposure or vitamin D supplements may help autistic children by increasing glutathione and removing heavy metals. Not only do we have more clues that vitamin D is involved in autism, the vitamin D theory just did something else: it explained two other theories of autism, the mercury accumulation theory and the oxidative stress theory. (Lin AM, Chen KB, Chao PL Antioxidative effect of vitamin D3 on zinc-induced oxidative stress in CNS.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2005 Aug;1053:319–29. Valko M, Morris H, Cronin MT Metals, toxicity and oxidative stress.Curr Med Chem. 2005;12(10):1161–208. Kern JK, Jones AM Evidence of toxicity, oxidative stress, and neuronal insult in autism.J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2006 Nov–Dec;9(6):485–99).

It bears repeating that the amount of activated vitamin D in the brain directly depends on the amount of vitamin D made in the skin or ingested orally.

One more on propaganda

2008-08-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

I am reading "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays again. He wrote the book in 1928 and it is as true today as when dictators of Europe read it then. When we acknowledge that Bernays' writing fits all themes in the current election campaign we have to also admit that we are guilty of complicity in much of what our news media are doing. I am quoting from the book:

Industries, public utilities, educational movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product, whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged partner in all broad efforts.

I conclude from this and it confirms my belief that each of our opinions count for something. They are important in the same way as the belief that the agitation of the air resulting from a butterfly moving its wings in India may cause a hurricane in the United States. Underestimating ones own power causes acquiescence and that we should avoid.

Where did the news go anyway?

2008-08-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

The news is a virgin. So where did it go? It was sacrificed to the Propaganda God and, being a voracious eater, he got bigger and bigger.

So much information, so little news

2008-08-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

Media people, please, get with it! There is actually news out there. What do you do instead? You report on the Bush family congratulating Rush Limbaugh for having been on the air for 20 years. Coming from Maine it couldn't even have been hot air. It is so disappointing that you can't even find a worthwhile story out there. I could tell you one that might make your hair stand up. But I don't think that's what you want right now, real news. Spinning yarns, that's what you prefer, and making certain people (presidential candidates) look bad. Where is your sense of pride. And if there is a more than trivial story, you pass it by because it doesn't fit the current sense of drivel. I guess you have lost a sense for news. Wait, it might be under the bed somewhere.

No more opinion puppetry

2008-07-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about the media and their propensity to shape opinions. We watch TV shows that purport to bring the news. But instead they bring us opinions that were carefully crafted to reflect the view point of those people who pay the opinion makers' salaries.

Do "we the people" really want to give importance to a talk-show host who either has studied his lines to please the boss (speak big pharma or a political action committee) or has an opinion that has been carefully shaped prior to presentation to serve a political purpose? We are all Americans. Do we have to be told when something is preferable or reprehensible even though we don't believe it is?

The flood of opinions that is being washed over us doesn't make us any cleaner. Instead we feel raped. The news hangs on us like a parasite that won't let go, like a brainwash that leaves us dirtier than we were before.

The media ought to be ashamed of themselves. They have become the puppets of a very few masters. America, stop and think, find your own opinion and don't let the dictatorship of the media lull you into thinking that you are informed! Information comes from many sides. It must be weighed. Sadly information is not completely free of propaganda anymore. It has been taken over by subjectivity. Right now it comes at a price. Let's free it again! Let's take back our own opinions again!

More on Vitamin D

2008-07-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Since I started having aches and pains in my hands and an occasional cramp in my foot, I went to the doctor to get tested for Vitamin D deficiency. I was sure that I was at least in the normal range because I am somewhat preoccupied with Vitamin D. My son Erik has renal osteodystrophy. He needs Vitamin D more than anybody. Since I had become knowledgeable and had researched the subject and had found out that the recommended dose should really be much higher than the 400 units found in vitamin pills, I had decided to take 1,000 units of Vitamin D/day.

My test came back with the doctor's note saying not only was I low, I was very low. The reading was 14ng/ml. The normal range starts at 30ng/ml with the high normal going up to 100ng/ml. The doctor prescribed 50,000 units once a week for 6 weeks. I was then to be retested. I did that and was retested. My reading this time was somewhat better at 25ng/ml but still low. I am now supposed to take again 50,000 units once a week, but this time for eight weeks. I am following his prescription to the letter. I am also getting the usual sun that I have paid extra attention to since my "fetish" with Vitamin D.

