It is evident to most of us that there is a quickening of chaos all around, evoking a global angst embodied in the threats of terrorism, nuclear and bio-warfare, catastrophic climate change and new pandemic diseases like the new human-avian-swine influenza virus. Is this part of the inevitable demise of Homo technos---anthropogenic nemesis? Or are there solutions? This essay explores these issues, the dimensions of our pathology, and the horizons of survival and hope. 

The end of living and the beginning of survival is a reality for millions of people around the world today who are deprived of nutritious food, adequate clean water, and effective and affordable medicine. Their numbers are increasing as more people in the developed, industrialized world sink below the poverty line. The kind of main-stream, conventional Western medicine that is being practiced today, aside from emergency medicine, has become part of the disease-complex because of its iatrogenic (harmful, treatment-related) consequences.

 Aggravated by the ‘agricologenic’ problems of food quality and safety, and poor food choices, the incidence of many diseases of Western civilization such as cancer, metabolic, immunologic and psychiatric disorders are increasing. The high incidence of bacterial food poisoning (1 in 4 persons annually, with 5,000 deaths and 300,000 hospitalizations according to the Centers for Disease Control), of obesity (1 in 5 children aged 4-years, and 1 in 3 if American Indian), and of 1 in every 3 children born after 2000 predicted to develop diabetes, indicate the urgent need for changing ways in medicine and food. Many similar diseases are evident in dogs and cats fed the byproducts of industrial agriculture processed into pet foods.

Debates on health care reforms, government versus private health insurance schemes and ‘socialized medicine’ will continue to be nothing more than hot air until everyone becomes enlightened about what they eat, how food is produced, and why food is no longer our first medicine.

 Bad Medicine, Bad Food
The toxic agrichemical food industry, with its pesticides and genetically engineered, environmentally and health-hazardous crops, and the pharmaceutical industry with its farm animal vaccines and array of drugs given to inhumanely housed farmed animals, from antibiotics to steroids and adrenal stimulants, is capitalizing royally while putting the consumer populace at risk.

 Atrazine, banned in many countries but the most widely used pesticide in the US, has been found in human amniotic fluid; is an endocrine disruptor, feminizing male frogs; is the most common contaminant in drinking water, and may play a significant role in the obesity/metabolic syndrome.

Even genetically- engineered human growth hormone (known as rBST or rBGH) is injected into factory farmed dairy cows in the US purely for profit as smaller dairy farms go our of business due to milk surpluses This milk is altered, adulterated, and is considered by many health experts as unsafe and possibly increases the incidence of twin-births in the consumer-populace. In April 2009 a federal court in Ohio ruled that dairies cannot legally label their milk "hormone free" "rBST-free" or otherwise clearly tell consumers that they aren't   pumping up their cows with synthetic hormones.  This is a blow to truth-in-labeling advocates, a blow to consumers and a blow to organic farmers. It's a win for Monsanto, the agrichemical giant, and a win for Eli Lilly, which bought Monsanto's synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormone. The use of these hormones is banned throughout most other first world nations.  Ohio was one of at least five states -- Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana and Kansas -- where Monsanto launched quiet attacks on milk labeling through state agricultural departments.

  The US government permits the release of other market products and services of such insanity as food irradiation that are said to be ‘safe’ because they are ‘regulated’. Food irradiation is rationalized as the ultimate solution to the bacterial contamination problem caused by crowding billions of poor creatures into confinement sheds and feedlots. These animals are fed inappropriate diets designed to force their growth and productivity, ignoring the fact that the environment within the gut allows for the proliferation of and shedding of pathogenic E.coli. The spread of E coli and salmonella in chickens is magnified through the processing of the animals after slaughter.  (See photo documentation at www.twobitdog.com/DrFox/ ). Researchers recently reported that cats fed irradiated food develop serous neurological problems and suffer extensive brain damage, many having to be euthanized. Residues of the ionophore Salinomycin in chickens, fed to stop a costly, management-created disease (coccidiosis) had very similar effects on cats eating contaminated poultry parts in their manufactured pet food. .

