AN HISTORIC OVERVIEW OF THE BACTERIAL / VIRAL THEORY OF DISEASE CAUSATION

In order to provide some further background to the reader, this section will briefly recount some of the most significant observations of earlier scientists on the broader question of what is the actual role bacteria and viruses play in human infectious disease. The debate on this issue--although an old one remains highly relevant and timely in that the whole edifice of Western selective medicine, both preventive and therapeutic, hinges upon a correct perspective on and resolution of the question.

Indeed, it remains remarkable that whether we go to recent or more distant history, we find that fundamentally critical scientific discoveries and observations which serve to clarify these issues, and point in a more appropriate direction, continue--at least in practice--to be largely unknown and or ignored. (Some researchers would suggest that this failure arises because such discoveries--if genuinely applied--would significantly curb what amounts to annual income totaling multiple billions of dollars in the exploitation of human disease.) However, it is apparent that the factors underlying this failure are in reality much broader and more complex.

Due to the need for brevity, only two cases of historic significance will be considered:

1914 - C.E. Rosenow - Mayo Biological Laboratories

C.E. Rosenow of the Mayo Biological Laboratories began a series of experiments in which he took distinctive bacterial strains from a number of different disease sources and placed them in one culture of uniform media:

In time the distinctive strains all became one class. By repeatedly changing cultures, he could individually modify
bacterial strains making them some harmless or "pathogenic" and in turn reverse the process.

He concluded that the critical factor allowing demonstration of the polymorphic nature of bacteria was their environment and the food they lived upon. These discoveries were first published in 1914, in the Journal of Infectious Disease."

Rosenow's work was corroborated and expanded upon about two decades later by R.R. Rife, developer of the Universal Microscope which was developed concurrent with RCA's initial marketing of the electron microscope. Rife's alternative was a 5,682 component, 150,000 power (60,000 diameters of magnification) instrument which made live bacteria visibly "clear as a cat on your lap." This microscope was a light transmitting instrument with a resolution of 31,000 diameters (traditionally electron microscopes had resolutions of up to 25,000 diameters) which overcame the chief weakness of the electron scope, i.e., the inability to view living cells structures and bacterial and viral organisms in their unaltered living state.

(An alternative was required, as living matter when viewed under the electron scope, becomes altered and distorted due to bombardment by a virtual hailstorm of electrons, with such distortions increasing proportionally with the intensity of magnification. Consequently, the extremely high magnification levels found in the latest electron microscopes actually serve to exacerbate this major flaw.)

Modern microscopy texts suggest that with light microscopes it is impossible to obtain extremely high magnifications of objects and still retain visual clarity. For example Novikoff and Holtzman affirm that in such instruments a point is reached after which the image is "increasingly blurred and nothing is gained by further magnification. Thus, light microscopes are rarely used at magnifications greater than . . . 1500 X." 42

However, Rife's invention with its 14 separate crystal quartz lenses and prisms, was able to bend and to polarize light in such a way that a specimen could be illuminated by extremely narrow portions of the spectra, and even by a single light frequency. This combined with the shortening of projection distance between prisms, and other innovative technical features permitted high resolutions without distortion at extremely high magnifications, never before or since attained in light microscopy.43

1930's - Royal Raymond Rife - Inventor of Universal Microscope

Rife showed that by altering the environment and food supply, friendly bacteria such as colon bacillus could be converted into varied "pathogenic" bacteria.  For example, Rife also observed that bacillus coli could in time be modified into the bacterial agent associated with typhus, and the process actually reversed.

In Rife's words:

"In reality, it is not the bacteria themselves that produce the disease, but we believe it is . . . the unbalanced cell metabolism of the human body that in actuality produce the of disease. We also believe if the metabolism of the human body is perfectly balanced . . . it is susceptible to no disease." 44

 

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Alexis Carrel's - Rockefeller Institute

 

 

This observation closely parallels Alexis Carrel's earlier research at the Rockefeller Institute where he was able to control the rates and levels of infectious disease mortality among mice.

Beginning with the standard diet he observed a corresponding death rate of 52 percent. By making specific dietary improvements he was able to reduce mortality rates downward to 32 percent, then 14 percent, and finally to a rate of 0.45

Rene Dubos - Rockefeller Institute

Not too long after Rife's and Carrel's reported observations, scientist Rene Dubos (also at the Rockefeller Institute) reaffirmed their open and direct challenge to the conventional thinking and practice of the scientific community at large. He suggested that the presumed relationship between microbes and the onset of human disease has been "so oversimplified that it rarely fits the facts of disease.

