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SECTION III

A CONSIDERATION OF ALTERNATIVES TO
ENSURING NATURAL IMMUNITY

The Soil as Chief Determinant of Health and The Foundation of Public Health Policy
Insightful Experiments
Soil Re-Mineralization--A Return To Primeval Conditions
Soil Dietetics and Disease
Key Nutritional Measures in Preventing Infectious Disease
Vitamin A
Vitamin C
  I. Viral Infections
  II. Bacterial Infections
  III. Phagocytotic Activity
  IV. Conclusion
  A New and Better Strategy
General Conclusion on Appropriate Alternatives
Conclusion

THE SOIL AS CHIEF DETERMINANT OF HEALTH AND THE FOUNDATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY

In recognition of the indubitable axiom that all forms of life derive their basic sustenance from the earth itself, it remains equally evident that any policy to ensure public health must first and foremost be predicated on ensuring the quality and integrity of the soil. Prominent British horticulturist Sampson Morgan offers the following incisive observation.

My long continued studies in the dust have convinced me that diseases in soils, plants and men arise from conditions, brought about by the introduction of poisons and by imperfect environment,- and experiments have satisfied me beyond doubt that this is the natural and correct explanation.¹⁹¹

Indeed there is a substantial basis for suggesting that it is of the highest importance that health and development ministries in both industrialized and Developing World nations should henceforth predicate their strategic health policies upon a practical recognition that the treatment and condition of the soil is by far the most critical determinant of health (whether in plants, animals, or human beings). In his seminal research on the underlying causes of the outstanding health and longevity among the population of Hunza--a society that until very recently has remained essentially free of medical intervention--G.T. Wrench aptly concluded:

The importance of the method of culture of food is primary, radical, and fundamental in the matter of health. It exceeds all other aspects of nutrition. . . Nature endows life with a powerful, eternal capacity to renew itself healthfully, given the right conditions. The genes know nothing of diseases.¹⁹²

Shelton seconds this conclusion in his observation that through the relatively simple measure of building up our soils, crops can be freed of fungal infections. In his view fungi, which live at the expense of living plants, "are incapable of successfully attacking one that is completely healthy. . . . In plant, as in animals, the nutritional status largely determine the . . . soundness . . . of tissue developments.¹⁹³

INSIGHTFUL EXPERIMENTS

The historically significant experiments of Sir Albert Howard, British Imperial Economic Botanist, based in India in the first quarter of this century, confirm the correctness of this view. Through natural soil feeding and regeneration methods, the plants and crops under his management demonstrated continuous improvements to the point of being impervious to all forms of disease as well as insect pests. Speaking of his organic gardens and orchards at Indore, he stated that during seven years of observation "I cannot recall a single case of insect or fungus attack." Indeed it was his studied opinion that:

. . . plant diseases . . . only attack unsuitable varieties or crops improperly grown. Their true role in agriculture is that of censors for pointing out the crops which are imperfectly nourished. Disease resistance seems to be the natural reward of healthy and well-nourished protoplasm. The policy of protecting crops from pests by means of sprays, powders and so forth is thoroughly unscientific and radically unsound; even when successful, this procedure merely preserves material hardly worth saving. The annihilation or avoidance of a pest . . . are mere evasions.

However, Sir Howard's most vital findings pertained to the animals feeding on his crops who in turn developed total freedom from disease and deformities.

For twenty-one years I was able to study the reaction of the well-fed animals to epidemic diseases such as rinderpest, hoof-and-mouth disease, septicaemia, and so forth, which frequently devastated the countryside. None of my animals were segregated, none were inoculated; they frequently came in contact with diseased stock. No case of infectious disease occurred.¹⁹⁴

This calls to mind a personal interview I conducted with A. Kalokerinos, Chief Medical Officer at the Aboriginal Health Clinic in Redfern (Sydney), Australia. He related an experience wherein cattle feeding on grass grown on re-mineralized soil, were grazing literally nose to nose--at the fence line--with another herd infected with hoof and mouth disease. Without the benefit of any specific protective measures including vaccines, the uninfected herd manifested total immunity.

In returning to the subject of insect pests, we find that there is clear evidence that insects have an innate ability to detect mineral defeciencies and imbalances--even at a subtle level--in plants, and selectively devour only those which are deficient or imbalanced. According to horticulturist S. Mueller "Satellite photographs of Africa have shown how gigantic flights of locusts will cover thousands of miles ignoring healthy vegetation, then descending and destroying fields where the soil is wom out.¹⁹⁵

This and the earlier observations made on the relationship of microbes to human disease, parallels the view that pathogenic microorganisms act as nature's censors, proliferating only when the host's psychophysiology has been imbalanced and weakened by factors such as stress, malnutrition, endo and environmental toxins, etc. Sir Howard's experiences with the building of natural immunity in plants had been preceded by such great soil scientists as Julius Hensel in Germany, and Sampson Morgan in England, whose findings were later replicated by Dr. Charles Northern and Albert Savage in North America.