Drug residues in animal products from the livestock, poultry and seafood industries add to the ‘anthropogenic’ nature of emerging diseases, from neuroendocrine dysfunctions to developmental and immune system disorders. Many of these emerging diseases of industrial society are associated clinically with hyperimmunization, and with adverse vaccine reactions in both human and animal recipients, especially in the over-vaccinated companion animal population that has a host of associated auto-immune and inflammatory diseases.

Profit-Driven ‘Preventive’ Medicine
Modified live and genetically engineered viruses used in vaccines, especially in livestock and poultry, and viruses like the Cauliflower mosaic virus used in virtually all genetically engineered crops, have the potential to mutate, recombine, and spread horizontally to non-target species, insects being one group of potential vectors. We have seen how the swine flu virus has mutated to infect poultry, then cats and dogs, then humans. Some virologists fear further mutation and combination with HIV and Hepatitis B viruses.

 Cancer is primarily a disease of immune system breakdown. Both vaccine adjuvants, (like carcinogenic aluminum salts, and mutagenic and immunosuppressive mercury thimerasol), and antigenic proteins in the modified live and genetically engineered (GE)  vaccines, may precipitate a cancerous event in recipients, along with a host of complex auto-immune diseases. It is a tragic irony that man’s best friend, the dog, has a higher rate of cancer of the skin, breast, bone, and lymph system (leukemia) than his master. This immune-and gene-dysfunction syndrome is the dog’s primary cause of death, after ‘old age’ according to two recent Scandinavian veterinary surveys.

 The health consequences of routine ‘preventive’ use of many new broad-spectrum anti-parasite and flea drugs in dogs and cats, and their environmental impact, give much cause for concern. The Environmental Protection agency received over 44,000 reports of adverse reactions to topical anti-flea and tick drugs in cats and dogs in 2008. Similar drugs are used widely by the livestock industry. Without concurrent exposure to a host of other food and environmental toxins, such products might be a little less of a concern for companion animal health. (See Polluted Pets, by the Environmental Working Group, 2008, that shows high levels of industrial chemicals contaminating dogs and cats).

The new paradigm of the ‘one medicine’---human and animal---is the antithesis of conventional, primarily interventive, medicine. Conventional human and veterinary medicine is also over-capitalized (especially in diagnostic services rather than preventive), and promotes vaccinations as preventive medicine while not addressing the causes of disease. Most highly contagious diseases are pluricausal and multifactor and are not simply a consequence of high virulence and contagiousness, like the Ebola virus recently discovered in Philippine pig farms, and in humans working and living in pig farming communities. Most microorganisms are not harmful pathogens until they have the right host environment in which to proliferate, and a factory pig farm is one such ideal environment.

The new strain of swine flu, A/H1N1 includes genetic material from swine, poultry and human variants, and underscores the contribution of high densities of farmed animals serving as Petri-dishes for the evolution of zoonotic diseases, compounded by human proximity, international travel, and trade, especially in live animals. The US government spent over $2 billion of public funds in contracting drug companies to fast-track vaccine production to combat this new influenza strain, a policy decision based on fear and ignorance, if not also pandering to corporate interests regardless of the potential risks, questionable need and effectiveness of such a vaccine. Vaccinations were given without adequate testing for safety and effectiveness, and the Government has ruled that manufacturers are immune from law suits over adverse reactions.

Emerging disease like Lyme’s and West Nile disease, avian influenza, and MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) can best be prevented by appropriate environmental health management policies and humane farming practices rather than with new vaccines and drugs that the pro-agricultural biotechnology/GM crop- advocating Rockefeller Foundation in its One Health Commission (JAVMA, 234:p992, 2009) is helping promote. Some 75 percent of emerging diseases over the past 30 years involve the veterinary profession since they are zoonotic (animal-to-human transmitted). More appropriate and effective management policies and programs would not rely on drugs and vaccinations, but on providing more humane and healthful environments for farmed animals, and proper wildlife management through ecosystem CPR (conservation, preservation, and restoration) rather than trap- and -poison methods of predator and pest control.

