Page 47 - Summer 2019 Journal

Reading Between the Lines
By Merinda Teller
Germ Theory Versus Terrain: The Wrong Side Won the Day
Whereas most Americans probably have heard of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), it is doubt- ful that many are familiar with the name and work of Antoine Béchamp (1816–1908). The two nineteenth-century researchers were scientific contemporaries, compatriots and fellow mem- bers of the French Academy of Science, but key differences in their views on biology and disease pathology led to a prolonged rivalry both within and outside of the Academy.1
Béchamp was the more brilliant thinker, but Pasteur had political connections, includ- ing Emperor Napoleon III. Reportedly not above “plagiarising and distorting Béchamp’s research,”2 Pasteur achieved fame and fortune largely because his views “were in tune with the science and the politics of his day.”1 Meanwhile, mainstream medical historians relegated Bé- champ’s ideas—not as attractive to conventional thinkers—to the intellectual dustbin.3
Pasteur’s promotion of germ theory (a flawed notion that he did not so much “discover” as repackage) has remained “dear to pharma- ceutical company executives’ hearts” up to the present day,4 having laid the groundwork for “synthetic drugs, chemotherapy, radiation, surgical removal of body parts and vaccines” to become the “medicine[s] of choice.”5 The unshakeable belief that there is one microbe for every illness is so ingrained as the “controlling medical idea for the Western world” that com- peting ideas about disease causation still have difficulty gaining traction.6
Over a century after the two Frenchmen’s demise, why bother to revisit their place in history? The answer is that the scientific (and industry) bias in favor of Pasteur’s model has not served the public’s health—to the contrary. Two decades into the twenty-first century, dis- mal national and international health statistics utterly belie the hype about medical advances.7
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In the U.S., for example, over half of all children have one or more chronic conditions,8 as does a comparable proportion of millennials9 and up to 62 percent of Medicaid-population adults.10 Most health care dollars spent in the U.S. (86 percent) are for patients with at least one chronic condition.10 Similar trends are on the rise around the world.11
For those who are able to steel themselves against medical propaganda, it is abundantly clear that the Pasteurian paradigm has failed to deliver. With Americans in such a shocking state of ill health,12 we cannot afford to let the profit- driven pharmaceutical perspective continue to dominate. As one writer more bluntly puts it, “The sooner we get over the legacy of Pasteur’s fake science and get back to reality the better.”13
CELEBRITY VS. HERETIC
History awarded renown to the reductionist
Pasteur for being the “father of immunology”14 and popularizing the theory that disease in- volves “a simple interaction between specific microorganisms and a host.”15 In his single- minded focus on the germ side of the equation, Pasteur ignored the host and discounted the influence of environmental factors, thereby “conveniently dismissing social responsibility for disease.”15
Both at the time and thereafter, the public and most fellow scientists found germ theory easy to embrace, perceiving Pasteur’s model of life and health to be not only “superficially plausible” but also “financially exploitable.”3 In fact, most of the big-name pharmaceutical companies that we know today got their start in Pasteur’s era, often by merging with chemical firms, united in their goal of developing and selling synthetic products to “selectively kill or immobilize parasites, bacteria, and other invasive disease-causing microbes.”16 Quoting
Wise Traditions
The scientific (and industry) bias in favor
of Pasteur’s model has not served the public’s health.
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