These scientists employed soil re-mineralization and regeneration techniques, employing the use of ground stone dust or sea vegetation, and green (plant) compost, and the periodic aeration of plant or tree roots through cultivation. The results were indeed phenomenal. Marketed spinach grown on ordinary soil contained from 600 to 1,600 parts per billion of iodine, whereas spinach grown on re-mineralized soil contained as high as 640,000 parts per billion. Testing revealed that various vegetables grown in Savage's "mineral garden" possessed as much as 400% more iron and other minerals than crops grown by standard methods.¹⁹⁶

SOIL RE-MINERALIZATION--A RETURN TO PRIMEVAL CONDITIONS

The necessity of soil re-mineralization is based on the premise that over the millennia the earth's surface has undergone a progressive erosion of both its major and trace minerals. As well, the widespread and serious de-mineralization problem has been vastly exacerbated in this century by deforestation, massive mono-culture cropping, and heavy agrochemical dependency. Today the only place where the full range of vital minerals can be found is in the seabeds where streams and rivers have carried them, or in the earth's rocks. Thus the utilization of sea plants and rock dust became a central feature in strategic efforts to achieve balanced soil re-mineralization.

The place of soil re-mineralization--as a fundamental health strategy--is corroborated not only by experimenters in improving plant and animal wellness, but as well in prehistoric fossil records. For instance, paleopathologist Roy L. Moodie has found that "the early faunas were free of disease" and that "the most ancient bacteria were harmless," i.e., non-pathogenic in nature. He maintains that "There are no known cases or examples of infection, no tumors, few traumatic lesions or injuries of any kind prior to Devonian" and that "the earliest animals were free from disease.¹⁹⁷ It is also worth noting in this regard that the earliest book of antiquity in the Judeo-Christian record, Genesis, gives no account of any specific human diseases, and as well makes no reference to conditions such as imbecility, blindness, deaffiess, or other deformities.

SOIL DIETETICS AND DISEASE

In reviewing a modern text-book of domesticated crop diseases, one is as appalled by their number and variety as one is by the list of human illnesses in a text-book of medicine. The correlation is remarkable. We find in both a number of deficiency diseases; excess diseases; parasitic diseases; virus diseases; diseases due to insufficient or defective water, oxygen and sunlight; those associated with excessive heat or cold; chemical induced diseases (i.e., spraying/drugging); and last but not least multiple degenerative and deformity diseases. How did the major share of these diseases come into being? By cause, or mere chance? Wrench answers:

I take it that what has happened to man has happened no less to his domesticated plants. Science has effected a marvelous progress in variety and fragmentation, but at the same time it has torn plants from their traditional conditions upon which their health depends. . . . here is, no doubt, I think, that modern man has made plant life in his own image.¹⁹⁸

Part of today's larger shift toward environmental responsibility and sustainability, are the commendable efforts to reduce excessive dependency on soil and plant chemicals in agricultural methods. However, the growing impetus toward "organic" approaches to agriculture relies heavily upon manure fertilizers. On this point Shelton comments that ". . . it has long been known that heavy manuring of the soil results in the plants grown thereon being subject to parasitic infestation because of their lack of health.¹⁹⁹

Morgan also contends that fertilizers derived from stable manure or of animal origin (as well as chemicals), were significantly injurious to the health of soil and plants. In fact, he maintains that their widespread use has served to create conditions of disease and degeneration consecutively in soil, plant, animal and human life. In his words:

I have proved that susceptibility to disease is greatest with large dressings of dung. It is the main cause of fungoid infections of plants . . . and bad eyesight, bad teeth, and kindred troubles in human beings. . . . As to [chemical] fertilizers, they often deplete the soil of its fertility and induce acidity. . . . ²⁰⁰

His experimental work in England in the early part of this century, closely paralleled those of Sir Howard in India. The farms surrounding his own--all employing conventional agribusiness methods--were struck again and again over the years by multiple forms of disease and a variety of pests. Morgan's vast fruit orchards, vegetable gardens and grain fields thrived, totally immune' to these perennial problems.²⁰¹ (For more background discussion on the need and potential for achieving an enhanced agricultural system that is more conducive to ensuring natural immunity, in plants, animals, and man please refer to Annex II--Agrochemical Agriculture--the Need for a Saner Alternative.)

