Nexus - 0221 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Not many people realise that germs, viruses and bacteria are the result, not the cause, of disease. The germ theory of disease is a fraud! n 1864, French chemist Louis Pasteur fathered "The Science of Bacteriology” and "The Germ Theory of Disease Causation" by demonstrating the existence of various micro-organisms—and concluding that these germs cause pathogenic changes in liv- ing cultures within the laboratory setting. The germ theory states that diseases are due solely to invasion by specific aggressive micro-organisms. A specific germ is responsible for each disease, and micro-organisms are capable of reproduction and transportation outside of the body. With the germ theory of disease, no longer did we have to take responsibility for sick- ness caused by our own transgressions of the laws of health. Instead, we blamed germs that invaded the body. The germ theory effectively shifted our personal responsibility for health and well- being onto the shoulders of the medical profession who supposedly knew how to kill off the offending germs. Our own personal health slipped from our control. Almost everyone in the Western world has been nurtured on the germ theory of disease: that disease is the direct consequence of the work of some outside agent, be it germ or virus. People have been educated to be terrified of bacteria and to believe implicitly in the idea of contagion: that specific, malevolently-aggressive disease germs pass from one host to another. They also have been programmed to believe that healing requires some powerful force to remove whatever is at fault. In their view, illness is hardly their own doing. The ‘germ era’ helped usher in the decline of hygienic health reform in the 19th century and, ironically, the people also found a soothing complacency in placing the blame for their ill health on malevolent, microscopic ‘invaders’, rather than facing responsibility for their own insalubrious lifestyle habits and their own suffering. Pasteur was a chemist and physicist and knew very little about biological processes. He was a respected, influential and charismatic man, however, whose phobic fear of infection and belief in the "malignancy and belligerence" of germs had popular far-reaching conse- quences in the scientific community which was convinced of the threat of the microbe to man. Thus was bom the fear of germs (bacteriophobia), which still exists today. Before the discoveries of Pasteur, medical science was a disorganised medley of diversified dis- eases with imaginary causes, each treated symptomatically rather than at their root cause. Up to this time, the evolution of medical thought had its roots in ancient shamanism, superstition and religion, of invading entities and spirits. The profession searched in vain for a tangible basis on which to base its theories and practices. Pasteur then gave the pro- fession the "germ", By the 1870s, the medical profession fully adopted the germ theory with a vengeance that continues today. The advent of the microscope made it possible to see, differentiate and categorise the organisms. Invading microbes were now seen as the cause of disease, The medical-pharmaceutical industry began their relentless search for the perfect drug to combat each disease-causing microbe—of which there are now over 10,000 distinct diseases recognised by the American Medical Association. The universal acceptance of the germ theory and widespread bacteriophobia resulted in frenzied efforts to avoid the threat of germs. A whole new era of modem medicine was then inaugurated, including sterilisation, pasteurisation, vaccination, and fear of eating raw food. Medical authorities advised the public to cook all food thoroughly and to boil water. by Arthur M. Baker Self-Health Care Systems ‘ 1800 S, Robertson Boulevard, Suite 239-55 Los Angeles, CA 90035, USA Phone/fax: (310) 202 1170. Extracted with permission from “Bacteria, Germs and Viruses Do Not Cause Disease: Discriminating between Medical Myth and Biological Fact’, e: from’ the book, Awakening Our Self-Healing Body. 34¢NEXUS PASTEUR'S GERM THEORY OF DISEASE CAUSATION AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1994