The Atlantic's "lost" interview with the Health Ranger
As you read these thoughtful responses, ask yourself why does The Atlantic NOT want its readers to see this information? Who is The Atlantic really working for?The Atlantic: What does the word "alternative" word signal to you?
Health Ranger: A very good discussion point, and we've been talking about this for years, both in the context of alternative medicine and alternative media. In medicine circles, the word "alternative" has fallen out of favor due to the fact that so many of the things which used to be considered alternative are now mainstream. Acupuncture, juicing, anti-cancer foods, superfoods, electrostimulation therapies and so on. In conventional medical circles, doctors who offer a combination of alternative and conventional therapies like to refer to themselves as "integrative medicine" practitioners, and that term has widespread acceptable across the alternative medicine advocates, too.
I more frequently hear the term "holistic medicine" these days, and I think it's a better term than "integrative," although it's not yet as popular. Some in alternative medicine who practice more technical therapies (such as insulin-potentiated micro-chemotherapy injections) refer to their brand of medicine as "advanced medicine," which implies (accurately, in my opinion) that much of conventional medicine is outmoded.
The Atlantic: Do you think mainstream medicine has any value? If so, what is that value?
Health Ranger: Absolutely, mainstream medicine is very strong in acute emergency care, such as dealing with trauma patients in emergency rooms. Mainstream medicine is also VERY good at diagnostic testing of blood, liver function, tissues, organs, etc. The reductionist philosophy underlying conventional medicine has made the science very good at imaging physical organs, for example, while simultaneously causing the science to be extremely bad at understanding the holistic interactions between those organs.
Mainstream media is disastrously bad at preventive care, as true prevention (i.e. preventing the development of disease in the first place) is almost never taught to physicians in medical schools. Mainstream media distorts the word "prevention" to mean "detection," conflating the two issues when making claims like stating that mammography is "prevention." It isn't. Mammography is a detection technology, it does not prevent cancer. In fact, mammography emits ionizing radiation which contributes to cancer. It causes the very thing it claims to prevent. Prevention can only come from lifestyle changes (diet, exercise, avoidance of toxins, strategically choosing to consume anti-cancer foods, etc.) which may also be strategically selected to align with the person's specific genetic risk factors to minimize overall risk. This does not mean mammography has no place in medicine, only that it isn't prevention in the first place, and that it has its own risks which must be acknowledged and understood.
It is widely understood across the alternative medicine culture, if you will, that the conventional cancer industry really has no interest or motivation in preventing cancer. There's far too much profit to be found in treating it! Search for the work of Dr. Sam Epstein, who has been driving home this point for years. It is truly bizarre that the cancer industry almost never talks about preventing cancer by avoiding exposure to toxic chemicals in personal care products, for example, or toxic food preservatives, toxic environmental chemicals in the home, and so on. Ideally, if the for-profit cancer industry really wanted to help people, it would work to put itself out of business by creating a world with no cancer. But all of us who understand how corporations work instantly realize that no for-profit entity will actively seek to make itself irrelevant.
The Atlantic: The mainstream view is that no treatment can be considered true medicine unless it's supported by a double-blind study with a control group and lots of participants. Do you think there are other ways to verify a treatment's effectiveness?
Health Ranger: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are indeed the "gold standard" of the scientific assessment of a particular treatment's effectiveness. Here in the alternative media, we don't (or at least I don't) disagree at all with this approach to scrutinizing medicines, supplements and even homeopathic remedies for that matter. The problem in all this comes from the unfortunate fact that the FDA conducts no clinical trials itself. Rather, it relies on drug companies to pay for their own studies and then submit those studies to the FDA for drug approval. As you might expect, drug companies cherry-pick the studies they wish for the FDA to see. In pharma studies, clinical trial researchers are influenced / pressured to design studies in a way that promotes the profit interest of the sponsoring drug companies, knowing that if they do not find favorable results, they will not receive repeat projects and revenues from that same client. As a result, far too many clinical trials are fraudulently designed, or the data is massaged after the fact, or trial participants are deleted from the study if their outcomes don't match the desired results, etc. Google the Merck virologists who filed a False Claims Act, stating they were ordered by Merck management to spike vaccine trial results with animal antibodies to fraudulently alter study results in order to achieve FDA approval for the mumps vaccine.