Another notable and much more recent horticultural experimenter who bears mentioning is Australian David Phillips. In his outstanding book From Soil to Psyche, he maintains that when plants are deprived of vital organic and mineral nutrients and instead are stimulated to undergo enforced growth--as in the case of chemical fertilization--such plants "react by a wild development of cellular structure which is deficient in trace elements and amino acids." He goes on to affirm that:

Such poorly constituted crops cannot avoid, and must inevitably attract, any prevalent form of disease. At our own organic farms, not one papaya tree was lost during the severe disease epidemic of 1973 which followed Eastern Australia's 1972 partial drought. Every newspaper reported the severe plant losses of up to 90 percent of plantations from "three strains of virus. . ."

It was no strange or mystical phenomenon that our farm, with its organically mulched plants, registered not even a decline in crop production while other farmers in the district were bemoaning their huge losses.²⁰²

KEY NUTRITIONAL MEASURES IN PREVENTING INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Until lately disease was regarded as a sin of commission by some unseen and subtle agency. The vitamins are teaching us to regard it . . . as a sin of omission on the part of civilized and hyper-civilized man. By our habit of riveting our attention on microbes and their toxins we have sadly neglected the side of the question which concerns itself with our own bodily defenses.

Prominent British Physician--Leonard Williams

Given the necessity for limiting the scope of this document, and the wide ranging dimensions which the issue of alternatives represent, it would be impracticable to attempt to highlight all the promising directions for systematic applied research on strengthening natural immunity that exist. However, given the singular recognition that is being accorded to the role of nutrition as a lifestyle factor in both the prevention and treatment of infectious and degenerative diseases, it clearly represents a primal area for undertaking far more intensive applied research and experimentation.(The scope of viral, toxin and bacterial associated conditions to be considered in this section on nutrition and infection will not necessarily be delimited to the UCI-EPI childhood diseases.)

It seems remarkable that some of the most significant experimental and clinical based research literature that exists on the relationship between nutrition and infectious disease were published in the first half of the twentieth century. Much of this early and now largely forgotten applied research documented the considerable preventive and therapeutic values of the newly discovered vitamins. Given that the relationship between nutrition and health represents in itself a vast and complex subject, for brevity's sake this discussion on nutritional measures will necessarily be limited to an examination of the two vitamins which both clinical research and practice have revealed as holding the most significant role in the prevention and alleviation of various infectious diseases, i.e., Vitamins A and C.

VITAMIN A

Vitamin A is recognized as an essential nutrient for maintaining normal physiologic functions, including cellular differentiation, membrane integrity, vision, immunologic responses and growth. Literature dating back as far as the 1920's has noted an association between Vitamin A deficiency and an increased incidence and severity of infection,²⁰³ which led to the labeling of Vitamin A as the "anti-infective Vitamin" by Clausen. ²⁰⁴ In more recent time, Vitamin A deficiency has received considerable attention in international health circles. This has been largely due to various field studies which have linked Vitamin A deficiency with an increased risk of childhood morbidity and mortality.^{205, 206, 207}

Of these,²⁰⁶ it was observed by the field researchers that preschool children with mild xerophthalmia (night blindness and bitot's spots, a condition clearly attributable to Vitamin A deficiency) were dying at a rate ranging from 4 to 12 times greater than that of neighboring children with normal eyes and vision. (This represented an 18 month longitudinal study of 4,600 Javanese [Indonesian] preschool children from six separate communities.)

In fact such relationships persisted even after stratifying for the presence or absence of respiratory disease, protein energy malnutrition, and diarrhoea. The researchers asked but did not answer why mildly Vitamin A-deficient children died at such increased rates, "especially those who were [apparently] well nourished and seemingly free of diarrhoea and respiratory disease," which are considered the major causes of childhood mortality in developing countries.

The first major controlled field study to be published in an established medical journal detailing an observed relationship between Vitamin A deficiency and infectious disease, ²⁰⁷ reported on the results of a randomized, community trial of Vitamin A supplementation in northern Sumatra (Indonesia). 450 villages were randomly assigned to either participate in a Vitamin A supplementation scheme (229 villages), or serve for one year as a control (221 villages). The study observed that among children aged 1 to 6 years at baseline, the death rate in the 221 control villages--which did not receive the vitamin nor any placebo--was 49% greater than in those villages where supplementation was given. (Although the study was actually designed to examine nutritional blindness, these unanticipated results were found when comparing mortality rates between the treatment and the control villages.)