My son Erik was tested at Stanford Hospital for Vitamin deficiency in 1997. At that time his level was 11ng/ml. Guess what? He was found to be normal with that reading. Stanford's bottom of low normal was 10ng/ml. Top high normal was at around 50ng/ml if I remember correctly. Now by today's standards Erik would be considered very, very low and not normal at all.

The reason for this huge difference of what is considered to be normal is the fact that they didn't really know what normal was. The way "the normal range" was established was by taking measurements of all the people they tested in their lab. Then they took the lowest reading of persons without rickets, probably children, as their "normal." The fallacy of this way of thinking turns out to be that they measured a whole bunch of people that were really below normal because nobody understood what adult rickets (osteomalacia) was. Nobody at Stanford connected the fact that, maybe, the people who were tested for Vitamin D were in fact Vitamin D deficient. These, in terms of Stanford's lab's "normal", patients might have been diagnosed with broken bones, osteopenia, contractures, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, slipped capital femoral epiphysis, osteoporosis, arthritis etc., but no doctor would have detected rickets or osteomalacia.

This lack of understanding put Erik into a wheelchair. It caused him to suffer through maybe as many as 30 broken bones. I wished he could talk so that he could relate to doctors what he has gone through. I for myself can tell when things are not right, and I am being taken care of because of what Erik has gone through.

The worst part is that we still don't have anything in writing telling a doctor who might take care of Erik in the future that he has osteomalacia or renal osteodystrophy or rickets or whatever other name you give this disease. Instead doctors repeat that he has cerebral palsy or spastic quadriplegia or paraplegia.

Red in the morning

2008-06-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

The sun was red last week. The sailor knows that's a warning sign. Take heed! Danger ahead! A brewing storm! But this sun was not red from a brewing storm, it was the result of smoke coming from fires all over California. So where's the danger? Of course the danger stems from the fires. But that's not all. I noticed it was also a little cooler. It was as if the sun had a veil. It kept its face from us and left us without the clear blue sky.

The smoke from the fire also withheld the beneficial UVB rays that are needed for Vitamin D production. A wind was blowing past my ears that said: Take time to look at nature. Get out of your box! Meet the sun when you can! She gives you and me a free dose of life. She is your friend. That friend is a glistening white.

Red in the morning sailor take warning! The red was so beautiful, and yet it was such an ominous sign. It might have fooled me.

I am pro war

2008-06-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am pro war. I am pro war on illness. In a previous blog I had thought of maybe calling doctors the illness police so that the American people believed in paying taxes for wellness. The idea behind it was the greater willingness of taxpayers to foot the bill. But taxes for a police force might not bring in enough revenue; apparently the police is often self-supporting by receiving money through ticketing motorists, and confiscating drug money and other assets.

Instead there never seems to be a shortage of people who are willing to support taxes for war, i.e. the military. The beauty of naming health care the war on illness would be that we already have a war on drugs. The war on drugs could simply be reorganized and incorporated into a new agency called the illness administration. The surgeon general would be the highest ranking soldier. The doctors would be officers ranked according to academic status, such as how many papers they have written that satisfy the criterion of a pro-health agenda, or how many lives they have saved. Nurses and lab technicians could be the specialists of their various units.

As far as the war on drugs is concerned, medication and recreational drugs would be treated the same. All drugs that are now considered illegal would have to go through a testing procedure with the various stages similar to tests that are done on pharmaceuticals. There would be comparisons to currently legally available drugs. The testing would ferret out whether legal or illegal drugs are indeed as good or as bad as they are purported to be. All drugs would be eliminated if they prove to be more harmful than previously thought.

The beauty of the war on illness would be the improvement in health among the population. The money would come from the military budget, and the budget for homeland security, and voila we could eliminate the country's health care problems, and it would satisfy the needs of the population to call something a war.

Does it have to come to that?

More on propaganda and conflict of interest (3)

2008-06-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Propaganda is made for an interest, such as for an interest in a cause that brings an interest group together. Propaganda is an appeal to increase the ranks of an interest group. That means that any time support for an interest group is expressed, it leaves no room for expressing support for a competing interest.

Without fail this problem arises when news media have to juggle news interests that relay events as they are with advertisers' commercial interests.