More to your question, there are other knowledge bases possessed by humanity which are not reflected in the western approach to clinical trials. There exists an enormous knowledge base of indigenous wisdom about the use of medicinal plants (foods and herbs) for disease prevention as well as the acute treatment of symptoms. There was even an interesting science paper recently published which documented how animals self-medicate using medicinal plants. The conventional medical system deliberately attempts to disparage and cast aside this indigenous knowledge base, except when Big Pharma's "biopirates" want to steal molecules from nature (red yeast rice -> lovastatin molecule -> statin drugs), in which case they suddenly love the medicines found in nature as long as those medicines can be altered and patented into a profitable drug.
The Atlantic: Do give me a better sense of how you define alternative medicine at Natural News -- do you think alternative treatments could or should replace chemotherapy?
[Note the flawed premise of the question which assumes that alternative therapies are only useful if they might "replace" a conventional treatment. The far more important questions are: How do we PREVENT disease, and how do we REVERSE disease once it takes hold? Chemotherapy doesn't "prevent" cancer...]
Health Ranger: This can really only be answered by addressing the flawed model of cancer held by those who practice conventional medicine. The dominant model held by nearly all western doctors today is one of dissociation. They think of cancer as something which is separate from the patient, as if it were an alien invader and not the person's own tissues and cells. Cancer is treated with the same chemical treatment model as malaria. It worked great for malaria, but cancer is not a foreign object in a human body. It isn't caused by a microbe, in other words.
A cancer tumor, at its essence, is a symptom of cellular communication gone wrong. So the chemical treatment models are all based on the wrong metaphor. Chemotherapy is a "chemical carpet bombing" of the body that hopes to kill the tumor before it kills the patient. This is barbaric medicine. A more advanced, progressive and modern approach would seek to find ways to protect healthy cells while micro-doses of chemotherapy are targeted to the tumors, yet the cancer industry today is adamantly opposed to any nutritive therapies which might protect healthy cells (such as omega-3's, vitamin C, glutathione, etc.).
Chemotherapy *could* be made safer and more effective at the same time, but only if the cancer industry embraced nutritional and herbal therapies used in conjunction with chemo. For example, if you search the science papers for micro injections of spirulina chemicals (phycocyanin, if I remember correctly), you will find that Japanese doctors were able to eliminate tumors by injecting them (directly, surgically) with these chemicals extracted from spirulina microalgae. This practice combines the technical expertise of cancer surgery with the healing miracles, if you will, of Mother Nature. It could potentially save millions of lives, yet it will never be embraced by the cancer industry because that industry almost universally rejects natural substances, pretending they have no value at all, especially when they might compete with chemotherapy at some level.
If you really want to dig into the truth of chemotherapy, ask yourself how many of the deceased who died during chemotherapy treatments have their cause of death categorized as "chemotherapy." To my knowledge, this number is zero. Instead, they are designated as being killed by cancer. But we know chemotherapy is extremely toxic and even deadly: the signs are irrefutable. Muscle wasting, appetite loss, hair falling out, wasting away, etc. So there is a huge deception taking place right now that deliberately seeks to pretend that chemotherapy kills no one. Yet the FDA banned ma huang (ephedra herb) from being imported into the United States based on a very tiny number of reported deaths from people who overdosed. The FDA's double standard of safety is screaming out to be exposed, which is part of what we do at Natural News.
The Atlantic: Insulin for diabetes?
Health Ranger: There is no natural replacement for insulin, but there are a multitude of ways to prevent and even reverse type-2 diabetes using natural methods. Type-2 diabetes is not a permanent state in most patients diagnosed with it. It is an expression of biological symptoms which can be eliminated through relatively simple changes in most people: radically altering their food choice, increasing physical activity, and boosting vitamin D consumption. In its more advanced stages, type-2 diabetes can become permanent, but most people diagnosed with it have a real window of opportunity to reverse it through behavioral changes. Type-1 diabetes is a different story altogether, being an autoimmune disorder.
The Atlantic: Antiretrovirals for HIV?