Despite such promising findings, the posture of the medical community has generally been one of either questioning the "validity" of the research methodology and findings, or of putting the brakes on initiating any actual policy and or programming changes. To quote a 1990 statement of Kjolhede and Gadomski of Johns Hopkins University in response to the various Sommer et al studies:

Because scientific evidence relating to Vitamin A is being generated by diverse sources, and because there is a paucity of data strictly relevant to childhood survival in developing countries, the implications of these and other findings have been dijficult to translate into specific policies and programmatic recommendations.²⁰⁸

According to secondary research carried out by Mamdani and Ross, and reported in their exhaustive article "Vitamin A supplementation and child survival: magic bullet or false hope?,"²⁰⁹ Vitamin A deficiency represents". . . a major nutritional problem among preschool children in many countries of Africa, Asia, as well as some areas of Central and and South America." In fact an estimated 250,000 young children will go blind each year due to a lack of Vitamin A in their diets, while another 250,000 will experience lesser degrees of permanent impairment of vision due to corneal damage; (According to West and Sommer, an estimated 700,000 preschool children will develop active corneal lesions; and 6,700,000 new children will manifest mild Vitamin A deficiency annually. As well--at any one time--an estimated 20 to 40 million are suffering from mild levels of Vitamin A deficiency.) ²¹⁰ with up to 75 percent of the blinded children dying within a few months of the blinding episode. The literature indicates that the association between "severe Vitamin A deficiency and infant and child mortality has been established for some time." The authors go on to conclude that:

An association between Vitamin A deficiency and infectious diseases, in particular diarrhoea, respiratory infections and measles--which are among the most important causes of death during childhood in the Developing World--has significant policy implications. . . .

Overall, the balance of evidence suggests that Vitamin A deficiency does lead to an increased risk of infections such as measles, respiratory infections and diarrhoea, and hence to an increased risk of death. Conversely, the evidence suggests--but as yet does not prove conclusively--that Vitamin A supplementation, or other strategies' ^{211 (}Other strategies include the fortification of selected commercial foods which are commonly consumed, and dietary modifications. The latter measure includes a "long term solution," i.e., the increased production of Vitamin A-rich foods through home, school, and community gardens, wherever climate and soil conditions permit. An example where the increased production and distribution of garden produce--coupled to basic nutrition education--worked well was the Applied Nutrition Program in Tamil Nadu, India. Mothers diagnosed as anaemic and VitaminA deficient were given access to this produce. Examination, after six months, revealed "considerable" improvements to their general nutritional status, along with the "disappearance of all the clinical signs of Vitamin A deficiency. ²¹¹) for improving Vitamin A status, would lead to a decrease in the incidence and/or the severity of these infections and of the substantial mortality associated with them. The magnitude of this potential effect remains unclear, however, though the evidence from the Indonesian studies implies that it may be substantial.²¹²

It is encouraging that as of 1987 the following nations have already adopted home gardening as a national priority: Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Dominica, Honduras, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and SriLanka.²¹³

VITAMIN C

In introducing the subject of Vitamin C, it would be fitting to share the following observation made by the Australian microbiologist/physician team of Dettman and Kalokerinos, who over many years have conducted wide ranging research--both secondary and original--on the prophylactic and therapeutic potential of Vitamin C.

If you were offered a substance that could assist with the endogenous production of interferon and PGE1, that activated enzyme systems, assisted with mineral uptake and collagen production, aided healing, prevented capillary fragility and stimulated renal function, was capable of curing both viral and bacterial infections, was a universal detoxifier effective against drugs and venomous bites and was currently being used more and more in the treatment of degenerative diseases, you would rightly scoff. More particularly if you were told that this substance was Vitamin C, yet all these claims and more have been documented and put to clinical trial.²¹⁴

As we go on to examine what is indeed a vast body of experimental and clinical data on Vitamin C, we find that there are indeed substantive evidences for its efficacy as a low cost, perfectly safe, and wide spectrum anti-viral, anti-toxic and anti-bacterial agent. Internationally noted biochemist Irwin Stone has alone described and documented a wide range of applied biomedical research and clinical experience employing 122 literature citations--spanning a 40 year period showing its marked efficacy as a prophylactic and therapeutic agent.²¹⁵ In obtaining and reviewing a number of the original source documents cited by Stone--relative to Vitamin C and the infectious diseases--it was both amazing and perplexing that so little of this vital knowledge which was discovered earlier in this century is being further researched and or utilized today.