An example would be the reporting of news about a drug that has caused deaths when at the same time that drug is being advertised by that same TV channel. It is likely hat the advertiser tells the station to avoid telling the truth or to make it appear less negative, possibly to the point of including rose-colored views by so called experts that will give any opinion for money. The competing interest groups are the media groups as opposed to, in this case, the pharmaceutical company. The pharmaceutical company is making propaganda for the drug and the TV channel is conflicted by what the alternative would be if they didn't receive the money and told the real unvarnished truth. Either the news group tells the truth and loses the money or it says nothing or it lies.

Here is another example. For the longest time there was complete silence in the media about the potential damaging effects of mercury from any source. The competing interest groups were dental associations, medical associations, coal mining industries, and even fisheries. All these groups do not want to see mercury be the cause for alarm because activities from those groups increase the levels of mercury in the human body. The tug of war here is being created by the opposing interests from consumer groups on the one hand, industry groups, and the media on the other. The complicated interactions between the propaganda of the wealthy industries, the less wealthy media, and the even less wealthy consumer make the whole issue very complex.

This problem exists in government. It exists in election campaigns. It exists in the art world. It exists in academia. It's pernicious.

Can the problem be solved? Yes, but not without, unfortunately, more propaganda, and more education and probably laws that promote the truth.

Conflict of Interest or Propaganda?

2008-06-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

A number of years ago I read "Propaganda" by Edward Louis Bernays. Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew. He had taken it upon himself to write about the history and nature of propaganda. It was a small book, but it carried much weight in 1928 when it was written. No doubt the dictators of Europe all knew about that booklet, because it gives insight into the psychological aspects of how to get people to join in a cause and sway them by using psychology.

The word propaganda was first used by bishops in the catholic church after the reformation had decimated the faithful. The church needed to recruit new members. The bishops decided to use certain measures to keep the faithful in the church and to add members to the congregation. The bishops used propaganda. The Latin word propaganda, the gerund of propagare, means to be propagated. The church used those measures very effectively to retain old members and sign up new ones. The Jesuits did this with great skill. One might say that the arts, the music, everything that might influence the church members to want to be catholic was used. Ornateness was the order of the day. No expense was spared. The 30-years war was fought to fulfill the church's need to not lose ground. "The end justified the means."

Gradually the word became a more secular word until the age of psychology started a whole new way of thinking about the world of influence. Propaganda thus became influence by any means. Check out Bernays. He is thought to be one of the most influential men of the 20th century.

When is it propagenda, when conflict of interest.

2008-06-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

Propaganda can't be separated from conflict of interest anymore. So, it seems, especially in the media. No word is uttered without somebody paying for it, no picture shown without ulterior motive. That includes the writing of this blog. For me the difference is compensation. Of course news have always been sold to the highest bidder. But that bidder used to be the reader. Now the most important part of news is not the news anymore but the advertising sideshow. That's the way the Internet became profitable. But when is this type of recompense influencing the news itself, and when is it propaganda, and when is it conflict of interest? I'd like to know myself. I have read about propaganda. That will be in tomorrow's blog.

A neat image

2008-06-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

I have a grandson who loves birds. So, when his uncle went to visit him he relayed to him the following story:

"Calvin," he said, "Imagine a red-tailed hawk sitting on the backyard fence between the vines. My binoculars were trained on the big bird when a shimmering hummingbird landed on its head. The hummingbird was known to perch in that tangle of vines. It was not afraid. It thought that the hawk was just the extension of the usual branch."

I heard this story over the telephone, and it stirred my imagination. I was so pleased that such an unlikely event could arise. Such a little bird sitting on the brown head-feathers of a raptor is a miracle of the unexpected, a totem, a symbol of unison that shouldn't have been.

I marveled at the rare nature of this kind of event, and a friend gave an explanation that seemed quite plausible. The hummingbird was invisible to the hawk because a hawk does not look up. It only dives down to hunt. So, anything flying above him would be safe, no matter how easy a kill. I like that explanation.

Another explanation I like even better is one that tells me that there are rare occurrences when things align in a certain way, and they make you wonder about nature. I like the idea of a miracle once in a while.

My grandson will probably agree, although, since he knows the ways of the birds, he would rationalize the theory that hawks dive to hunt.

The health professional, or the illness police

2008-05-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

It seems to be hard for the average Joe to get the concept of whose responsibility it is to provide health, and who needs to pay for it so that our society is healthy and remains that way.

