Archives for September 2010

I think you can thank, in part, the American Dermatological Association for this outrage and others like it. I’ll get to identifying the other perpetrators later, below.

On June 3, 2010 my five and a half week old daughter was introduced to "child protection" in a hospital in a local hospital by diagnosing her as being a victim of child abuse. I brought my new born daughter to the hospital, after she woke up screaming in pain when i moved her arm. Upon multiple x-rays we found out that she had a fracture in her right arm that had a transverse configuration, without any evidence of external injury (we later learned that a transverse configuration is a typical fracture morphology in a pathologically fragile bone). Not understanding how this could have happened to my daughter, my boyfriend and I had no explanation for the injury.

Apparently because of the injury and our inability to explain how it happened, the doctors suspected child abuse and contacted the child abuse team who sent social workers to the hospital to interview us. After several hours of questioning, they transferred us to another hospital where we were immediately admitted to the child protection department. After further x-rays and bone scans the hospital found multiple micro fractures throughout my daughter’s body, and a slight bilateral subdural hematoma. […]

After careful and thorough review of ALL medical reports he saw that my daughter was suffering from a metabolic bone disease which he diagnosed as INFANTILE RICKETS in the state of healing, and that her bones were in a fragile state. He also stated that my daughters skull showed poor mineralization along the sutures and large areas or poor mineralization in the center portion of the skull plates. In addition the parietal skull was flattened.

As Dr. Ayoud was evaluating my daughters medical reports, he aksed Atty S to suggeste that I go see Dr. Michael Holick, a world renowned endocrinologist. Upon his full evaluation of me, Dr. Holick found me to be suffering from Osteomalacia, essentially the adult form of Rickets, and also possibly Elhers Danlos syndrome which is a genetic deficiency that cross ties to my daughters metabolic bone disease.

There’s the lot more to the story, but the bottom line is her infant was taken from her at 5 weeks which was months ago, and she still does not have her back. Here’s a excerpt from The Vitamin D Council’s Dr. Cannell, which counts for most of his reply. It’s not my normal practice to quote huge swaths, but this is damn important.

A few months ago I discussed an absolutely frightening study. Basically, the study found that about 1/4 of all otherwise normal infants have evidence of infantile rickets while they are still in the womb. If these infants were x-rayed right after birth, I suspect they would be found to have multiple fractures from the very real trauma of coming through the birth canal. That is, it is likely that tens of thousands of infants are being sent home from the hospital with multiple fractures because no one has ever done a study looking for asymptomatic fractures.

As an aside, the editorial that accompanied this study missed the point. Instead of asking for studies to discover what percentage of infants will have broken bones at birth and thus, how many parents are falsely accused of child abuse due to this tragedy, the authors of the editorial simply asked for more money for scientists.

The "we care about kids more than you do" child abuse organizations are simply feeding at the trough of the child abuse industry. According to the late Dr. Richard Gardner, the reason for increasing false allegations can be rationally explained. "There’s a complex network of social workers, mental health professionals, and law enforcement officials that actually encourages charges of child abuse — whether they are reasonable or not."

Dr. Gardner was referring to the fact that the Mondale Act of 1974 is responsible for the dramatic increase in child abuse charges because it affords full liability protection for the child abuse industry. They can do the most egregious and wanton things to the children in their care, and their parents, without fear that they will face civil liability charges. The Mondale Act indemnified the child abuse industry, and populated it with people whose livelihoods depend on bringing more and more allegations into the system. Your daughter is simply putting food on someone’s plate.

The child abuse industry was behind the epidemic of "recovered memories" of child abuse in the 1990s and howled when judges started returning malpractice verdicts against recovered memory doctors, which quickly dried up that particular child abuse industry feeding trough. Now, the bread and butter of the child abuse industry is child physical abuse or battered child syndrome, first described 50 years ago in a seminal paper in JAMA, a paper that caused irreparable harm.

Do not expect this tragedy to be solved soon. Too many mouths are sucking at the trough. Also, the child’s father, the man who abandoned you and his child when you were two months pregnant, is he being paid to take care of his own child? I doubt child protection will tell you but I suspect he is being paid.