I. Viral Infections

Within a relatively limited timeframe after the 1933 discovery of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and its identification as an anti-scorbutic (scurvy) substance, a diverse range of researchers found that ascorbic acid had significant potential as a wide-spectrum antiviral agent. Throughout the 30's in rapid succession Jungeblut showed that ascorbic acid would inactivate the virus found in poliomyelitis; ²¹⁶ Holden and Molley, inactivation of the herpes virus; ²¹⁷Lagenbusch and Enderling, inactivation of the virus found in hoof and mouth disease; ²¹⁸ and Amato, inactivation of the rabies virus.²¹⁹ It should be noted that Jungeblut observed that the "antiviral" effect of Vitamin C is not due to the acid reaction of the ascorbic acid, since it occurs also when the latter has been adjusted to a pH at which the virus remain "unharmed."²²⁰

Jungeblut continued his experimental work at Columbia University with primates in which he demonstrated that a scheduled administration of ascorbic acid both enhanced resistance to poliomyelitis, and in cases of infection markedly reduced the severity of the disease. His experiments also demonstrated a very marked superiority in the level of effectiveness of natural source ascorbic acid, versus the laboratory synthesized product. For example in one experimental series, "the percentage of non-paralytic survivors following treatment with natural Vitamin C was about six times as large as that of the untreated controls," whereas" in the animals treated with synthetic Vitamin C this percentage was only twice that of the controls.²²¹ (Despite such promising early findings, no serious or systematic efforts were made by organized medicine during this historical time period to incorporate the vitamin as a prophylactic or therapeutic agent.)

However, the later results achieved in the direct clinical practice of North Carolina physician F. Klenner approached the extraordinary. He graphically describes--from his own practice and other sources--the substantive efficacy of this vitamin in preventing and/or reversing pathological and life threatening conditions which literally extend over "the entire gamut of medical knowledge." The following list details the range of conditions as described in this and other journal articles by Klenner. Although viral related conditions are being discussed in this section, a few bacterial diseases have been included in this list and are italicized for identification (the list also includes some serious toxic and degenerative conditions).

He describes the role played by ascorbic acid in intercellular reactions and its neutralization and perceived control of virus production. Its enzymic action contributes to the breakdown of virus nucleic acid to adenosine deaminase which converts to inosine. The end result are purines which are "extensively catabilized." As well, when ascorbic acid joins the available virus protein, it results in a new macromolecule which acts as the "repressor factor." In fact it has been "demonstrated that when combined with the repressor, the operator gene, virus nuclcic acid, cannot react with any other substance and cannot induce activity in the structural gene, therefore inhibiting the multiplication of new virus bodies.²²³

Writing in an early article published in the Journal of Southern Medicine and Surgery, he ascribes the relative limitations in success as attained in much of the earlier experimental results with Vitamin C, to the very low dosage levels used. Conversely, the key to his unprecedented clinical achievements lay in the much higher dosage he administered. He comments:

The years of labor in animal experimentations; the cost in human effort and "grants, and the volumes written, make it difficult to understand how so many investigators could have failed in comprehending the one thing that would have given positive results [i.e., to the degree Klenner attained] a decade ago. This one thing was the size and frequency of its administration. ²²⁴

In the same article he goes on to describe:

• a measles epidemic in which "Vitamin C was used prophylactically," in which without exception all who received 1 gram every six hours either intravenously or intramuscularly "were protected from the virus."
• In treating 60 acute cases of poliomyelitis, (in a number, the diagnosis was confirmed by lumbar puncture, with cell counts ranging from 33 to 125) for the first 24 hours, 1 to 2 grams depending on age--of Vitamin C was administered every second to fourth hour (intramuscularly in children up to four years). For the following 48 hour period the 1 to 2 gram dosage was given only every sixth hour, with all 60 patients diagnosed "clinically well" within 72 hours from the commencement of treatment.
• Six cases of virus encephalitis were similarly treated with Vitamin C injections, and all without exception made dramatic recoveries.
• Diphtheria was successfully treated using the same intensive treatment method "in half the time required to remove the membrane and get negative smears by antitoxin.²²⁵

Summarily, Klenner could well affirm that "we have been able to assemble sufficient clinical evidence to prove unequivocally that Vitamin C is the antibiotic of choice in the handling of all types of virus diseases." As well he demonstrated--through trial and experimentation--that where tissue levels of the vitamin are maintained, an environment that is extremely unfavourable for virtually all forms of viral infection is created in the human body.²²⁶

II. Bacterial Infections

Within five years of the discovery of Vitamin C, research studies were being published in the medical literature on the clear association between scurvy and the prescorbutic state (both evidencing Vitamin C deficiency) to a range of infections (both bacterial and viral) in guinea pigs and humans.²²⁷