That got me to thinking about how law enforcement gets its funding from taxes. Nobody seems to have any problem with that. Crime fighters fight crime. So, what if we all thought of medical professionals as health enforcement. Medical personnel would be looked at as a group of people that keeps illness at bay just like police keeps crime from happening to us (of course they have to be competent, crime police as well as the health police). If we all thought in those terms, maybe it wouldn't be as difficult to convince people that we need a government single payer health plan. There will still be people who would say "why should I pay for your pain and suffering." But isn't that the same as saying "why should I pay for murders in Oakland, or closer to home, the investigation of theft of my neighbors laptop?"

Illness is not voluntary, and it has societal components. Think about it!

The beauty of my proposal would also be that "single payer" would all of a sudden be a "law and order" problem and not one that one of those damn liberals thought up.

Mercury really is dangerous

2008-05-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

I just found out how Thimerosal, I mean Merthiolate, or do I mean Mercurochrome disappeared from drug store shelves.

No, nobody actually told me. I just have this hunch.

Somebody decided that mercury actually is poisonous. Funny thing Merthiolate used to be kind of a cure-all for little scrapes and superficial infections. My husband, bless his soul, thought that dousing the scrape with it, would make it feel much better. He poured it over the back of his whole hand after he had fallen off a ladder. It made the hand feel better alright. It kept a possible infection at bay. It was just marvellous how it looked pink and cured the pain very quickly. Psychologically it gave the sense of having done all you could to help the healing process. Oh, I forgot, I am slightly off the subject. But before I go on, I want to tell you that ethyl mercury applied topically kills the pain by destroying your nerve endings. Hmm! No wonder it kills pain.

Getting back to the subject. I meant to talk about how this miracle cure was taken off the shelves. Oh, yeah, this is why. The wonderful Merthiolate was once used in hospital nurseries.

Professor Boyd Haley stated that in 1977 10 of 13 infants treated ... by topical application of Thimerosal [Merthiolate] for umbilical cord infections died of mercury toxicity. This same topical was used on adolescents without obvious ill effects which strongly supports the concept that infants are very susceptible to Thimerosal toxicity.

Would we not have heard about that in the news media? No, too hot a topical, or did I mean topic? In order not to alarm the population, the maker of Merthiolate took the substance of the market. Guess why we didn't read anything about that in the newspapers. I venture to say, it was hidden from the consumer in order not to alert us, and to keep legal consequences from hitting the manufacturer of Merthiolate. I guess it was out-of-sight out-of-mind in the same way as calomel (a teething powder containing mercury that in the 1940s caused pink disease, also know as acrodynia) was taken off the market. For some children it was fatal, some wound up retarded. Oh, I know we didn't hear about that in the news, either. I don't wonder why? Do you still wonder why?

On Investigating

2008-05-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

A while back a mother wrote a book about how to write about a subject entitle "Bird by Bird". It talked about how to start a report about a subject you don't know. You investigate bid by bird and then write about it.

This concept was brought home during the tortuous history of my son Erik's illness. If the doctors had done what a good detective does, eliminate all the possibilities of what might might cause illness "bird by bird", they would have found what he has a long time ago. Just because the symptoms don't fit, doesn't mean that they don't exist. It takes looking. Complexity is usually the nature of a difficult case. The process of elimination may be boring and tedious. But is the only way that answers can be found that are not obvious.

There is a saying among doctors that goes something like this: If you hear a herd of horses don't think zebras. That is supposed to mean don't think of the least likely possibility. But to counter that one could also say: If you hear a herd of horses, don't think of zebras, but if you look and you see the herd running by, and all the horses are striped black and white, you shouldn't convince yourself that those are horses and not zebras.

Another word: confabulation

2008-05-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia says the following about "confabulation": confabulation, also known as false memory is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories. [1] Confabulation can result from both organic and psychological causes.

People who confabulate tell stories that might be construed as lies by the listener. The person with this syndrome is not aware of his non-sensical behavior.

I mentioned the word "confabulation" in a previous blog in the context of alcohol intoxication. In reality, however, confabulation happens much more often as a symptom of vitamin B1 deficiency otherwise known as beri beri. It is then known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. This syndrome occurs in alcoholics because they tend to be deficient in vitamin B1 or Thiamine.

Beri beri was a deficiency disease that killed many thousands of people in the 19th century especially in China because polished rice became the food of choice, and nobody knew why people became disabled with beri beri and died.

