Monday, April 18, 2016

Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America Parts 1-7

Part 1. Raising Public Awareness

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month. With the focus by the Obama Administration on health care in America and my many responses that propping up the current system makes little sense if we are just making the flaws a lot bigger, I thought my current predicament might give you some first hand insight into the problems we face in health care.

Recently I was diagnosed as having the symptoms of Lyme disease. It was not unexpected as I live in Southern Maryland along the Potomac River just above the Chesapeake Bay where it is hot, humid, and ideal conditions for the disease.

Adding to the problem is the fact we have had an extremely wet past year in an area that already gets more than enough rain per year. Compound that with a short winter with record snow and cold and a very warm spring and all the animal and plant life is totally out of sync with normal patterns.

By early April the first ticks appeared and by May the poison ivy and poison sumac had become far more virulent than any year since I moved here. However, ticks have always been a huge problem and if you have dogs you will have ticks. No flea or tick treatment I found kept them off the animals the past three years.

So it was just a matter of time that the right tick would be on me, especially the tiny deer tick known to transmit the disease. However, I was not unprepared as I first encountered the disease when I lived in New Jersey and worked in New York City of all places. Lyme disease was first discovered in Lyme, Connecticut 1975, suspected of being transmitted by ticks in 1978, but remained a mystery until confirmed in 1982.

In 1992 my boss, who had a house in rural Connecticut got the disease. He underwent massive treatment with antibiotics and it was not until almost a year later that he no longer showed signs of the disease. Yet another friend in New Jersey contracted the disease while jogging through the beautiful countryside about the same year and she was nearly bedridden for a year before recovering.

That got my attention. This disease had no limits, it could strike the rich or poor, the healthy and office bound, and in most cases you could not even see the tiny ticks infecting you. It is an infectious disease and in the years since has spread like wildfire through humans. However, the medical authorities have always been way behind the times in diagnosing and treating this disease.

In addition to ticks, it has been learned that Borrelia, the bacteria in Lyme disease, may be carried and transmitted by fleas, mosquitoes and mites. Also it is not exclusively vector-borne. Humans have been known to pass the disease through breast-feeding and blood transfusions. Also the possibility exists that Lyme disease can be food infection.

With the help of two informative web sites with much more current research on the Lyme disease, healthynewage.com and lymephotos.com, I have been able to provide you with a far more accurate picture of the disease and what it means to you.

Lyme disease, or lyme borreliosis, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato is the main cause of Lyme disease in the United States, whereas Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii cause most European cases.

Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. Borrelia is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected ticks belonging to a few species of the genus Ixodes ("hard ticks"). Early symptoms may include fever, headache, fatigue, depression, and a characteristic circular skin rash called erythema. Left untreated, later symptoms may involve the joints, heart, and central nervous system. In most cases, it is thought the infection and its symptoms can be eliminated by antibiotics, especially if the illness is treated early.

There are over 100 strains of Borrelia burgdorferi in the United States, 300 strains worldwide and 5 subspecies of Borrelia burgdorferi. This diversity is thought to contribute to the antigenic variability of the spirochete and its ability to evade the immune system and antibiotic therapy, leading to chronic infection. Lyme disease bacteria has been reported for years in across Europe, Russia, Canada and throughout the world.

In the past late, delayed, or inadequate treatment was thought to lead to the more serious symptoms, which can be disabling and difficult to treat. Occasionally, symptoms such as arthritis persist after the infection has been eliminated by antibiotics, prompting suggestions that Borrelia causes autoimmunity.

Some groups have argued that "chronic" Lyme disease is responsible for a range of medically unexplained symptoms beyond the recognized symptoms of late Lyme disease, and that additional, long-term antibiotic treatments are needed. Other groups argue that antibiotics are the wrong form of treatment and can serve to mask the results temporarily but an even more dangerous parasite exists with the bacteria and the parasite can form a cocoon around the bacteria and preserve it through the antibiotic treatment.

As far as the antibiotic treatment, of four controlled trials of long-term ceftriaxone and doxycycline treatment in patients with ongoing symptoms, two found no benefit, and two found inconsistent benefits with significant side effects and risks from the antibiotic treatment.

Most expert groups, including the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Neurology, have found that existing scientific evidence does not support a role for Borrelia nor ongoing antibiotic treatment in such cases. However, the subject is controversial, with some doctors, patient advocacy groups, and politicians continuing to argue that long-term treatment is beneficial. This dispute has led to legal action over treatment guidelines, as well as harassment and death threats made against physicians who will not acknowledge "chronic" Lyme disease as a legitimate diagnosis.