Health Ranger: Botany is absolutely rich with natural antiviral substances that can prevent numerous viral infections, including HIV, influenza, and many others that might pose a pandemic risk. Traditional Chinese Medicine, in particular, has known about pandemic-busting medicines for literally thousands of years. A chemical analysis of these ancient formulas reveals molecules which are almost identical to those first harvested by pharma scientists and turned into antiretroviral drugs.
For example, search for "Minor Blue Green Dragon," which is funny-sounding name, but the chemical constituents of the formula are, indeed, very powerful medicine from any point of view (Eastern or Western).
Remember: The premise of the antiretroviral drugs is that the correct chemicals can stimulate the body's immune response to identify and eliminate viral threats. This model is correct, but it isn't limited only to molecules which happen to carry a Big Pharma patent. The process of classic Darwinist evolution has resulted in plants producing their own self-contained pharmacies for their own survival. They literally synthesize chemicals that protect their own organs (roots, stems, flowers, fruits, nuts, etc.) from viral and bacterial attacks. Thus, plants produce anti-viral chemicals on their own.
It's almost universal, in fact, to find some level of anti-viral efficacy in almost any weed, including dandelions. Even better, plants don't produce isolated molecules, they produce a symphony of molecules which work in unison, often attacking invading pathogens from multiple angles while also reducing the toxicity risks that comes from high potency isolated molecules. It's safer, in other words, to swallow a symphony of related, lower concentration molecules than a very high dose of a single molecule (generally speaking, although there are of course exceptions).
The Atlantic: Vaccines?
Health Ranger: The premise of classic vaccine intervention is that a weakened virus is introduced into the body, causing the body's immune system to recognize this virus and respond through the production of antibodies. These antibodies, it is believed, will then protect the body from the real virus that comes along. It is the "rehearsal" model of immunology.
This immunology model isn't wrong, but it also isn't complete. The body can only respond if its own immune system is sufficiently vigorous, and this comes primarily from good nutrition and behavioral choices. A junk food diet and chronic vitamin D deficiency, in other words, leads to chronic immune suppression. This causes vaccines to not work (not create the desired antibody response), and this simple truth is almost never reported by the mainstream media: Those who need vaccines the most are the least likely to benefit from them because their immune systems fail to generate the desired antibody response.
Those with very strong, active immune systems, on the other hand, are very likely to naturally and automatically build their own antibodies to a real-world exposure to an invading viral strain. This often takes place asymptomatically (i.e. the person never even knows they "caught" the flu, because they never showed any symptoms). Thus, the people who are most likely to respond with antibodies to a vaccine are precisely the very same people who are least likely to need the vaccine (i.e. most likely to beat the flu on their own). This does not disregard the importance of vaccines in laboratory conditions, such as where scientists are working in level-4 biohazard labs, in which case they must obviously be fully vaccinated against those extremely deadly threats. However, even in such contexts, those scientists need to have healthy immune systems or they won't respond well to the vaccines.
The vaccine industry response to this catch-22 by formulating vaccines with adjuvants -- inflammatory chemicals designed to cause a heightened immune reaction so that those with weakened immune systems might generate some sort of antibody response. These chemicals and metals (including aluminum) are toxic to the body, which is why some small percentage of children receiving these vaccines experience devastating biological damage as a result (hence the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program).
What the alternative health community really wants to see on vaccines -- in my opinion, at least, but I think you'll find this to be a commonly held belief -- is the elimination of all toxic chemicals and heavy metals from all vaccines. Mercury, aluminum, MSG, formaldehyde, etc. This would require vaccines to be offered in single-dose vials, not 10-dose vials as is currently the standard. We also want to see the vaccine industry educate doctors and health care providers of the importance of vitamin D used in conjunction with "clean vaccines." The vitamin D must be taken for many days in advance to build up vitamin D levels in the blood and activate the immune system gene expression. Only then can a clean vaccine produce the desired antibody response.
Almost NONE of these issues are ever discussed in the mainstream media. The Atlantic is by far a more thoughtful, in-depth publication, which is why I'm hopeful that you will consider all that I've brought up here. The mainstream "tabloid" media attempts to paint this entire issue as "science vs. anti-science." It's nothing of the kind. So-called "anti-vaxxers" mostly aren't opposed to vaccines per se (although some are opposed to all such interventions, regardless of their composition); they are primarily opposed to the toxic elements formulated into those vaccines, and they are especially opposed to the totalitarianism mentality of the belligerent vaccine industry which leaves no room for intelligent questions, genuine scientific scrutiny or even any discussion of the removal of toxic elements from vaccines.
