(Originally published 6/2017, revised 7/2021)
Janet Levatin, MD, HMC, holistic pediatrician, homeopathic physician
What diseases are you afraid of? Perhaps a better question to ask is what diseases have you been taught to be afraid of?
Disease is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a condition of the living animal or plant body, or of one of its parts, that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms.”
Disease can be classified as acute (short-term, self-limited) or chronic (longstanding, ongoing). Acute illnesses due to infectious agents (viruses and bacteria) are not true diseases in the sense that they resolve after having a recognizable beginning, a short course, and a resolution... often resolving on their own with no specific treatment. They usually amount to nothing more than a temporary indisposition characterized by some combination of fever, rash, runny nose, cough, vomiting, and diarrhea.
We can include COVID-19, as well its preceding viral “illnesses” SARS and MERS, as well as all strains go flu in this description.
As an individual who takes care of myself with good nutrition, supplements, herbs, and homeopathy (and recommends the same for my patients), I have no fear of acute “diseases," include SARS, MERS, flu, COVID, Zika, Ebola, etc. They are largely preventable, and usually easily treatable with holistic means when they do occur. I also believe they are largely fabrications of entities that seek to control us with fear and the prospect of punitive actions for those who do not conform to the agenda and drink the kool aid (vaccine, anti-viral medications, masks, lockdowns, etc.).
In our society we are taught to fear viral “diseases” for which vaccines exist, including polio, rotavirus, influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, hepatitis A. and coronavirus (all usually self-limited viruses, some of which do not even occur anymore). Even the bacterial illnesses caused by pertussis, Hemophilus influenza B, and pneumococcus, for which vaccines also exist, are largely preventable and usually readily treated with holistic methods (although sometimes antibiotics may be needed for more serious manifestations of these infections).
If there is no method of prevention, then infections are pretty much ignored and in some cases, such as Lyme disease, their existence is even denied by the establishment.
The fear that is being generated about these acute ailments is so intense that it is splitting families and friends apart. I regularly hear about people who have stopped seeing and talking to their friends and relatives because they are not vaccinating their children. The unfortunate reality is that vaccines are quite poor at preventing the spread of infections. In some cases, such as pertussis, vaccinated people may actually be colonized and spreading the infection without even showing signs of the infection. The idea that the only way to avoid disease is through vaccination is a faulty notion, at best, although it is, unfortunately, promoted as the gospel of contemporary medicine.
Then there are the diseases that we should be afraid of and work toward preventing because treatment for them is either nonexistent or very difficult to achieve. I’m talking about the epidemics of chronic diseases that are rampant in our society for which there are no good treatments... conditions such as opioid addiction and other addictions, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological degenerations, type 2 diabetes, cancer, autism, mental disorders, autoimmune diseases, iatrogenic (doctor-caused) diseases, and more. The sad truth is that a number of these conditions are caused, at least in part, by the very vaccines that are sold to us as promoting health.
Other factors driving contemporary disease epidemics include the chemicals and toxins that are ubiquitous in our world. Foremost among these are toxic pesticides such as glyphosate and atrazine. Use of these toxic products has all but destroyed our soil and degraded our food supply to such a degree that it is no longer health-sustaining.
How do you want to live your life? How do you want the lives of your children to be? Do you want to engage in a series of procedures (vaccines) that may leave you or your child disabled by chronic disease, or even dead, in a misguided attempt to avoid a few acute infections? Do you want to feed yourself and your children the degraded, devitalized products that are called food today (items that are produced in factories, and not from the earth)?
Instead consider excellent nutrition (organic, single-ingredient foods) and appropriate supplements, which are necessary these days to make up for the deficiencies in our food supply. Instead adopt non-toxic living to the extent that it can be achieved.. Use fragrance-free, synthetic-free body care, laundry, and cleaning products. Your reward will be the good health that should be naturally yours.