Lyme Disease is far more complex than what the public has been told and the number of reported cases, though tripling every couple of years and spreading at a rate 7 times faster than that of AIDS, is officially estimated to reach 300,000 new cases this year alone. However, other evidence suggests this represents less than 10% of all cases.

What is clear is that Lyme disease is the fastest-growing epidemic in the world. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga., USA, affirms that "there is considerable underreporting" of Lyme disease, maintaining that the actual infection rate may be 1.8 million, 10 times higher than the 180,000 cases currently reported. Nick Harris, Ph.D., director of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), states "Lyme is grossly under-reported. In the U.S., we probably have about 200,000 cases per year."

Considering vector, congenital and sexual transfer, it is estimated that 15.5% of the global population, nearly 1 billion people, could now be infected with Borrelia. The Sierra Integrative Medicine Clinic in Reno, Nev. states that "Authorities estimate that up to 90 percent of the population could be carrying the Lyme spirochete and that Lyme is a factor in over 50 percent of chronic illnesses."

Katrina Tang, MD, HMD, founder and director of research at the Sierra Integrative Medicine Clinic, states that Lyme disease eludes doctors because of its ability to mimic many other diseases. For example, according to an informal study conducted by the American Lyme Disease Alliance (ALDA), most patients diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are actually suffering from Lyme disease. In a study of 31 patients diagnosed with CFS, 28 patients, or 90.3%, were found to be ill as a result of Lyme.

Paul Fink, MD, MS, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, has acknowledged that Lyme disease can contribute to every psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic Symptoms Manual IV (DSM-IV). This manual is used to diagnose psychiatric conditions such as attention deficit disorder (ADD), antisocial personality, Anorexia Nervosa, Autism and Aspergers syndrome (a form of autism), to name a few.

As you can see, even within the western medical practice there is widely disputed and conflicting information regarding the cause, composition, status, extent and treatment for this disease. New information, especially from foreign countries where response to medical issues is often dealt with much faster than in America with our institutionalized medicine, challenges are more pronounced.

In subsequent articles I will detail the effect the symptoms of the disease have had on me, my approach to treatment, and the results of treatment as I try to overcome the various manifestations of the disease I have experienced. It is hoped this experience and reporting on the progress will give you a better idea of what your alternatives are should you share the same fate and experience the devastating impact of the disease if you get caught in the pandemic.

Part 2. Misconceptions Regarding the Bacteria

My first article was an introduction to the Lyme disease, a review of some of the misunderstandings, and acknowledgement that I have had two Lyme markers detected indicating the disease is present. You can find it through the following link, http:/// in my newspaper, the Coltons Point Times.

This article (Part 2.) will expand on the lack of reliable data on Lyme disease and the misconceptions regarding the bacteria. Part 3. will discuss the symptoms I exhibited to indicate the latent bacteria became activated and began attacking my body and Part 4. will discuss the treatment I am taking to attempt to fight off the Lyme Disease as well as the results of my treatment.

However, let me first explain my reason and approach to this series. By training and experience I am an investigative reporter and though my newspaper experience was limited I have spent my life in various positions and projects that enabled me to use this background.

While I have an interest in science and have been involved in some extraordinary scientific projects I am not a scientist but a reporter who attempts to interpret what the scientists are trying to tell us. My role is to translate science into understandable terms that people will know. On occasion I will make mistakes when attempting this so do not hold me to the highest scientific standards in reporting.

What I will do is cut through the technical and scientific language to tell you the truth. I will also tell you what makes no sense and where the real truth may lie. Unlike scientists, I begin with no preconceived notions nor required protocols but with an open mind to find the truth. Finally, I do not limit where the truth might lead me and try and stay open to information that is not relevant to existing medical reports but makes sense if we recognize that existing information may be wrong.

As for Lyme disease, my first conflict with published information was that I cannot accept that Lyme disease, or more specifically the bacteria associated with it, is something new since the 1970's nor that it could be caused solely by a deer tick bite. Also it made no sense that it was unique to Northern America and Europe.

The following information was extracted from a book, 2008 Lyme Disease Annual Report by Bryan Rosner and other contributing writers.

For some reason, Americans tend to assume that Lyme Disease is isolated to the United States. It is understood that other diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and hepatitis, are prevalent throughout the world—but Lyme Disease is perceived to be an exclusively American disease. The reality is that Lyme Disease is a major problem all around the globe.

