Permaculture Blog

I’m just flabbergasted,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases and chair at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

“This is an awful disease, but … we have had a mechanism to completely prevent it, and the reason that we have virtually no cases anymore in the United States is because we vaccinate, literally, everyone.”

Source: CDC: Unvaccinated Oregon boy almost dies of tetanus

Oh what horrible, horrible parents …. Oh wait. _Not!_ One kid gets tetanus but _recovers_ and its Front Page News about how terrible it is.

Source: Deaths following vaccination: What does the evidence show?

The vaccine was estimated to have caused approximately one Guillain-Barré syndrome case per 100,000 persons vaccinated [17], resulting in 53 deaths [18].

Over 400 people get Guillain-Barré syndrome and 53 people die from one vaccine and you never hear of it. Now I want to reiterate! I am not against vaccines, I’m a microbiologist! I am; however, completely against forced medical procedures when the complete story is not in.

And the complete story is definitely not in! It may be that natural immunity from anti-vaxxers may end up saving us all from the pathetic benefits of a vaccine.

And this brilliant Dr. William Schaffner. Who is “an expert in infectious diseases and chair at the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine”. Enough said. He should be sooooo proud. :-) And I wonder where he gets his money from?

Current industry level vaccinations are pathetic at generating a robust immune response and yet there is virtually no encouragement for the companies to improve them. And certainly even less the more vaccinations are mandated by the government.

Going back and looking at original papers, original studies, and other information; the benefits of vaccines are much much much less than what the medical community tells you today. The original study authors often were very concerned that other factors were involved in the improvements seen. Facters such as the propensity at the time to remove tonsils and perform other childhood surgeries.

The amount of money collected by the medical community for prescribing opioids, for performing unnecessary surgeries, and for forcing vaccinations is obscene. And often not in your best interest. Despite the Hippocratic Oath. And the promise within that oath to “first, do no harm” (or “primum non nocere,”)

King Tut peas are one of dozens of spring flowers you can see during a tour.

Source: Finch Frolic Garden is Open!

Massive die-offs of honeybees have taken place in Central Valley almond groves. While insecticides and fungicides aren’t harmful to bees on their own, an airborne mixture is lethal.

Source: Study: Pesticide Mixture the Culprit in Almond Grove Bee Die-Offs

This is not the best news article on the study, but it is the first one I could get to scan into my blog. (Let that be a note to news outlets who want so badly to have their advertising viewed but block fair use copy/ paste/ comments. Sheesh)

Anyway I believe that this is an important story because it brings up and illustrates a point that I have worried about for several years. We all know that medicines can interact and yet we do very, very little to study how the chemicals that we have designed to be toxic interact. Many people have commented that I tend to rail against pesticides (possibly too much) :-)

But here is a suggestion for individual homeowners; don’t use multiple types of pesticides. If one doesn’t work for you and you really want to do something for the environment– instead of buying a Prius, do this one simple thing– don’t let your mad desire for instant gratification run away with you; discontinue the first pesticide for several months to allow it to break down before starting to use a different type of toxin.

Or even better yet try to make sure of what you’re trying to kill. Hire one of these neighborhood kids who know all sorts of computers thingies. To set up a motion detector camera to video tape whatever is eating your garden. Wouldn’t that be fun :-)

Best to you all

Foreign ministry says China is ‘ready to work with the international community to protect wildlife and curb international trade’.

Source: Beijing backs jail term for Chinese ‘Ivory Queen’ Yang Fenglan in Tanzania

The butchering of elephants for their Ivory is obscene. China is finally making strides to stop it.

The explicit condemnation of Yang’s actions from Chinese authorities is a sign of Beijing’s increased public efforts to clamp down on the illegal trade on the global stage.

Elephants like sperm whales have spindle cells too.

Think about it.☺

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported this week that in 2018 it issued so-called “emergency” approvals to spray sulfoxaflor—an insecticide the agency considers “very highly toxic” to bees—on more than 16 million acres of crops known to attract bees.

Source: Trump EPA OKs ‘Emergency’ to Dump Bee-Killing Pesticide on 16 Million Acres

Realize that …

Of the 18 states where the approvals were granted for sorghum and cotton crops, 12 have been given the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same “emergency.”