Beginning in this same time period other applied researchers discovered that ascorbic acid has both bacteriostatic (inhibiting) and bactericidal (destroying) properties. For example, researchers Gupta and Guha, demonstrated that 2 milligram percent (2 mg% is equivalent to 2 parts of ascorbic acid to 100,000 parts of bacterial suspension) inhibited staphylococcus aureus, and B. typhosus. The same inhibitive effect was produced at 5 mg% for B. diphtheria, and streptococcus hemolyticus.²²⁸ Whereas Sirsi reported that 10 mg% was sufficient to destroy virulent strains of M. tuberculosis.²²⁹ Other researchers found that ascorbic acid was effective in completely neutralizing and rendering harmless a wide variety of bacterial toxins. These included: diphtheria--Jungeblut and Zwemer,²³⁰ tetanus Jungeblut; ²³¹ staphylococcus--Kodama and Kojima; ²³² and dysentery--Takahashi. ²³³

In a revealing nutritional status survey conducted close to mid-century on the aboriginal population in Northern Manitoba (Canada), it was found that the most prevalent micro-nutrient deficiency was Vitamin C, i.e., on average less than 1/71 the recommended daily allowance. At the time, the death rate from tuberculosis among this group stood at 1,400 per 100,000 in comparison to 27 per 100,000 in the white population. The researchers concluded ". . . it is probable that the Indian's great susceptibility to many diseases, paramount amongst which is tuberculosis, may be attributable . . . to their high degree of malnutrition arising from lack of proper foods.²³⁴

Charpy reports on a clinical trial where 15 grams (15,000 milligrams) of ascorbic acid were administered daily to a group of extremely advanced (terminal) Tuberculosis patients. (Of the six to be tested one actually died before the trial could begin). The five patients who were fortunate enough to receive this treatment, all underwent a spectacular transformation in their general condition, and not only left their beds, but within a six to eight month period had regained from 20 to 70 pounds in body weight. As an added point of interest, each patient had cumulatively taken about 3 kilograms (3,000,000 milligrams) of ascorbic acid during the test period with absolute safety and perfect tolerance.²³⁵

Hochwald employed injections of 1/2 gram of ascorbic acid every one-and-a-half hours (6 grams in a 12 hour period) in croupous pneumonia until the fever and local symptoms subsided. The speed with which this treatment worked was so rapid that it was actually possible within the first day to practically eliminate all local symptoms of infection including the fever, and to attain a normalization of blood counts.²³⁶

Two articles in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported on oral Vitamin C therapy i.e., 1/2 gram the first day, followed by an average 1/5gram each day thereafter--on 29 pertussis (whooping cough) patients. The researchers concluded that "this treatment markedly decreases the intensity, number and duration of the characteristic symptoms.²³⁷

In DeWit's clinical experimentation in the Netherlands 1/2 gram of ascorbic acid was administered daily in the treatment of children with pertussis for a period of one week, after which it was gradually reduced stepwise. Of the 90 children treated (who were divided into 3 comparable groups) the duration of the illness was 15 days for those receiving the injections, 20 days for oral recipients, and 34 days for the control group who did not receive the vitamin in any form, but had alternately received the newly developed vaccine.²³⁸

Other clinical trials on the reversal of human bacterial infections by ascorbic acid exist in the biomedical literature, e.g., in the treatment of leprosy, typhoid fever and dysentery. In these various reports, without exception, the level of success as reported correlates directly with the amount of dosage administered.²³⁹

III. Phagocytotic Activity

From an historical perspective, it is of interest that as early as 1943 Cotingham and Mills demonstrated the necessity for the presence of ascorbic acid in maintaining defensive phagocytotic activity.²⁴⁰ It appears that their important discovery remained largely unknown. However, three decades later the rediscovery and public pronouncement of this same finding by DeChatelet et al, did at least generate wide newspaper coverage, if not any real impact on medical practice.²⁴¹

IV. Conclusion

Not unlike earlier clinicians who employed Vitamin C prophylactically and therapeutically, R. Catheart's extensive clinical experience led him to conclude that proportional to the level of ascorbic acid depletion, there would follow human immune system failure, consequently increasing the susceptibility and potential manifestation of a wide range of disorders including various acute, secondary, and chronic infections (viral and bacterial), allergic reactions, inflammatory and collagen diseases, as well as an impaired ability to heal.²⁴²

It was the Noble Prize Laureate Linus Pauling who made the observation that:

I have been astonished . . . that in the last quarter of the twentieth century a single substance would be recognized to be helpful no matter what disease a person is suffering from. . . . Vitamin C is such a substance . . . by its involvement in many biochemical reactions in the human body it makes the body's natural defenses more powerful, and it is these natural defenses that provide most of our resistance to disease.²⁴³

In considering the practical implications and strategic importance of the knowledge of Vitamin C relative to the issue of child survival in the Developing World, it would be worthwhile to conclude this discussion of Vitamin C with the following summarization of Canadian Physician W. McConnick.