For almost 50 years, parents like you have either been sent to jail or had their child taken away or both; we are talking about hundreds of thousands of parents. It is all based on a simple observation loaded with face validity: children with lots of broken bones must have been beaten by someone. Now, it is quite possible that most of those hundreds of thousands of infants were never beaten, never abused, never mistreated, they were misdiagnosed, they simply had infantile rickets.

Actions have consequences. Modern indoor, sheltered life & work, crappy processed foods lacking in quality fat and fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K), and hysterical fear of sun exposure all combine to set up a perfect storm of downstream consequences.

Then combine all that with a food, drug, and "health" conglomerate that profits off the most immediate consequences of this nutritional neglect, then throw in a "justice" system — "child abuse industry," as Dr. Cannell rightly labels them — that seems like little more than an incestuous heap of bedfellows on the take, and you do have a very outrageous tragedy.

But hey, it’s only babies getting chewed up, so relax. Nothing to see here. Keep on shaking your heads at Richard’s outrageous, over the top rants.

~ What a nice surprise this morning to see that Jimmy Moore put a rush on doing an interview with Denise Minger, the young & very bright woman who got a hold of the original China Study Monograph, and using the same data Campbell did, demonstrated conclusively that he’s far more guilty of the sorts of statistical shenanigans he accuses others of. Go listen to the interview.

Denise tells some of the back story, including her own experiences with raw veganism from as early as age seven. She also tells how she got interested in — and then hooked on — this data project. I really appreciate her giving me such a thankful mention at about 20 minutes in. This is where the groundswell began and I’m super pleased to have played a major role in that. Hours after that posting, Denise went from 20 visits per day to 20,000 visits in a few hours. I believe she told me in an email that she exceeded 50,000 visits in those first two days. Of course, that was not only from my posting but the fact that so many of you — readers and other bloggers alike — went out and spread the word.

~ Next up is a really fantastic article in The Huffington Post from a few days ago which I got wind of via Dana Carpender. So go get a load of Justin Stoneman’s piece entitled America: A Big, Fat, Stupid Nation. There’s way too much great insight there to do justice to excerpts, but I’ll try.

Stupid? Welcome to a population who know less about what they put into their mouths than they do about, well, take your pick…celebrities or cars or American Idol or iPhones? Animals have the intelligence to know what to eat and to never get fat (except the ones fed by humans). Yet that simple challenge, gaining nourishment without destroying the body, is beyond your capabilities? […]

“Insanity,” declared Einstein. “Is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Was the sharp little man predicting your strategy against the impending obesity epidemic? Thirty years of repeating the same mistakes. Not just failing to halt the crisis, but actually exacerbating it.

And the new plan today? Fundamentally, it is identical. Michelle Obama’s current, corporate-led, child obesity campaign scores 100% on well meaning — and 0% on wholesale change. All that matters, what you are told to put in your mouth, is aligned to the same destructive, corporate-sponsored dietary doctrine. I apologize for my original accusation America, this is not stupidity — it is insanity.

I’d dispute that anything a professional liar does is “well meaning,” but I catch his drift.

As ADA past president Martin Yadrick stated in a 2008 US News & World Report article: “We think it’s important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them.”

But, Martin, darling, they are paying you to be at their table. You are publicly telling America that you are somehow the one wearing the trousers in the relationship? My headline must be correct — even the ADA seem to think that America is stupid. […]

Your grandparents were raised in a generation aware that God’s supermarket was better than man’s. Saturated fat was a vital part of their diet. For them, obesity was not a common health problem. They were not suffering malnutrition in the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K). Remarkably, you, dear Western reader, probably are.

A processed product with ‘zero fat’ stamped on it (invariably high in sugar, chemicals and carbs instead) is great for making profits, but useless for losing weight. Wreaking havoc with insulin and your body’s biochemistry is not clever. The majority of the western world now do so on a daily basis.

If you want to have some fun with graphs, you can go and look at the corresponding obesity spikes in other countries when they followed the 1977 change in US advice.

In Canada, the point was near-parallel. In Britain it happened in 1983. The Australians struck around the time of the Brits, launching their magically stupid ‘Health Pyramid’. The obesity rate in each territory began its steady ascent. Big fat corporate party time.