Confabulation is not the only symptom of Vitamin B1 deficiency. But it is one that is puzzling and potentially, just like erethism, not recognized as a physical problem. The first person to, usually, see a person who confabulates is a psychiatrist, and he won't necessarily test for mere vitamin deficiency.

One more thing, a person who is mercury-poisoned might also be Vitamin B1 deficient because mercury denatures the vitamin because it attaches itself to the sulfur contained in it. Thus it renders it an impostor or mimic. The human organism deals with it as a toxin, while, at the same time, it cannot use the vitamin for vital functions.

Guest services

2008-04-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

Strange word, that, "Guest Services". I was told that was the place to go to for grievances, to complain about medical treatment issues. First of all: Guest? Is a patient at a hospital a "Guest"? I suppose in a very loose way--if you consider a hospital a place to stay, as in a hotel,--a patient is a "Guest". The fact that Stanford Hospital calls its grievance facility "Guest Services" is meant to make it difficult for a patient to find the complaint department. It is meant to obfuscate. It is meant to start the patient on a process that, from the beginning, leads the patient to an odd feeling of not being taken seriously. If I, the patient, can't take the word "Guest Services" seriously, I am not likely to expect much from them.

My husband and I have spoken to "Guest Services" several times. The response was of a "cordial" nature. But did "Guest Services" appear to affect a really sincere response? No, the response appears like a conversation that has not gone beyond the narrow field of those working on the complaint. It is like being in Mobius strip. The actors are never really agents of serious change. They wind up as they started out, dissatisfied and alone. The real problem is not addressed. The people in risk management have arranged it that way. They are happy because they know that dragging things out is a win. It eventually drags things beyond the statute of limitations. Is that a way to treat your "guests"? I am interested in changing things. The statute of limitations has run out a long time ago. And the hospital doesn't even know how little risk there is in improving patient care if they could only break out of that endless loop.

What's in a word: Erethism

2008-04-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Erethism is the constellation of irritability, excitability, anxiety, insomnia, and social withdrawal. Erethism traditionally is seen in the chronic phase of the toxicity.

This definition comes from an e-medicine website under the title Mercury. Erethism is essentially one of the manifestations of mercury poisoning. This condition is easily recognized when you know a person who has it. It is not benign and it is a catastrophe for the family who has to deal with a person afflicted by this.

The main difficulty is in the diagnosis because mercury poisoning has been and is a condition that is not being taken seriously. It's more likely that the chronically mercury-poisoned person is considered a mental case, and since mental patients go to psychiatrists, they don't get taken seriously when they ask their doctor to look for a physical condition.

Alcohol poisoning is such a condition. It expresses itself as a mental derangement, and because everyone knows that a person who is under the influence of alcohol, will have all the mental signs of alcohol-poisoning: slurred speech, lack of balance, and, when it gets bad, confabulation, that means telling stories that are on the face of it lies, but not perceived as such by the person telling them.

Since alcohol can be measured in the blood, there is physical proof. With mercury poisoning, proof is not so easy to come by. The only time when there is real physical proof of mercury poisoning, is during the first couple of days after exposure, or when the dose is so high that there are not enough places for the mercury to attach itself to tissues in the kidney, the liver, brain, skin etc. Another way to find out about the real status of a person's level of mercury is a challenge test with a chelator such as DMSA or DMPS. Neither of those two substances, and the required tests are covered by health care providers.

What I would like to see in the future is at least the option to look for a cause of erethism. Let's hope the time will come when erethism can be eradicated.

A blooming cascade of roses

2008-04-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

Beauty comes and goes. My rose trellis spanning the gate appears like a wave over the fence. It's the nature of spring that allows this magnificent spectacle.

The yellow flowers are going to be gone shortly and the whole gate will have to come down. The fence got damaged during the winter storm, and the whole structure will have to be rebuilt. I'll take a picture to keep that memory.

The forget-me-nots and the blue hyacinths and the sour grass are the treasures that wealth cannot buy. They grow there wild. Yes, give me grass with weeds any day. The imperfections of nature are more joy than any money can buy.

I cleaned up around the house; I guess it's called spring cleaning. Some of the cobwebs must stay, though. The spiders must live. I am looking forward to rid myself of a number of tangled cobwebs of the mind. Cobwebs made by ghost spiders are expendable.