Looking to the Future
As economies, ecologies and cultures continue to collapse around us, we can all find ways to wellness, through living simply, mindfully, and supporting local and organic food producers and markets; and by becoming ‘kitchen anarchists,’ preparing our own meals with known ingredients from known sources, and those for our animal companions as well. Our food should be our first medicine. Imported soy products from China bearing the USDA label of Organic Certification may not be up to US producer standards and can be contaminated with hexane, a chemical used in processing that is an environmental pollutant and neurotoxin. Diet drinks laced with US government approved aspartame is another source of neurotoxin, while the herbal sweetener, Stevia, though more costly, may actually help lower blood sugar and reduce insulin tolerance.

The economic and environmental--- especially climate change--- problems that future generations will face could be greatly ameliorated today by a massive reduction in the global cattle population, from Colorado and Iowa to India and Australia. For public health reasons alone the globally expanding pig and poultry populations, greatly encouraged by the World Bank, must be cut back and replaced with humane, organic, and sustainable production methods as were practiced before global colonization  by  the ‘agribusiness’ food industry. And we should all eat lower on the food chain for both health and environmental reasons.

That the Amazon jungle and indigenous peoples, and the last of Indonesia’s rain forests and the Sumatran tiger are facing annihilation by the logging industry and soy and palm oil plantations respectively, is a travesty, and part of the profit-driven  insanity of these increasingly dysfunctional  times. (Palm oil, like soy oil, is high in pro-inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids, both being used in the West by the food industry, and palm cake and soy meal are used in farmed animal feed and poor quality pet foods). To continue on their present course, the hegemony of the multinational corporations will mean the impoverishment of future generations, and the war between the rich and poor, the greedy and the needy, will intensify.

The Food and Drug Industry Alliance
The Food and Drug Industry Alliance (FDIA) of the major multinational oligopolies of agriculture, food and petrochemical-pharmaceutical industries regulates itself in the US under the paid-for-by –the- public federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The FDIA donates millions of dollars to professional organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association, as well as to human and veterinary medical colleges. Rather than advocating humane alternatives to raising animals under the pathogenic environments of confinement feeding operations, organized human and veterinary medicine have given the animal agriculture industry a free hand with a host of drugs, toxic chemicals and live virus vaccines for far too long. . The widespread use of antibiotics by the livestock and poultry industries plays a significant role in the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The FDA estimates that two million people acquire bacterial infections in US hospitals annually, resulting in 90,000 deaths, 70 percent of which now involve bacteria resistant to at least one drug.

Simply advising people to ‘eat more whole grains, fruits and vegetables’ is not an appropriate medical response by Government to the current consumer-health crisis.  The pharmaceutical industry would oppose any reductions in farmed animal numbers since their mission is market expansion---now into developing countries under the missionary zeal of US Embassies and Consular offices around the world---just. as they have effectively blocked any restrictions on the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics and other drugs used to boost the productivity of factory farmed animals. So would the agribusiness petrochemical fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers and commodity crop industries, like those of cotton, corn and soy (now predominantly genetically modified/GM) that market human processed foods, farmed animal feed, and manufactured pet foods. (Cotton oil and cake is used in many processed foods and as byproducts in farmed animal feed. Sheep in India have been killed by toxins in GM cotton). The Cattlemen’s Association and the National Pork Producers, along with the ranchers and other abusers of Public Lands, join those who see climate change as something to deny rather than properly address, and refuse to acknowledge their contribution to this serious issue.