From increasing evidence of the anti-toxic and anti-infectious action of Vitamin C, and from personal clinical experience in the prophylactic and therapeutic application of this vitamin, the author is firmly convinced that the major factor in bringing about . . . [the major decline in] infectious disease incidence has been the steady and phenomenal increase in the consumption of Vitamin C-rich fruits . . . during the period in question.

In many cases of deficiency, where the dietary intake indicates a subnormal intake of Vitamin C over a lengthy period, the correlated clinical history shows repeated occurrence of infectious processes. . . . The author has made intensive application of Vitamin C therapy, orally and parenterally, in many . . . infectious diseases . . . with results in every case even more rapid and favorable than could be expected from the use of the modern antibiotics, and with the added advantage of complete exemption from toxic or allergic reactions. ²⁴⁴

A New and Better Strategy

From the foregoing evidence it is clear that a markedly greater emphasis on the development of home, school, and community horticultural and gardening crop production of Vitamin A and C rich foods designed to increase local consumption--coupled to appropriate cormnunity nutrition education campaigns, could in and of itself make significant inroads in reversing the phenomena of infectious disease in today's Developing World.

GENERAL CONCLUSION ON APPROPRIATE ALTERNATIVES

To summarize and conclude the vital issue of what constitutes a more appropriate policy alternative in the effective prevention of human disease--whether infectious or degenerative--we must return to what are the original and thus fundamentally legitimate sources of health immune system success. There is indeed an abundance of evidence confirming the fact that multiple lifestyle factors are not only effective in preventing and reversing degenerative diseases, but the full range of infectious diseases as well. Having already reviewed two key nutrient factors in relation to the prevention and cure of infections, what follows is a concise cross-sampling of research demonstrating the role of other lifestyle and nutrition factors in strengthening natural immunity.

1. Evidence suggests that physical exercise can enhance natural killer cell ftinction; and elevate interferon, serum leukocyte, and interleukin-1 levels. (Interleukin-1 enhances both B and T lymphocyte activity and is involved in the body's initial response to infection and inflammation; ²⁴⁵ while interferon is known to arrest the reproduction of viruses, and is vital in reversing many forms of viral infection including hepatitis, chicken pox, herpes simplex and zoster etc.²⁴⁶
2. Recent studies have documented that even sub-clinical levels of "malnutrition and deficiencies of vitamins, minerals and trace elements" have been linked to the "impairment of immune responses.²⁴⁷
3. A reduction in dietary fat in humans, correlates with a strengthening of natural killer cell activity.²⁴⁸ It has also been shown in vitro that polyunsaturated fats weaken lymphocyte ability to respond to antigens.²⁴⁹
4. Even brief periods of sleep deprivation (7 hours) have been linked to dramatic decreases in basic host immune responses.²⁵⁰
5. "Stressful conditions can profoundly suppress immune responses of blood and splenic lymphocytes, including T-cell mitogenesis, natural killer cell activity, production of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon, and IL-2 receptor expression."²⁵¹
6. Bodily exposure to ultraviolet rays as found in natural sunlight, significantly strengthens the immune system. For example:

   * It increases the number of lymphocytes, antibodies (mostly gamma globulins), and lymphocyte produced interferon. As well, the effectiveness of neutrophils in engulfing bacteria can be at least doubled; ²⁵²

   * A 12 year study of male college students revealed that only 10 minutes of irradiation with ultra violet light, up to 3 times weekly during the winter months, reduced colds by up to 40.3 percent; ²⁵³ under similar treatment during Winter, there was observed a greatly increased resistance to a range of infectious diseases in Russian children.²⁵⁴

   * Truly dramatic results have been and can be achieved in treating a broad range of both viral and bacterial associated diseases.²⁵⁵

   * The current medical concept pictures a sun that is destructive to human health, i.e., responsible for accelerating the aging of the skin, and the prime causative factor behind the now endemic onset of skin cancers. However, extensively documented research on the health effects of both sunlight and nutrition by Kime clearly point to the fact that "the highly refined western diet plays the leading role, both in the aging process and in the development of skin cancer.²⁵⁶