The Atlantic: Since you often report things no one else is reporting, and the medical community is actively disputing, I'm interested to know what your review and fact-checking process is like.
[NOTE: This question is especially rich coming from The Atlantic after it has now been learned they were scammed by Kevin Folta into printing his false claims about having no financial ties to Monsanto. The Atlantic also fails to disclose Paul Offit's financial ties to the vaccine industry. It makes you wonder what their own "fact checking" process might be...]
Health Ranger: That's a great question because in most hard-hitting story we publish, we link to someone like the CDC to back up what we're claiming. Much of what we do is simply bringing something into public awareness that isn't disputed but has been forgotten or ignored. For example, on the question of mercury, aluminum and MSG in vaccines, we link directly to the CDC's vaccine additives page which lists all these. Yet there are still ignorant doctors and science people who literally do not know there is still mercury used in flu shots given to pregnant women in America. I've even seen the Associated Press make this mistake in a published story. Yet the AP also did an outstanding investigation of the failures of the vaccine injury court, and we praised them for that piece.
Both the AP and Natural News are diverse organizations, of course. We have a multitude of writers who don't always agree with each other, and it's even true to say that I don't always agree with everything published on Natural News, nor its blogs site. Just like your publication, or the AP, or CNN etc., Natural News strives to be factually accurate and we have a multi-layered editorial review process. If we make a factual error, we quickly post a correction and update the story. But I think it's fair to say that most of the disagreement with what we write isn't about our citations or sources, it's about the fact that the pharma-educated conventional doctors don't agree with our holistic conclusions. Or they simply lack a more advanced understanding on topics like chemotherapy, vaccines, nutrition, disease prevention, heavy metals exposure, etc. It's important to understand that a doctor fresh out of medical school is not necessarily WISE even though he or she may be SMART. I know many MDs and have many as friends, yet even they will tell you what they learn in medical school is mostly a "treat the symptoms" approach that's driven by pharma interests. So a young doctor may emerge from medical school with literally zero training nutrition and zero training in exercise physiology even though diet and exercise are the two most important factors for disease prevention. To expect a physician who isn't trained in disease prevention to have any real knowledge of how to prevent a disease is a kind of cultural insanity. That's why I so much appreciate those doctors who expand their knowledge beyond medical school and seek integrative training with people like Dr. Weil in Tucson. Those doctors realize the limitations of their schooling and are actively seeking to acquire new knowledge that goes beyond the pharma-controlled indoctrination model.
Your question, though, brings up a far bigger issue worthy of an entire discussion. What is a "Fact" and where do "Facts" come from? The conventional view is that a "fact" is nothing more than an agreement among some sufficient number of people in some apparent positions of authority (universities, the CDC, FDA, etc.) In other words, a fact could be either a shared truth, or a shared delusion, depending on what era you're living in and how far along human civilization has progressed. Not long ago, it was a "Fact" that the Earth was flat. In the Newtonian era, it was a "Fact" that objects were solid. We now know that objects are not solid. They are mostly empty space. We also now know that there is a so-called "second brain" in the body (in the gut). We now know that there are more non-human cells inside the human body than there are human cells (gut bacteria). We know that gut bacteria transform foods into vitamins. We know that mind-body interactions are very real and well documented, even though the medical establishment largely pretends the mind has no connection to the body.
The reluctant truth of your question is that "Facts" are never static. They evolve as human understanding progresses. The more we learn, in other words, the more we realize our old models of understanding were completely wrong. I predict we will see a day in the very near future when vaccines and chemotherapy will be considered "barbaric, outmoded medicine" because they will be replaced with something far more advanced and holistic -- such as vibrational medicine technologies (nanotech perhaps, or electromedicine, sound medicine, etc.) Recent news reveals that sound vibrations alone have been able to significantly reduce the plaque associated with Alzheimer's disease. To me, that's the real future of medicine, not crude chemicals.