The Obama administration’s approval of GM sugar beet in April 2009 shows the power of the FDIA, and is an ominous ruling that should be reversed. The US Dept. of Agriculture rubber stamped the release of GM sugar beets without preparing an environmental impact statement, which is required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Obama chose Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa and a long-time supporter of agricultural biotechnology, as USDA Secretary. Vilsack uses the emotional blackmail of the FDIA which calls any opposition to GM crops as being anti-humanitarian.

The food and drug industry alliance’s claim that theirs is the best and only way to feed a hungry world that cannot farm without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds and hybrid and cloned farmed animals is patently absurd, and has no scientific validity. Research has shown that organic farming methods, especially in developing countries, can be three times more productive than most current farming practices, and can be as productive when input costs are considered, than the predominant industrial farming systems of Western agribusiness. They are also more sustainable, soil-enriching and energy-conserving; and also climate-stabilizing.

Misguided Philanthropy?
Bill Gates is giving $ billions to encourage African and other poor nation states to accept GM crops, and to support mass infant vaccinations and canine-anti-rabies vaccinations---but all to what end? It is no coincidence that he holds strategic investments in both agribiotechnology and the drug industry, whose products his non-profit foundation strongly lobbies for.

Without being integrated with family planning, and local self-sufficiency, from clean water to fertile soil, the human population will continue to suffer and spread like a cancer on the Earth. Malnutrition in children and animals can reduce the effectiveness of vaccinations, increase the probability of adverse reactions, and increase the virulence of even normally harmless virus strains like the Coxsackie virus. Humane population control in dogs (through spay/neuter), coupled with vaccinations and humane education that includes proper nutrition, have been shown to be the best ways to keep rabies out of third-world communities because vaccinations alone are as ineffectual as traditional mass killings as practiced in China and India..

Human-focused altruism will be our species’ nemesis. The road to hell is clearly paved with good intentions. Or is such vaccine and super-GM seed promotion a feel-good, ‘win-win’ delusion of the ill informed? Surely it is not simply to sell more products in a highly competitive and increasingly dysfunctional world market that such vested interests helped create in the first place. That is not a good investment even in the short term for those who put their faith and trust in the science and promises of the food and drug industrial complex. I agree with Jonathan Porritt who reasons, in his book Capitalism as if the World Matters (Earthscan Publ.Ltd., 2005), that the current political primacy of key social  goals (such as the elimination of poverty or the attainment of universal human rights)) should become secondary to the biological imperative to learn to live sustainably on this planet, and cause less harm. He calls this “an absolute imperative, in that it is determined by the laws of nature and, hence, is non-negotiable---.”
 
Making a Difference
Those fortunate to have any choice in this market place can help make a difference in many ways for their own good and for the ultimate good of the planet. There is no reason why the FDA and the FDIA cannot do the same.

To take care means to take charge of our own health and that of our loved ones. This includes our companion animals, as well as those animals on our farms and in the wild. Health advocacy must include environmental advocacy, with healthy forests and wildlife meaning less global warming and more clean air and water. It must also include sustainable farming methods that do not poison surface and ground waters, and that enrich the soil and therefore the food we eat so that our food is indeed our first medicine.

