Cancer Is A Political Disease, as Doctor Samuel Epstein famously wrote.
This article about cancer, which featured in this week’s NZ Listener, May 16-22, 2015, was yet another gloss-over of the real, underlying causes of most cancers.
Remember that book by Samuel B. Epstein, ‘The Politics Of Cancer’? Epstein’s concerns in the 1970,s or early ’80’s are as relevant today as they were then.
One thing the Listener article had right: Just because you carry a gene which might increase your chances of getting cancer, carrying the gene does not mean that you need to succumb to the disease. Most cancers can be prevented through eating the right foods, and living a healthy lifestyle which incorporates regular exercise. You do not need to run out and get a breast cut off to avoid getting cancer, like some well-known film stars have done.
However, if the vegetables, fruit and meat you are buying are devoid of all the main nutrients they are supposed to carry, because of artificial fertilizers ruining natural fertility of the soil, and they are contaminated by the use of various agricultural poisons used in producing them, then diet may not help much in preventing cancer. For diet to prevent or cure cancer, then it is imperative that a clean, organic source of food be found.
Point One On The Omissions In Listener Article: It failed to mention that the widespread poisoning of the planet by agrichemical giants is the main cause of cancer. If we don’t get poisoned through agriculture, then the local council might do it for us: Governments and councils all over the world support these companies by allowing these poisons on our parks, in nature reserves, and around our towns on the pavements.
Point Two: It also declined to mention that poverty, or inequal distribution of the world’s wealth, is another major cause of obesity, which in turn goes hand in hand with higher cancer risk, as well as heart disease and diabetes. This is because vegetables and fresh fruit are expensive, whereas take-away foods such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried, are relatively cheap, which is why many poorer families rely on these second-rate choices. Apart from the obvious high-fat in takeaway foods, they contain high levels of genetically-modified items, such as corn, which are contaminated with glyphosphate and other agrichemicals.
On point one: No matter how good the food you eat, chances are it has been exposed to quantities of glyphosphate poison, found in RoundUp, as well as many other contaminants.
The World Health Organization has recently announced that glyphosphate, an active component in RoundUp weedkiller, ‘probably causes cancer’.
Agrichemical giants have argued for a long time that ‘there is no proof that poisons such as glyphosphate are harmful’, and they have aggressively suppressed information which might alert people as to their health risk. At last, WHO have come out with an albeit half-hearted attack on glyphosphate and Monsanto’s RoundUp.
The world-wide push for countries to sign the TPPA trade agreement is going to weaken the power of governments further: It will effectively eradicate our right to free speech, as these chemical giants will rule under USA law, which currently gives them the right to sue if we harm their sales. This means anybody claiming that these poisons harm your health will be sued, just to shut them up.
The end result of this corruption is that our food will continue to be contaminated by the major seed and herbicide-pesticide manufacturers, and will probably become even more toxic with their increased powers, once they have shut down free speech and any adversaries of their ethics.
Monsanto have been using ‘RoundUp Ready’ seeds for a long time now. Being so-called ‘Round-Up Ready’ means that the plant has been developed to resist glyphosphate poison. But it also means that the food, which has come from genetically modified seeds so that it can withstand glyphosphate weed-killer, will be highly contaminated with this poison. The plant may survive the glyphosphate weedkiller, but it absorbs the poison, and then we ingest it.
75% or more of the world’s corn and soybeans are now thought to be genetically modified seeds which are so-called ‘RoundUp-Ready’, which means they can withstand liberal use of glyphosphate-containing RoundUp poison.
So, so sad to see John Campbell leaving TV3 and his programme ‘Campbell Live’. This is a political move, as John is the only journalist who deals honestly and helpfully on all manner of political, social and environmental issues, and I bet the National government is overjoyed he has been pushed out. Now we have no one to defend the poor, or the environment, or to keep the politicians honest.
My guess is that, more than anything, TV3 has come under pressure from the government, who wanted John Campbell quietened down on the serious worries we all have to do with our government and their secret negotiations to sign the TPPA with America, our government’s dubious spy agency, and other things, such as unaffordable housing in Auckland and rocketing house prices.
It has nothing to do with Campbell’s ratings. I believe these have been trumped down in the same way that National’s ratings are trumped up – to suit the government. John Campbell is probably the most loved TV personality ever, and his ratings are still much higher than those of other important programmes run by TV3, or any other station.
A friend of mine told me angrily this week that policital issues should be kept separate from health ones, and that I am wrong to include both. Funny – I pulled all the obvious political stuff from my health site when it was being hacked regularly, around the time just prior to the election three years ago.
I guessed that the reason was political, and that the National lot were to blame. My son discovered that the site had definitely been hacked, and that an ad for ‘viagra for sale’ had been inserted within my articles, along with other examples of sabotage. One sure way to get your site ruined in its ratings is by sticking ads like this onto it.
Then, just two weeks before this last election, someone invited a response from me, in a comment that they made on my site. So, for the first time in around three years, I mentioned the National government, whom I had criticized earlier. I said that my site had been hacked because of my views on the current government, which I consider to be their obliviousness to the urgencies of social issues such as housing, and jobs, their lack of concern for the environment, and their greedy desire to sell off every part of our country for quick profit.
Within an hour of writing this, my whole site was totally blocked. I was effectively silenced, not able to answer comments, not able to agree with the arguments put forward by Nicki Hager, that the National government had serious bloggers out there to undermine the other parties. Now I knew how serious this movement to protect the status quo really was – that they have the power to stop any protesters or dissenters, by de-activating their sites. And I couldn’t write about it, because my site was down.
The site wasn’t able to be restored until two days AFTER the election, because the ‘WordPress’ help-desk was conveniently shut until then. Well – Great to see all this stuff printed in ‘The Listener’ on diet, and what foods to eat for keeping healthy and avoiding cancer. But we, who have long held serious doubts on the belief systems of the medical establishment, knew all this a long, long time ago.
