Caustic Commentary, Winter 2018

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SWEETS AT THE OFFICE
Bosses are having a hard time curbing sugar consumption in the workplace. When Health IQ of Mountain View, California, banned candy bars, soda and other sugary concoctions in the office, employees took to social media to complain. Most don’t want to give up the free doughnuts, cake and other confections they get at work. One employee was particularly annoyed—she breakfasts on Starbucks venti mocha with two pumps of toffee-nut syrup and lunches on four chocolate chip cookies. But some employees welcome rules like these, reporting that the amount of sugary treats in the office is overwhelming. “Every birthday is celebrated with a cake, and there are always leftover cookies and sugary snacks after client meetings. Refuse a cupcake and some coworkers give you a look like you’re being dramatic.” Erin Wynn, head of a team of millennials at WeLocalize Inc. in New York City, told workers to keep the sweets they ate hidden. Everywhere she looked were “bowls of candy, leftover cake and bagels, bagels, bagels,” which she found too tempting to refuse. It’s obvious that addictive sugar consumption is rampant among younger workers. In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study looking at the food people get at work, finding that much of it was high in empty calories from “sugars and fats.” That would be industrial seed oil fats that office workers are eating, not healthy fats in butter, cheese and meat. What kind of future can we expect when young people haven’t the faintest idea how to eat? U.S. taxpayers spent over six hundred dollars each in 2016 treating obesity-related illnesses covered by Medicare and Medicaid, and this will only get worse as long as government agencies continue to demonize the kind of nutritious foods that help control sugar cravings (Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2018).

CHOLESTEROL DENIERS
Professor Louis Leavy, head of nutrition science at Public Health England, has launched an attack on what he calls “cholesterol deniers,” those who claim that sugar represents a greater threat to our hearts and arteries than saturated fat. “There is good evidence that a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease,” he said. “We need to think about where the sources of saturated fat are and how we can reduce them. The largest contributions are dairy products, including butter, and meat and meat products.” (Dr. Levy seems unaware of the fact that our bodies can easily make saturated fat out of sugar.) Levy touts the party line that too much saturated fat causes the liver to overproduce “bad” LDL-cholesterol, which is implicated in heart disease. Even worse, the cholesterol deniers recommend that patients get off statins, citing lack of evidence for any benefit and a host of debilitating side effects. Statin scares sell well but endanger lives, say Levy and other representatives of the cholesterol cabal, citing a 2016 review in The Lancet, which claimed that lowering cholesterol over five years with a daily statin would prevent one thousand heart attacks, strokes and coronary artery bypasses among ten thousand people who had already had one. Yet because the cholesterol deniers won’t be silenced, Rory Collins of Oxford University calls the statin critics “flat earthers” who act like “religious fundamentalists” and argues that they should not be given a platform for debate. In other words, just take your statins and don’t ask questions (theguardian.com, October 30, 2018).

LDL NOT THE CULPRIT
The main reason the cholesterol deniers won’t be silenced is the flimsy evidence used to put a large portion of the population on dangerous cholesterol-lowering drugs. In a recent paper published in Expert Reviews in Clinical Pharmacology (September 10, 2018), statin critics Uffe Ravnskov and others analyze three large reviews that claim evidence for statin benefits. Their verdict: “. . . the conclusions of the authors of the three reviews are based on misleading statistics, exclusion of unsuccessful trials and by ignoring numerous contradictory observations.” They conclude that statin treatment, especially when used in primary prevention, is of doubtful benefit.

MEET THE MEAT TAX
A new “study” from the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer has concluded that cured, smoked and other processed meats cause cancer, and that red meat “probably” causes cancer. This has led to calls for a tax on meat, similar to the U.K. tax on cigarettes, alcohol and sugary drinks, with incredible claims for benefits. A meat tax would prevent nearly six thousand deaths per year and save the National Health Service more than seven hundred million pounds; a global meat tax—which is the goal—would prevent over two hundred thousand deaths from cancer, heart disease, stroke and obesity, say proponents. Such a tax could also help the environment and reduce global warning, they claim. Of course, low- and middle-income groups would be affected the most, as the tax could increase the cost of meat by one-third and more than double the cost of processed meats like bacon (independent.co.uk, November 6, 2018). But hey, why worry about increased food costs for struggling families when we can save lives, reduce costs, help the environment and fight global warming?

MORE REASONS TO BE ANTI-VAX
Chilling news about the dangers of vaccinations keeps accumulating. First is a report published in The Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, which found a lowered probability of pregnancy in females in the U.S. aged 25-29 who received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine injection (2018;81(14):661-674). Put another way, the HPV vaccine can make you sterile. Second, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) cases of polio-like acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) are up, with sixty-two confirmed cases, almost twice the amount confirmed in 2017. CDC doesn’t know the cause and is not even looking at the possibility of vaccinations causing the paralysis, but it’s interesting to note that the cases seem to peak in August and September, when children are getting their shots for school (thevaccinereaction.org, October 24, 2018). And third, a study from Spain found that lambs injected with aluminum-containing vaccines developed granulomas—cheese-like blobs that migrated to the sheeps’ lymph nodes and persisted in their bodies for the fifteen-month duration of the experiment. Moreover, the sheep showed behavioral changes, aggressively biting the wool from other sheep, pacing restlessly and overeating (Veterinary Pathology, October 31, 2018). Sounds like the kind of autistic behavior we see in vaccinated children.

