THE ALLERGY EPIDEMIC
By Dr Keith Scott-Mumby
“The Number One Allergy Detective” (Sunday Mail
)
We seem to
be experiencing a massive rise in allergic phenomena. It may be appropriate
to use the expression epidemic. We have become victims of our environment.
This led to the term
"clinical ecology" for what we are trying to do here.
In my
second book ALLERGIES: WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW (Unwins 1986), I pointed
out that everyone has a least one allergy. It is not necessarily important
if you are not experiencing symptoms but it is very common, once you ask the
right questions (Nancy Wise of the BBC World Service interviewed me and,
without telling me beforehand, sent a roving microphone out onto the street
outside Bush House. She was astonished to find that 18 out of 20 people
stopped answered positively, they did have an allergy). Even if you think
you’ve escaped, you must be aware that many of those around you are
suffering.
Observing
what has been happening in the last few decades, one cannot help ask the
question: why? What is happening to our ecology that so many individuals
should be suffering in this way?
The
answer, as usual, is complex and has many aspects:
-
Increasing toxic environmental pollution (so-called xenobiotics)
-
Increased use of medical drugs (pharmaceutical pollution)
-
Vitiation of healthy foodstuffs (junk food)
-
Widespread destruction of skin and mucous membrane flora by the use of antibiotics
-
Intensive vaccination programmes, altering immune potential
-
Emergent viral diseases, known as stealth viruses
The last
two factors may be inter-related, in that altered immune response may the be
origin of newer and more insidious strains of virus. In the above-mentioned
book I also speculated the emergence of the AIDS virus (if indeed there is
one) may have its origins in personal and general pollution. Nobody wants to
admit it but poor lifestyle does seem to be the main common factor for those
who develop AIDS: homosexuals commonly engage in sexual enhancement with the
use of xenobiotic chemicals, such as 'poppers'; the other major group of
AIDS victims, drug users, are also are damaging their inner environment with
harmful foreign substances. This isn't just another version of "serves
them right" I merely point what seems obvious in the context.
Stealth
viruses have been around a long time and can be at the root of many
multi-system neuro-degenerative illnesses, such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,
ME (fibromyalgia in the USA), attention deficit disorder, autism and other
diseases causing behavorial changes.
"Stealth
viruses" avoid immune elimination by deleting genes required for
effective antigenic recognition by the cellular immune system. Stealth
viruses have the capacity to assimilate cellular genes which gives them the
capacity to incorporate genes with potential cancer causing capacity. There
is also now evidence that stealth viruses may be passed along within
bacteria.
In the
60s we called them 'smouldering viruses'. I'm sure there are many more to
emerge and be discovered.
Nor is
the problem confined to viruses like Epsterin-Barr. Other organisms we know
can hide within the eco-framework of our bodies and work considerable
mischief. Notable examples are Borrelia bugdorfferi (Lyme Disease), mono
(infectious mononucleosis) and Chlamydia. Parasites too, such as Giardia and
cryptosporidia, have been increasingly implicated in the overload phenomenon
and contributors to the lowered immune performance of some individuals.
But
perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this change in disease patterns (at
least in the West) is the growing certainty that universal immunization
(vaccination) programmes have been causing damage. The concern is that
doctors and government officials, in their enthusiasm, are actually creating
a serious health reversal. They will point to the fact that people no longer
die of Diphtheria and so on. But that doesn’t really excuse the ignorance
and refusal to countenance the possibility that there may be long-term
damage, due to immunization.
Now an
important study* has
come forward and shown that 25.6% of children who received the DPT (triple)
vaccine had asthma, whereas only 2.3% of children who had not been
vaccinated were troubled. That’s a well-over ten-fold increase (it’s
actually more than 11x). If studies of all atopic disease ((bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis and
atopic dermatitis) were combined, the ratio rises
to 56.4%, as against 9.3% in the unvaccinated group (a five-fold increase).
That’s pretty conclusive and ought to set the debate alive (it won’t).
But what catches my attention more than the ratio is that over 50% of kids who are vaccinated end
up with allergy problems!
Is there
a connection?
(*The effect of DPT and BCG vaccinations on
atopic disorders. Yoneyama
H, Suzuki M, Fujii K, Odajima Y, Arerugi 2000 Jul;49(7):585-92)
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Scott-Mumby at www.alternative-medicine.com
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© Keith Scott-Mumby 2003 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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