Indeed it corresponds almost to a cult . . . undisturbed by inconsistencies and not too exacting about evidence." He expanded upon this view in suggesting that we need to objectively account for the fact that extremely virulent:

. . . pathogenic agents [i.e., bacterial and viral micro-organisms] sometimes can persist in the tissues without causing disease, and at other times can cause disease even in the presence of specific antibodies. We need also to explain why microbes supposed to be non-pathogenic often start proliferating in an unrestrained manner if the body's normal physiology is upset. . . .

 

 

During the first phase of the germ theory the property was regarded as lying solely within the microbes themselves. Now virulence is coming to be thought of as ecological . . . This ecological concept is not merely an intellectual game; it is essential to a proper formulation of the problem of microbial diseases and even to their control " 46

 

 

Indeed, Dubos--in time--came to voice the conclusion that "Viruses and bacteria are not the cause of disease, there is something else." In his classic work Mirage of Health, he states

"The world is obsessed by the fact that poliomyelitis can kill and maim . . . unfortunate victims every year. But more extraordinary is the fact that millions upon millions of young children become infected by polio virus, yet suffer no harm from the infection."47 

R. Virchow - "Father of the Germ Theory"

This view closely corresponds to the oft quoted conclusion arrived at in later life by R. Virchow
(popularly reputed as father of the "germ theory") when he stated,

"If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat,
diseased tissues, rather than being the cause of disease."

Since Dubos' time, researchers have estimated that the quantity of symptom free exposure to viruses out number clinical illnesses by at least one hundred-fold.48 

This conclusion is based on the "high proportion of adults who have virus-neutralizing substances in their serum and the number who, during an epidemic, excrete virus without becoming ill.49

Critical Examinations to the Causes of HIV and AIDs

Further corroborative conclusions have been recently reached by some prominent scientists in their critical examination of the popular view that Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) is the key, if not the singular cause of the Acquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Evidence is in that the popularized view that HIV causes AIDS is far more a political necessity, than a genuine scientific conclusion.

(Although the observed action and effects of viruses, and retroviruses--such as HIV--do in fact significantly differ, what is being called into question is the validity of labeling microbes--of whatever form--as the key and or sole "cause" for disease, or as in this case of acquired immunodeficiency.)

Peter Duesberg (Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Calif.- Berkeley; considered by many to be the world's leading expert on retroviruses; and Nobel Prize candidate for his work in discovering oncogenes in viruses) provides compelling evidence that lifestyle based factors serve as the primal determinants in the evolution of the 20 plus neoplastic and degenerative diseases that are now associated with AIDS.

Employing his own research--complemented by 196 cited references--an article entitled "HIV and AlDs: Correlation but not causation," was published in 1989 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 

This article indicates that "Free" HIV virus (Free meaning that the retrovirus is already part of the genome) is not detectable in most cases of AIDS;" "Pure HIV does not cause AIDS upon experimental infection of chimpanzees or accidental infection of healthy humans;" and

"Epidemiological surveys indicate that the annual incidence of AIDS [to be understood as a condition symptomized by various secondary infections for which natural immunity has been lost] depends critically on non-viral [related] risk factors . . . defined by lifestyle, health, and country of residence."

In an interview published nearly five years later Dr. Duesberg is more convinced than ever that the HIV retrovirus is not the cause of AIDS, or of the mortality associated with AIDS. Some of the key points he makes in this important interview follow:

1. There are roughly seven and a half million people world wide who are known carriers of HIV, and who continue to remain free of the immune deficiency symptoms associated with AIDS, and there's not one authenticated case "where you get infected today and get a disease. . . years later . . . infectious agents work immediately or never."
   
   
   
   
   
2. HIV has been found to be totally absent in the system of over 4,600 persons diagnosed with AIDS, so to save political face the US Centers for Disease Control have been forced of late to give such cases a new name i.e., "idiopathic CD 4 Iymphocytopenia."
   
   
   
   
   
3. There are a million Americans with HIV and their T cells are normal, indeed, "HIV is one of the most harmless viruses you could possibly have. It never claims more than one in 1,000 cells every other day" during which time your body replaces "at least 30 out of 1,000" cells.
   