Interestingly, while the article focusses much attention on food and drug company profits at the expense of health the author, to his credit, does not seem to be calling for controls or regulations. Rather, he’s calling for you, individuals, to stop being so stupid and gullible.

It is not up to me to tell you the science; research that yourself. Do it thoroughly, the corruption and manipulation of facts is on a far greater, more shocking scale than the story I have detailed so far.

Look at the true details of the Keys’ ‘Seven Countries’ study. How the food industry have used it to falsely demonize fats and change global policies. How we have been lied to about the relevance of calories. How the false ‘crimes of cholesterol’ can be simply resolved by picking up a globe and looking at the proximity to the equator of the ‘Seven Countries’ involved in the study.

Educate yourself and spot the lies that your trusted sources are feeding you. Alarmingly, few supposed ‘experts’ are free from bias. Including many learned figures who try to voice opinion on this great site. Do not ever underestimate the power of industry and the corrupting influence of money. People have vested interests and through intent, ignorance (or a dangerous combination of both), preach some unforgivable lies.

“Including many learned figures who try to voice opinion on this great site.” Hmm, I wonder what lying Chubby Face he could be talking about. But let’s not single out Dean “Smiley” Ornish. Dr. David Katz, MD, is an opportunistic liar pushing a guilt inducing, deprive yourself dietary regime as well.

Think of it this way: if you can get the sorts of stellar body composition and health results so many of my readers get for free, along with help from others of my readers (not to mention the many other bloggers out there doing similarly), then why do you need dishonest, self-promoting, false authorities like Ornish or Katz? You see, they are all about being perceived as authorities, smarter than you, and with exclusive access to the keys for health and longevity. They are all about complicating; making it harder, more complex, mysterious, counter-intuitive…nearly impossible — and especially: unpleasant.

The Church has the key to Heaven, the State, to Social Standing and the Medical and Nutritional Licensees, to “Health.”

They all (Church, State, Health Conglomerate) operate under a common theme and method.

1. Guilt (sin, selfishness, gluttony – respectively)
2. Fear (damnation, incarceration, pain and death)
3. Reward (eternal life, authoritarian social standing, lean health)
4. So…Sacrifice (your true animal nature, fruits of your labor, your gastronomic desires)
5. And…Repent (confess to an authority, embrace the authoritarian political process, buy a vegetable steamer)

Then, and only then can you enter the kingdom of heaven, gain social respectability and feel superior to everyone else. But here’s the fraud: none of them can deliver. Well, perhaps if you’re willing to become part of the problem by becoming one of these “authorities” yourself, you can at least make a pretty decent — though dishonest and fraudulent — living here on Earth.

~ If you’re got your shit together then there’s nothing in the world wrong with being ridiculed. It’s only kooks like me who ridicule the sorts of people who satisfy the three steps to total authoritarian conformity I outlined above. So with that in mind:

We once made fun of “Paleos,” the “small New York subculture whose members seek good health through a selective return to the habits of their Paleolithic ancestors.” But, by God, Dutch food conglomerate ‘Unilever’ is doing the same thing!

Unilever is the multinational food conglomerate that owns, among other brands, Ben & Jerry’s and Lipton. According to the Times of London (Subscription required), Unilever has amassed a team of anthropologists, chemists and other experts to study the “average caveman’s diet.”

Well clearly, neither Adrian Chen nor Foster Kamer bothered to Google Paleo Diet or anything similar in order to determine that it’s just a bit more than a “small New York subculture.” But whatever.

Anyway, here’s a link to an article describing what Unilever is up to, which truly is ridiculous. It’s contradiction in terms laughable. Paleo foods already exist all over the place: meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruits — you get the idea. It’s called Real Food, the exact opposite of what Unilever produces and profits from.

Now, something that comes in a package or box might could be made in such a way as to be less bad, perhaps even beneficial and nutritious — and that’s fine I might add — but it’s never going to be Paleo, Primal, Evolutionary or resemble anything from the original human diet.

And whether or not they ever come out with such products and whether or not any Paleos ever indulge in them or not, the distinction must always be clear: Paleo is Real Food and only real food; forever. always. for all time.