Similarly, today it's a (false) "Fact" that there are no such things as anti-cancer foods. But this so-called "Fact" is a delusion. Obviously there are all sorts of anti-cancer foods which help prevent cancer: red grapes, celery, all citrus fruits, microalgae and so on. Yet the FDA adamantly insists there is no such thing as any food, supplement, herb or natural substances which can prevent, reverse or treat any disease. The claim is ludicrous, but it is considered a "Fact." It is not at all difficult to point out failures in the "fact" model for claiming scientific or medical authority.
In many stories we publish, we validate the facts in our own lab. You may already know I'm the science lab director of an ICP-MS laboratory that tests foods, liquids and environmental samples for toxic elements. We're in the process of ISO 17025 accreditation, which we hope to achieve by early 2016. It is this lab experience and knowledge which allows me to intelligently comment on media science hoaxes such as the hilariously ridiculous "arsenic in California wine" media scare story that recently took America by storm. That story claimed that 50 ppb of arsenic in wine is toxic. The very same media outlets that claimed this will, on any given day, claim that 50,000 ppb of mercury in a vaccine is "safe." The contradiction is screaming out to be answered by someone like Natural News. We are particularly known for pointing out the contradictions (or hoaxes) in mainstream media stories. (And btw, 50 ppb of arsenic in wine is no cause for alarm. I've tested seaweed products with 100,000 ppb of arsenic.)
Another great example of all this is the measles hysteria scare drummed up to push vaccines. The same media that pretended measles was very nearly a national emergency provides virtually no coverage at all to the issue of "medicated drivers." We have medicated drivers all over America's highways, putting the public and risk and causing traffic accidents. When I interviewed a police officer in Tucson, Arizona about this story a few years back, he told me that 30% of the traffic accidents in Tucson involved medicated drivers. (That is, prescription medications.) If you multiply this across the nation, you have something that might be approaching the public safety danger level of drunk driving. Yet there's no coverage of it, at least not that I've seen.
The Atlantic: Final question: Many doctors and medical experts are now positioning themselves as "integrative" rather than "alternative," and making a point of working within the medical establishment. Do you ever worry that by positioning yourself against the medical establishment, you'll risk being dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist" and make it harder for the ideas you promote to break through? Or do you think that level of antagonism is necessary and will ultimately bring about change?
Health Ranger: That's a great question. You successfully cite the full argument in your question, and I don't have the right answer to all this. I'm not running a calculated strategy here, I'm just trying to protect lives. When I see doctors or institutions promoting nutritional therapies for disease prevention, I applaud them. When I see doctors, drug companies or government regulators placing lives at risk and silencing safer and more effective natural therapies, I condemn them. My aim is to empower people with the knowledge they need to save their own lives, and doing so requires pointing out the faults and even the real collusion happening inside the medical establishment.
Drug companies, for example, are actively paying generic drug manufacturers to keep low-cost generic drugs off the market in order to protect the high profits of name-brand drugs. How is this not a conspiracy? It's a blatant anti-trade practice that should be investigated by the FTC, in my opinion. It harms consumers and creates price monopolies that contribute to skyrocketing health insurance costs across America. The practice harms the nation and costs consumers, companies, governments and municipalities. Yet it is allowed to continue solely because Big Pharma has tremendous political influence, so it can buy its way into a monopoly position over the U.S. "sick care" market.
It is the job of the press to point these things out. By covering these topics, I'm honoring the very important role of real journalism in America. Our job is to ask questions, expose corruption and collusion, applaud those who help create a better society and condemn those who act against the public interest. That's what we do here at Natural News. We happen to do it in a way that's a lot more activism oriented and it sometimes angers the establishment. And so what? I'm fighting to save lives here; to teach people how they can live healthier, longer lives without being victimized by the pharmaceutical industry or the for-profit cancer industry.
Any person who is afraid to ruffle a few feathers should never be a journalist -- or an activist -- in the first place. I don't run Natural News to win any popularity contests... I pursue it with a passion for preventing suffering, helping fellow human beings and protecting our world from the sick medical establishment that stands in the way of real healing.
Thank you for allowing me to address your questions, and I appreciate you taking the time to review what I've offered. If you have any follow-up questions, I'm happy to address those as well.
- Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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