Life is a Fatal Illness

   

The agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries have taken charge of our lives. They dominate farming practice, which has destroyed our soil and minimised the nutrient content of our crops. They dominate animal husbandry, which has become a nightmare of poor nutrition and overcrowding in insanitary conditions, sustainable only by the liberal use of antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals.

 

They dominate the food industry with chemical additives and other unnatural substances. The result is that our health is failing, and all manner of chronic diseases are in the ascendant. Having created this toxic environment, they then dominate global food aid, fortifying nutritionally sterile staples with micronutrients in a form that can never work.

 

Finally, they dominate our health services, which are really just treatment services. We are told that we are living longer, but few of us are healthier, and most of us are propped up by a plethora of drugs, which rarely cure, and often create further serious health problems.

 

All in all, a big win for these chemical industries, and a gigantic loss for mankind and the planet. And how have we allowed this to happen? This tiny handful of industrial giants have either bought the patronage of our politicians, or they have infiltrated the international agencies, the regulatory agencies and the advisory boards who make the rules.

 

If we resist, or shout ‘foul’, they accuse us of elitism, of favouring foods that most people cannot afford, of not caring about the plight of the masses, and not trusting the scientists (them) to solve the world’s problems. If we suggest a better way, they trash it, either by arguing that it is unaffordable, or by demanding that we produce the scientific evidence to back our claim. If we ask them to provide the scientific evidence to justify their approach, they either produce evidence that is flawed, or they argue that no evidence is required because their approach is ‘standard practice’.

 

This is nothing new. In the 1920s, the English agriculturalist, Sir Albert Howard, became aware of the connection between healthy soil and healthy people, livestock and crops, and he was soon supporting traditional farming practices over modern agricultural science. Howard declared, ‘The health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible.’ He saw pests in the context of Nature's use for them as censors of soil fertility and of unsuitable crops growing in unsuitable conditions. He found that, when the unsuitable conditions were corrected, the pests departed. But no one was listening. Mr Robert Hudson, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, was determined to increase crop yields, and his Chief Agricultural Adviser, William Gavin, a director of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), was going to show him how to do it. Howard faded into obscurity and died in 1947, whilst Gavin became Chairman of ICI.

 

For years, the ‘experts’ told us that cholesterol and saturated fat were the heart disease villains, and that partially saturated vegetable oil (margarine) was healthy. They lied. What is worse is that their scientific evidence was partial and skewed.

 

In his 1972 book, Pure, White and Deadly, Professor John Yudkin was one of the first scientists to claim that sugar was a major cause of obesity and heart disease. But, with the UK refined sugar market worth nearly £1billion, and with worldwide production of some 180 million tonnes per year, it is little wonder that no one listened. He was ignored by the majority of the medical profession and rubbished by the food industry. But Yudkin was right and we should have heeded his warning. Our love affair with sugar is an addiction. No one needs it, and it is killing us.

 

These are a few of the issues raised in Life is a Fatal Illness. The author, Geoff Douglas, is a physician and occupational health specialist. He was born in London in 1945, grew up in Zambia, schooled in Zimbabwe and read medicine at Oxford. He worked for 35 years in Swaziland, where he founded a managed health care organisation that grew to fourteen clinics, fifty staff and over forty thousand patients.

 

In the 1980s, Geoff made the first HIV diagnosis in the country that now has the worst HIV prevalence in the world. The escalating epidemic was a bitter pill, especially for one who had been trained in, and still did not doubt the merits of, the biomedical model, the Cartesian basis of modern medical science, which, in Swaziland in the 1980s, had little to offer those living with, and dying from, HIV/AIDS.

 

The biomedical model, also known as allopathy, conventional medicine or Western scientific medicine, is considered the epitome of scientific, objective and reproducible medicine. Health is viewed as the absence of disease, and sickness is explained within a biological framework that emphasises its physical nature. Disease is caused by physical agents external to the body. Health services are geared towards treating sick and disabled people. Their main function is remedial or curative.

 

The biomedical model has enjoyed proven success in the diagnosis and treatment of numerous diseases. Examples include the once-lethal infectious diseases that antibiotics can cure, or the once-devastating viral illnesses, such as smallpox, polio or measles, that vaccines have all but eradicated. But the model is intrinsically flawed. Its failure stems from its core belief that an illness has a single cause, and that removal or attenuation of the cause will result in a return to health. Unfortunately, this does not apply to today’s chronic health problems. A single drug, or even a single micronutrient, cannot be the ‘cure’ for tuberculosis, cancer, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, stroke, mental illness or dementia.

 

The truth is that nearly all the chronic degenerative diseases that plague us today are disorders of lifestyle. But we remain wedded to the idea of a pill for every ill. Like snake oil, this falsehood continues to be peddled by the pharmaceutical industry, and is readily accepted by us, because it is so much easier than our actually having to do something.

 

Geoff’s holism was born out of his clinical practice, which constantly challenged his Western ideas. He and Penny owned a small farm, with six hundred mango trees. It was here that they reared their children and practiced self-sufficiency, with their own free-range chickens and ducks, a small flock of sheep, a small herd of beef cattle and their house cow, Jabula. And it was on the farm that they learned about sustainability.

 

But Geoff’s most important ‘tutors’ were his having to deal with serious life challenges, including being shot, the death of his youngest son and cancer.

 

In his retirement from clinical practice, Geoff was recruited to run the nutrition charity, Health Empowerment Through Nutrition (HETN), and came face to face with the global nutrition crisis. He soon discovered what is meant by Hidden Hunger, and learned that it is a worldwide problem, affecting more than two billion people. He had to apply his scientific mind to the claims and counter claims of a dysfunctional food industry and an even more dysfunctional supplements industry. He discovered that the balanced diet so loved of health professionals is an illusion and, for the first time in his professional life, he was learning about the relationship between diet and chronic disease.

 

Our farming methods have conspired to maximise yields at the expense of nutrient content. Such methods include deep ploughing, artificial fertilisers, pesticides, fungicides and monoculture. They also include genetically modified crops, hydroponics, early harvesting and artificial ripening, factory farming, storage over long periods and transport over great distances. As a result, our food contains a fraction of the essential micronutrients it contained one hundred years ago, food production is no longer sustainable, and increased transport is having a negative environmental impact.

 

The problem is compounded by a food industry wedded to milling, refining, processing, additives and the extensive use of sugar, corn syrup and hydrogenated oils (trans fats). The consequence of all this tinkering is that, even when we can afford a balanced diet and choose it, our food is often so depleted that we remain malnourished.

 

The book is aimed at the general reader, but has serious intent. The subject matter is both topical and relevant. There is a global nutrition crisis, which is not being addressed. Geoff has an intimate knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, his subject. As well as being a good read, this book will impart some useful life skills, empower the reader to cope, spread some happiness, and explain what is meant by good nutrition.

 

Geoff was urged to write Life is a Fatal Illness by the Trustees of HETN, the UK Charity of which he is CEO. They felt that his holistic approach to health, which is unusual for a physician, and the way he has coped with adversity were stories that were worth telling.

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