   
   
   
   
4. AIDS is not an infectious disease, but rather arises from "party swinger lifestyles" that includes: the widespread and abundant use of various immune- depleting drugs both legal and illegal such as cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, aphrodisiacs, amyl or butyl nitrites (poppers), combined with correlated conditions of malnutrition, inadequate sleep, and poor hygiene.
   
   
   
   
5. Another key cause of AIDS and the mortality arising from it is medical treatment in itself, viz. AZT has become "AIDS by prescription" and design. In other words in the US alone 200,000 persons (most of whom have normal health) who've tested positive for HIV antibodies, are given 250 mg of AZT every six hours.
   
   
   
   
   ** This highly toxic drug destroys bone marrow, as well as red blood cells thus precipitating cellular oxygen starvation destroys white blood cells; causes anemia, weight loss, muscle loss, nausea, and worsening immune system deficiency coupled with the ensuing infectious diseases commonly associated with AIDS, and finally death.
   
   
   
   (The very same sequence of rapid physiological deterioration, immune deficiency and infections has been documented in healthy persons who were tested positive for HIV, and quickly submitted to medical treatment, but were later confirmed as false positives.) **
   
   

Bio medical scientist and AIDS researcher Joseph Sonnabend speaks of:

". . . the failure of our scientific and medical institutions to have provided an even rudimentary understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease in the eight years since its first description, let alone to have developed interventions...that might significantly alter its course." His well researched conclusions include the view that "The association of HIV seropositivity with AIDS could . . . derive from the possibility that the expression of HIV (and consequent seroconversion) is an effect, rather than a cause of AIDS. . ."51

In summary, if we retum to Robert Koch's 19th century postulates of the "Germ Theory," viz. in order to cause disease particular "bacterium:"

a) must be found in every case of the disease;

b) must never be found apart from the disease; and

c) must consistently produce the same disease as that manifested by the body from which the disease related germs were taken; we find that in reality each postulate has been disproved time and again by varied experience and experimental data.52

Nonetheless, it appears that to this day there remains only a marginal acknowledgment or practical recognition that it is the condition of the body-mind complex and its internal and external environments, which are the principal determinants of the nature, prevalence and role of bacteria, viruses, and even retroviruses.

THE BACTERIAL/VIRALVERSUS THE CELLULAR/ECOLOGICALTHEORY OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE

As a result of the re discovery of many of these earlier scientific investigations, as well as more recent observations in molecular biology, there has arisen among more independent scientists and primary health practitioners a new concept that has been coined as the cellular theory of infectious disease. This seemingly more logical and updated view, poses a serious challenge to the present unquestioned emphasis on supporting mass selective medicine approaches (including artificial immunization) in the Developing World.

The traditional Bacterial--Viral and the emerging Cellular--Ecological theories of disease are contrasted in the table below.

The practical acceptance of the cellular theory as delineated would entail a substantive shift away from both preventive and therapeutic interventions which are heavily predicated on Western selective medicine, i.e., vaccines and drugs, and toward fundamental health improvement measures such as sound nutrition, potable water, sanitation and overall enhancement of the human physical and social environments.53

Considerable experimental, historical and epidemiological evidence supports the cellular ecological theory, as outlined in Table D.

In that major declines in infectious disease took place before the advent of specific vaccines and antibiotics, scientists and or physicians such as Dubos, Dettman, Illich, McCormick, Taylor, Buttram, and Hoffman agree that the overall eradication of varied infectious diseases were due to basic improvements in nutrition, sanitation, housing, education and related socioeconomic conditions.

For example, Canadian physician W.J. McCormick was able to make this telling observation at midpoint in the present century.

The usual explanation offered for this changed trend in infectious diseases has been the forward March of medicine in prophylaxis and therapy; but, from a study of the literature, it is evident that these changes in incidence and mortality have been neither synchronous with nor proportionate to such measures . . .

 

. . . . the decline in diphtheria, whooping cough and typhoid fever began fully fifty years prior to the inception of artificial immunization and followed an almost even grade before and after the adoption of these control measures. In the case of scarlet fever, mumps, measles and rheumatic fever there has been no specific innovation in control measures, yet these also have followed the same general pattern in incidence decline.54