Top online picks for viewing

2008-03-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the following two webcasts:

http://www.mercurypoisoned.com/

http://wildhorse.insinc.com/directms13oct2005/

The first one, available through a web page on mercury poisoning, is a rerun of a 1990 segment of 60 Minutes. It covers the effects of dental amalgam and shows how micromercurialism damages the organism. I couldn't believe how little has been accomplished in the last 18 years. This segment could have been run last Sunday, and no one, except Morley Safer, who, of course looks a bit older now, would know the difference.

The second one is a lecture from 2005 by Professor Vieth from Calgary, Canada, talking about Vitamin D and recently discovered benefits of vitamin D.

Who's the laughing third?

2008-03-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

The presidential campaign is anything but presidential. I want to vote for a democrat. But all I see is bickering. It's as if the democratic party is trying to self-destruct. Two perfectly good candidates are fighting it out, and on the side of the fence sits Loki the raven laughing. Are the news media paid to arrange a prize fight?

Change Congress

2008-03-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

I listened to Professor Lessig's talk and slide show. He lays out his idea of exactly what is needed to change Congress' way of conducting itself in a climate of increasing distrust. Here is the url for the slide show:

http://change-congress.blip.tv/#770720

The type of corruption Professor Lessig is talking about is not one that is tied to money directly but more to a consensus of how the political machine animates dependence on being paid. To tell what Professor Lessig means, it is necessary to watch the slides together with his talk:

http://change-congress.blip.tv/#770720

I am happy to let this message be the only one that comes from my heart and mind today. Today is Easter. It is time for renewal. It is time for a new way of seeing things. It is high time and none too soon.

The Alzheimer's autism connection

2008-03-08T23:55:00.001-08:00

It has been postulated that mercury might cause Alzheimer's. It has also been postulated that mercury might cause autism. What if Alzheimer's is the same as autism, and the only difference is that Alzheimer's is inflicted on those with advancing age, and autism is inflicted on the young? I thought about that while reading an article in Science Magazine that stated that a test for Alzheimer's has been approved that uses the varying forms (alleles) of ApoE as markers for Alzheimer's risk.

The question is asked whether it is a good thing to know about your prospects of developing Alzheimer's. If the gene for ApoE 4/4 is the genetic marker for early onset Alzheimer's and signifies a very high risk for a person to develop the disease, and ApoE 2/2 is likely to protect a person from that devastating outcome, wouldn't the knowledge of having the bad gene give impetus for finding a way to either possibly change the environment to keep the gene from exerting its devastating influence or work on a future (genetically engineered) substance to improve a person's outcome? It is known that ApoE has three expressions: ApoE 2, ApoE 3, and ApoE 4 (those are enzymes). The difference between the three versions is how much sulfur is attached to each. The good version contains the most sulfur. The bad version doesn't contain any. It is known that mercury loves sulfur.

Autism and Alzheimer's might be caused by mercury poisoning. Carrying the thought a little further, it is known that those ApoEnzymes are the only enzymes that can transport mercury out of the brain so it can be excreted.

Since these enzymes are genetically already in the baby at conception, one might wonder if mercury might not be the reason for autism in a child with an ApoE 4 gene? Going on from here, wouldn't it be good to know whether a baby has the bad gene so that the mother can be more vigilant? The mother might keep her child away from mercury, i.e. her own mercury-amalgams, eating fish, getting flu shots without mercury, or any other mercury exposure.

Oh yes, and Alzheimer's, one might stay away from mercury in order not to get Alzheimer's.

Waves of trivialities

2008-02-22T23:58:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that the media are flooding us with trivialities. On the cheap we get suffocated by endless stories about this murderer or that vane actress or one more hyped up election campaign soundbite. What's going on? Have we lost our perspective? We are lunching on the familiar of whom we love to hate, all fanned by the words of our newscasters. Are all the stories we get through the media worth more than what we experience in our private lives? I see that the real stories are right here at home. They evolve and they hang there with little consequence for now. Neighbors are fading because we are too busy. It is more important that a presidential candidate's former aides are leaving to support the current favorite, like rats leaving the sinking ship. Maybe that's understandable, in face of the need to secure a job in a future administration. Is that what we want to be, though? Do we want to be mercenaries looking only for who pays us best for our loyalties? Television has become our surrogate friend, and companion and distraction. We look at our sports teams as our vicarious tribes, our lost families, our nation's hope. But real life goes on underneath, unnoticed and unloved. There are real people out there full of fear that reality has left no one to care for them, and they are going to react sooner or later. I hope it is not too late for us to turn the tide.