7. Alcohol is an "immunosuppressive drug with far reaching consequences," e.g., it interferes significantly with antibacterial defense, and adversely affects cell-mediated immunity, thereby increasing risks for viral infections, tuberculosis, and neoplasia (tumor formation).²⁵⁷ Alcohol inhibits the normal function of B lymphocytes, with as little as 3 ounces (2 drinks) reducing antibody production to1/3 normal amounts.²⁵⁸ It has been documented that there is increased susceptibility to HIV (AIDS associated virus), with the virus growing more rapidly when even moderate intake levels (e.g., 4 beers) are taken, immune suppression lasting 3-7 hours with T-cells producing less interleukin-2, and T-suppresser cells producing less of the soluble immune response suppression factor.²⁵⁹
   
   
8. Smoking of cigarettes weakens host defenses against bacteria and viruses, including the impairment of macrophage function.²⁶⁰

Table G on the following page provides a fully rational explication of the dynamic processes and factors determining health (natural immunity) and disease. In reviewing this table, we may safely conclude that our individual and collective states of "health" and "disease" depends essentially upon our understanding of and respect for nature. Indeed we must come to the ultimate realization that it is in the very best interest of humankind to seek and to obey the voice of nature, with the assurance that the consequences of this commitment will be sound and lasting health of both body and mind.

Table G -- Psycho-Physiological Integrity-The Health and Disease Continuum

Life healing--i.e., vital systemic cleansing, balancing, reparative and renewal processes--with varied infectious disease symptoms being severe and acute manifestations are continuously at work, at all stages from the highest level of functioning and on downward to the point of death. The efficacy of these healing processes depend solely upon the appropriate and moderate provision of the following primal and lawful requisites of human life.

1. Air (pure, with electrically balanced ion levels)
2. Water (in potable form, employed for bodily--internal and external--cleansing, and environmental sanitation)
3. Sunlight (early morning and late afternoon, including regular exposure to living quarters)
4. Exercise (physical, mental, social and spiritual faculties)
5. Rest (physiological and psycho-emotional)
6. Sound Nutrition (i.e., a balanced variety of unrefined and unadulterated plant foods derived from mineral rich-living soil)
7. Positive Thinking (including positive/constructive motives, emotions and relationships)

Psycho-Bio-Physical lntegrity depends upon the foregoing requisites, coupled with: sound heredity; non-abuse of the central nervous system; and general freedom from adverse influences, e.g., chemicals, drugs, radiation, foreign antigens, trauma and physical injuries. Whether through inheritance [i.e., pre-dispositional weaknesses] or in one's own life, DENIAL OF THESE BASIC LIFE REQUISITES, OR THE INTRUSION OF THESE ADVERSE INFLUENCES, CONSTITUTES THE PRIMARY AND SUSTAINING CAUSES UNDERLING THE MULTIPLE SYMPTOMS OF PSYCHO-BIO-PHYSICAL DEGENERATION (PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DISEASE). The distinction between "prevention" and "cure" is an artificially contrived notion and does not exist in nature, viz. the self-same primal, i.e., original causes by which systemic (psychophysiological) health is maintained, also serve as the only sound measures by which lost health can be restored.

Compliance with primary psycho-physiological laws ensures an increase and strengthening of inherent vital force and immunity leading to High Level Healtlh.

Death > Degeneration > Impairment > Low > Medium > High health

Non-Compliance with primary psycho-physiological laws ensures a weakening of inherent vital force and immunity, leading to Degeneratlon and Death

Death < Degeneration < Impairment < Low < Medium < High Health

CONCLUSION

Belief in artificially induced immunization is actually predicated on an assumed technological ability to annul the natural bio-system laws of cause and effect. It is in essence an imaginative belief that we can improve upon nature's original design and purpose through deceitfully manipulating her to our own heedless benefit. It would be fitting at this point to quote from Kime:

We may believe that we are responsible to nothing but our own pleasure, that we may freely violate and disregard natural law and then artificially manipulate the deleterious consequences. We may believe that we can eat poorly, sleep rarely, work constantly, exercise sparingly, and avoid any physical consequences by some wonder drug. . . It requires no discipline and no sacrifice. . . .

[However] For all our advances in science, we still remain humbly, pitifully dependent upon the forces of nature: air, water, food, and sunlight. It seems in fact, the more advanced our technology becomes, the more capable we are of destroying ourselves . . . by more insidious inroads into our health.²⁶¹

Finally, it is indeed incontrovertible that the only sure answer to the frightening dilemma that indiscriminately employed artificial universal childhood immunization now poses, is a counter-public health policy which supports a studied and respectful return to the original and immutable laws of life and health, thus encouraging people of all nations to return to the grand design as embodied in the creation by an all wise Creator.

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