WHY ALL BACTERIA ARE “FRIENDLY”

I read recently in Dr. Joseph Mercola’s newsletter of an experiment where someone introduced some “pathogens” (e-coli, salmonella, etc.) to a dish of raw milk, and then introduced the same types of so-called bad bacteria to an identical dish of pasteurized milk.  The samples were allowed to sit at room temperature for awhile and then were tested.  It was observed that the newly added bacteria flourished in the pasteurized milk, while they died off in the raw milk.  The researcher’s explanation for this is that the raw milk contained so many forms of “good” bacteria that the “bad” ones were vanquished in the ensuing battle between them.

The experiment might have yielded some interesting factual information, except that the experimenter, led by his preconceived biases, was more focused on building a story that left these intact than giving us a glimpse of reality about what makes bacteria tick.

Like all other organisms, bacteria seek their food supply.  Bacteria belong to a class of species known as “necrophages”, which simply means that they eat dead things.  This is the process we call “decomposition” and without it nothing dead would ever go away, it would just continue to pile up.  What the above experiment proved, if anything, was that fresh raw milk has less for bacteria to feed upon than milk that has been cooked such that its nutrients are rendered substantially unfit for consumption by all but bacteria.  This is why you will notice that cooked (pasteurized) milk left at room temperature goes sour quicker than raw milk does.

However, the important take-away message is that the imagined battle between the mischaracterized “good” and “evil” microorganisms never happens at all.  Different types of bacteria don’t compete with each other, in the same way that carnivores don’t compete with herbivores.  Different bacteria eat different types of “food”.  Bacteria that decompose certain foods that don’t belong in the human body are thought to be “bad” because these foods create so much waste that the people who eat them tend to get sick more than people who don’t.  The bacteria that feed upon these types of waste are accused of being “bad” “unfriendly” or “pathogenic” and are convicted of disease causation on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence — their mere presence at the site of disease.  They no more cause sickness than solar flares do.  They just happen to be present when medical professionals go looking for microscopic villains.  A perfect analogy would be the cops showing up at the scene of a bank robbery, rounding up all the customers who were in line at the time and throwing them in jail without due process, while the real robbers escape to rob again.  When we fail to identify real culprits, the biggest negative consequence (among the many) is the inability to prevent similar occurrences in the future.  As a side note, it occurs to me that this might actually be the perfect analogy because it could be argued that banks deserve to be robbed (if you didn’t know that the banking industry is a criminal enterprise, you haven’t been paying attention) in the same way that people who get sick ‘deserve’ illness.  After all, it is one’s own actions that cause sickness, not contact with any germ or sick person.

For all its arrogant faux certainty about the role bacteria plays in sickness, medical “science” has never established a definitive causal connection between bacteria and sickness.  In fact, when they have attempted to demonstrate this hypothesis,  they have failed.  The simple truth is that bacteria are present at the site of “infection”, by implicit invitation, helping to clean up the mess.  Their relationship to us is similar to the relationship we humans have to fruit trees.  We don’t “invade” orchards when we pick and eat the fruit.  The trees depend on us to disseminate their seeds, and we benefit from the nourishment.  This is known as symbiosis, and it’s exactly what’s happening when bacteria proliferate in our bodies.  Anyone who understands the realities of the natural microscopic world would not use a military euphemism like “invasion” to describe a natural process in which two species interact for their mutual benefit.

Has it occurred to anyone that hospitals are the most sterile places on earth but seem to have the highest rates of spontaneous “infection”?  No matter how germ-free the operating room is declared to be, people with polluted bloodstreams (i.e., everyone) who undergo surgical injury very often become “infected”.  Antibiotics are administered to kill the bacteria, but they also toxify the body, kill living cells and end up interfering with the healing process.  The word “antibiotic” literally means “against life”.

Imagine putting a bunch of humans in a sealed igloo in the Arctic with no food.  Eventually they’d die, and they wouldn’t be making any more little humans.  This is all we have to do if we want to get rid of bacteria – make our bodies inhospitable to them by removing their food supply.  If we want to control or otherwise minimize the bacterial populations in our bodies, we need only stop eating waste-producing foods and stop causing our bodies to become depositories of accumulating sewage.

We could never kill or disable all the bacteria on earth or even the “bad” bacteria, and if we tried we’d soon drown in our own waste.  It is foolish to fear or give even a second thought to a species that we are so utterly dependent on for our survival.

If humanity survives long enough into the future, the ideas we currently have about bacteria will be ridiculed like we now scoff at the idea that evil spirits were responsible for disease.  Bacteria are the modern equivalent of evil spirits.

It’s impossible to overstate the harm that has sprung from modern civilization’s irrational fear of bacteria and the mistaken blame that has been placed on them for sickness.  And it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if those of us who know the truth fail to speak out.  The monopolized partnership between government and medicine has already spawned a thousand ridiculous and destructive “health” laws that attempt to force people to participate in their absurd war on “germs”, and much more is coming our way if we continue tolerating the insanity.

The next time you encounter an example of “contagious” disease, instead of thinking about microscopic villains, look for the real causes.  I guarantee, they will be there.

Best wishes,

Nora