A four-year emergency! Shaking my head but that means that most if not all the “emergency” approvals were started during the Obama Administration.
And here is some great info from snopes about the lawsuits filed against the EPA for poor regulation policy and backdoor approval mechanisms for overly toxic pesticides snopes bee info.

Just like the children in cages at the border do not blame one or the other political side….
_blame both!_ The money the chemical companies pour into paying off politicians and scientists is amazing. This is the same problem with the “Organic” label. If the farmer has applied for a waiver they can spray non_organic pesticides all over the crop …. and _still call_ it Organic.

Best
PS has this is getting a little long but from Wikipedia the IUPAC name for sulfoxaflor is

[Methyl(oxo){1-[6-(trifluoromethyl)-3-pyridyl]ethyl}-λ6-sulfanylidene]cyanamide

You’re worried about fluoride in your drinking water?? laughing.
The cyanide couldn’t possibly hurt anyone! laughing.
And it was designed as an insect neurotoxin which …. Couldn’t possibly hurt a human.laughing.

A team of scientists from Germany’s University of Tübingen has discovered a novel and unusual sugar molecule that shows great potential as a natural herbicide. It is harmless to animals and humans but can effectively disrupt the growth of various plants and microorganisms.

Source: Promising sugar-based natural herbicide targets same pathway as glyphosate

Arrrrggggggggg. Many microorganisms produce toxins. Staphylococcus necrotizing fasciitis bacteria produce toxins that destroy human tissue. It’s natural but you wouldn’t want to use it on everyone. Some bacteria can degrade Mercury and produce mercury vapor. They _produce mercury vapor_.
The mercury vapor is “natural”. Neem oil is natural–it kills _everything_ –but it is natural. People, if it kills living organisms there is a reason for it. And that reason may not be good for us.

There are 20,000 approved pesticides in the USA. Do you think that is enough? Maybe we should get it down to where we have any hope of identifying dangerous and harmful cross reactions. Something on the order of 1000 toxic biocides might be enough you think? Maybe we could take one _off_ the aproved list before adding a new one.

You think?
Maybe something that kills many plants _and_ bacteria — think soil food web- is not the best idea for the next glyphosate relplacement.

You think?

And just because some genius in a white lab coat tells you it is safe because it “is natural” maybe you should be worried.

The best to those of you in Germany.

Wildlife officials in Tennessee are implementing an emergency plan after at least 13 cases of chronic wasting disease were discovered in deer.

Source: Deer disease found in Tennessee counties

I realize that I have “Spread the Good News” and “Permaculture” at the bottom of each of these posts. And I have been criticized for being on the negative side with things. But I also believe that information is not always positive. And I may post too much on pesticides but that’s just my personal focus.

The disease mentioned above is mad cow disease but in deer. It was introduced to deer in cattle feed that was put out to help the deer survive harsh winters. It is a prion disease and we know very little about it. About how it is spread, about what the inoculating dose is, about the time required for it to manifest symptoms, about how similar it is in many ways to alzheimer’s disease, etc etc. It is particularly bad up in the Midwest and that’s where most of the news articles I look for come from. This one is as far south as Tennessee.

Some of you with kids who are bright, intelligent, and interested in biology –encourage them to go into research on prion diseases. They will be increasing in severity in the next few years.
And if you live in the midwest or in Tennessee now. I might think hard before eating wild venison unless you think that evolution should not be taught in public schools :-)

Source: New discovery pushes origin of feathers back by 70 million years

Have I mentioned that I love dinosaurs ☺
http://www.puravidaaquatic.com/wordpress/?s=Dinosaur

PuraVidaAquatic.com (310)429-8477

Global team of scientists find ecosystem below earth that is twice the size of world’s oceans

Source: Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms

There is just so much we don’t know about microbial ecology. Many people now know that the microbes on us and in us outnumber our own cells nearly 50 to 1 but they don’t translate that knowledge into the realization that all other animals are most likely similar and have incredibly complex microflora as well. All the animals that you believe should be protected bats, owls, hummingbirds, compost worms, bees, even black soldier flies and their larvae :-). Most of the microbes in these systems are in close contact with their neighbors and the other organisms in their environment. They often form what are referred to as biofilms. Biology is awesome!