CHILDREN RUN AMOK
Children in Scotland are some of the most heavily vaccinated in the world, with the flu and whooping cough vaccine given in pregnancy, a six-in-one (!) vaccine plus meningitis, pneumococcal and rotavirus (nine vaccines in all) given at two months, the six-in-one plus rotavirus given at three months, the six-in-one again at four months, plus meningitis and pneumococcal, and four vaccines given at one year. Flu vaccines throughout the growing years are strongly encouraged. So it is no surprise that children are melting down in school, where 26.6 percent of children have special needs, including dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and behavioral and emotional problems. Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said that the increase in unacceptable behavior was “impacting on pupils’ education and hampering recruitment to the profession.” Bad behavior includes foul language to teachers, use of cell phones during lessons and running amok in corridors. Cases of autism are expected to be one in twenty-five by the year 2024. Suggestions include putting mental health counselors in every school and an increase in social services—anything but stop the root cause: horrendous, unnecessary, toxic vaccinations (lossofbraintrust.com).

MORE SOY FORMULA DANGERS
In Europe, parents need a prescription to obtain soy formula, and new research indicates that the same restrictions should apply in the U.S. A study published in Human Reproduction (Online 9 November 2018) found that African-American infant girls fed soy formula were more likely to experience severe menstrual pain as young adults. Lead author Keristen Upson, PhD, notes that previous laboratory animal studies suggest that early-life exposure to genistein, a naturally occurring component in soy formula, interferes with the development of the reproductive system, including factors involved in menstrual pain. Earlier research links soy formula feeding to higher rates of endometriosis, heavy menstrual bleeding and larger fibroids among women with fibroids. Other studies have found that female infants fed soy formula had changes in the cells of the vagina, including differences in how specific genes are turned on and off. In 1998, the American Acadamy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a general endorsement of soy formula, but then began hedging its bets. A policy statement issued in 2008 warned against use of soy formula for premature babies; for full term infants the AAP now “recommends soy formula in rare cases where the child’s body cannot break down the sugars in milk or if the family prefers a vegetarian diet.”

UNHEALTHY AND UNPREPARED
A recent report published by the Council for a Strong America catalogs the woeful state of America’s teenagers and young adults. Nationwide, 71 percent of young people ages seventeen to twenty-four do not qualify for military service and obesity disqualifies 31 percent of youth from serving if they so choose. These ineligibility rates are a major reason the Army was not on track to meet its annual recruitment goals as of September 2018. And obesity among those who do serve in the military makes soldiers more vulnerable to stress fractures, serious sprains and similar injuries (strongnation.org/articles/737-unhealthy-and-unprepared). Unfortunately, the authors of the report and the military in general haven’t a clue how to fix the problems. The best they can do is recommend that recruits eat more fruits and vegetables, when these vulnerable men and women need real, nutrient-dense food—organ meats, animal fats, raw dairy, pastured eggs, shellfish, cod liver oil, bone broth and butter, butter, butter.

CLOGGED PLUMBING
Bacon is making a comeback and that has led to an epidemic not of clogged arteries but of clogged plumbing under the kitchen sink. Unaware that grease solidifies when it cools, many just pour hot bacon fat down the drain, resulting in plumbing clogs that require the services of a plumber. Even worse, the fat that gets through residential pipes makes its way to the city sewers where it accumulates to form massive blockages. London officials had to excavate a one-hundred-thirty-ton “fatberg” from the Whitechapel sewer last year, and in Baltimore, officials had to scrape out a twenty-four-inch pipe in midtown where grease had congealed, clogging 85 percent of the pipe. An article in The Wall Street Journal (August 9, 2018) gives readers the following advice: pour the bacon grease into a foil-lined bowl, let it cool and throw it in the trash; mix it with bird seed and put it in a bird feeder; or give it to your dog. Of course what you should do with bacon fat is store it in a container and use it for cooking—but generations of anti-saturated-fat propaganda have made home cooks afraid to do such a sensible thing.

COUNTERING CAFOs
Iowa CAFO owners are increasing the size of their hog herds in order to sell to Asia, where an outbreak of African swine virus is decimating pig populations. The sewage will be spread, smells and all, over the Iowa landscape, forcing many to abandon their homes. In North Carolina, families living near a hog farm in Bladen County fought back, not by suing the farmer but by targeting the farm’s owner, Smithfield Foods. A jury awarded the ten plaintiffs fifty million dollars in damages, agreeing that the impact of the farm’s operation was so intrusive that people couldn’t enjoy their rural homes. The case was the first in dozens of lawsuits filed by more than five hundred neighbors complaining about hog operations. Positive outcomes could do what years of lobbying and legislative initiatives have failed to do—eliminate CAFOs and bring back small, pasture-based operations.

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