The anarchism of taking charge means taking personal responsibility for our health and for those for whom we care---for ‘all our relations’ as traditional native American Indians proclaim. To them this is ‘good medicine’, and it includes respect for the environment and all living things. What we call Nature they call the Medicine Wheel. The Wheel is broken and they have become obese, depressed and diabetic. In the dominant world view of secular materialism this calls for sound science and economics, and rigorous global, rather than simplistic medical bioethics, which is empathy-based and fosters eco-justice as well as social justice, and compassion toward all sentient life.
So called philanthropists fund non-profit organizations to help promote expensive and hazardous pharmaceutical products and GM crops to ostensibly heal and feed the hungry world, and at the same time are investing in these industries rather than in more holistic, integrative, and sustainable approaches to human health and welfare. (For insights go to http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/microsoft.htm ) I find this behaviour of the rich and powerful, unconscionable, perversely misanthropic, and morally inverted by some distorted faith in science and technology.
I find hope in the emerging practices of integrative, holistic preventive medicine and treatment protocols for animals as well as for humans. As Hippocrates advised, “Let our food be our medicine, and our medicine be our food.” Organic farming practices are part of good medicine, vital to public health since several studies have confirmed the higher nutritional value of organically produced foods because organic soils are richer in micronutrients than chemically fertilized soils producing commodity monocultures with no crop rotation or fallowing of the land. The medical health benefits of herbs and nutraceuticals are also being confirmed and marketed, as physicians and veterinarians acknowledge the risks of hyperimminization and of over-prescribing antibiotics, corticosteroids and many other drugs that harm more than they help through misuse. Many widely prescribed pharmaceuticals are now being detected in our drinking water and in the rain, even antibiotics fed to livestock and poultry being detected in crops fertilized with the farmed animals’ manure.

The new healing paradigm of pyschoneuroimmunoenhancement is being practiced by more and more medical and veterinary doctors and by alternative and indigenous healers. A disillusioned and sickening populace is turning to such health care providers as the conventional, drug-and vaccine dependent, iatrogenic medical industry and its insurance and drug company oligopolies founder along with the ‘global’ economy: And that seek to outlaw the non-prescription sales of many tried and true alternative herbal, nutraceutical and other health care products.

The spiritual well-being of patients has been a neglected element of both veterinary and human medicine for decades. This is now changing as caregivers recognize the significance of  the patents’ emotional state and will to live; the harms of ‘hospitalism’s’ dissociative and depressive states; the importance of appropriate human contact including massage and physical/behavioral therapy; and for animal as well as human patients, an environment that  provides comfort, security and freedom from fear. The institutionalized stupefaction of nursing home and other patients with psychotropic drugs should become a thing of the past. Parents are questioning the use of similar drugs in their children for attention-deficit and hyperactivity problems that good nutrition can do much to prevent, along with better emotional care and understanding. The same is true for companion animals in whom the use of psychotropic drugs for various behavioral problems has been promoted by the pharmaceutical industry to the exclusion of effective non-drug behavioral therapies.

The pyschlogical problems, alcoholism, family violence, and crime in disintegrating indigenous communities call for more than new medicines, vaccines and GM seeds. Unless, that is, there is no real intent to find any solution to over-population and instead simply sell false hope and reap great profits while the process of cultural euthanasia continues. But the forces of nature, from desertification to mass plagues and pestilence, will intensify if there is no effective family planning that some regard as genocidal, and if equal priority is not given to planetary CPR---conservation, preservation, and restoration of natural ecosystems. Otherwise the triage zones of human despair, from one landless refugee camp to another, will expand across the globe, threatening far more than ‘national security.’

The Hippocratic Oath ‘Do no harm’ applies not only to physicians but to consumers, producers, manufacturers, governments and corporations. There is enough uncertainty and chaos in an emergent cosmos where cataclysmic and apocalyptic forces are at work, and about which we need more understanding and preparation, without our adding further chaos of an anthropogenic nature. In the final analysis an ethic of care is the first medicine for a sickening and increasingly dysfunctional planet. It is the basis for a sane society, a viable economy, and a healthy environment for all.

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For more details on this modern food crisis and its adverse effects on companion animals, see Not Fit For a Dog:  The Truth About Manufactured Dog And Cat Food by veterinarians Drs. M.W. Fox, E. Hodgkins, and M. E. Smart, published in 2008 by Quill Driver Books, Sanger, CA.
Michael W. Fox, BVetMed, PhD, DSC, MRCVS is a member of the British Veterinary Association and an Honor Roll Member of the American Veterinary Medical Association. He has doctoral degrees in ethology/animal behavior and medicine from the University of London, graduating from the Royal Veterinary College London in 1962.  For further documentation of the above concerns, visit www.twobitdog.com/DrFox