Understanding the vast prevalence of this infection is necessary for a proper perspective of the disease. Only when we recognize its true reach, severity, and ability to spread, will we be equipped to properly face Lyme Disease. An accurate understanding of the enormity of Lyme Disease gives patients enough respect for the disease to take it seriously and fight to heal, and gives practitioners and researchers the perspective necessary to allocate much-needed funds and resources to its study. Recent research confirms the presence of Lyme Disease on all corners of the globe. Below is a brief summary of current findings.

In England, the British public has been warned by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) to carefully protect themselves from tick bites due to a “sharp rise in the number of the blood-sucking parasites and increased cases of Lyme Disease in Hampshire, Dorset, and Berkshire.” The increase in tick population has been blamed on a “particularly wet and mild summer.” According to the HPA, “Lyme Disease is a highly infectious disease which is transmitted through tick bites and can lead to blindness, paralysis, and even death if left undiagnosed.” Britons are advised to protect themselves by “wearing trousers, using insect repellent and checking their skin for ticks” after visits to the countryside. The HPA also notes that “incidents of Lyme Disease have increased by 90% since 2006 across the UK, and New Forest, South Downs, Dorset, and Berkshire have now been named as tick hot-spots.”

The Department of Molecular Biology at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, released a study in 2007 which stated that “The reported geographical distribution of Lyme Disease is constantly increasing in Sweden.” The report cites findings which show that birds play a key role in the spread of Lyme Disease due to their long distance dispersal and their role as reservoir hosts for Borrelia. In addition to Lyme Disease in Sweden, Swedish researchers also discovered that sea birds in the Arctic region of Norway carry Ixodes uria ticks infected with Lyme Disease, specifically the Borrelia garinii strain. It has long been known that Borrelia garinii is one of the more common forms of Lyme Disease on the European continent, and this information shows the spread of this strain to new geographical areas.

In collaboration with U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers, Russian scientists set out to determine which types of bacterial agents are found in the North Western region of Russia. The type of tick examined was Ixodes persulcatus. Researchers discovered the following:

Altogether, 27.7% of ticks were infected with at least one organism, while the DNA of two or more bacteria was found in 11.8% of ticks tested. The highest average prevalence of Anaplasmataceae (20.8%) was detected in ticks from Arkhangel'sk province, while the prevalence in ticks from Novgorod province and St. Petersburg, respectively, was 7.3% and 12.2%. Only Ehrlichia muris DNA was identified by DNA sequencing. In comparison, the prevalence of B. burgdorferi DNA was 16.6%, 5.8%, and 24.5% in the respective locations.

The Russian researchers conclude with this statement: “Since I. persulcatus is so commonly infected with multiple agents that may cause human diseases, exposure to these ticks poses significant risk to human health in this region.”

Researchers in Germany studied the influence of preventative measures on the risk of being bitten by a tick and suffering from Lyme Disease in children attending kindergarten in forested regions of Germany. Fifty-three schools were studied, encompassing 1,707 children. Researchers conclude that "children in forest kindergartens are at a considerable risk of tick bites and Lyme Disease."

In Poland, the Department of Occupational Biohazards investigated the prevalence of Lyme Disease bacteria in ticks collected from wooded areas. 1,813 ticks from six districts were examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Not only did researchers discover that a significant portion of the ticks were infected, they also were surprised to find that many ticks were infected with multiple strains of Lyme Disease bacteria, including Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia garinii, and a new yet-unnamed strain, “Borrelia b.s.1.”

A Portuguese University, in a study of climate change, discovered that warmer and increasingly variable weather may result in an increased incidence of vector- borne diseases, including malaria, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Lyme Disease, and Mediterranean spotted fever.

A fascinating new report from the microbiology department at Raigmore Hospital in Scotland states that at least nine different strains of Borrelia have been documented in Scotland, including Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia sensu stricto. Additionally, a report appeared on September 15, 2007, in the North Scotland Press and Journal, entitled "Bloodsucking Ticks Blamed as Lethal Lyme Disease Cases Soar." This newspaper article not only documents the dramatic increase of Lyme Disease cases in Scotland, it also provides evidence that Lyme Disease can be fatal if not treated adequately. The article uses the word "rocketed" to describe the dramatic increase in cases over the past decade. Dr. Ken Oates of Health Protection Scotland observes that "There has been a genuine rise. Nobody can really say why. I would guess a summer like this which is warm and wet provides favorable conditions. Up to one in five ticks can carry Lyme Disease in Scotland."

As far away as Croatia, researchers are finding Lyme Disease. Amazingly, 3,317 cases were reported from 1987 to 2003 in Croatia. Northwestern Croatia showed the highest incidence. According to a report published by the Department of Public Health, "the clinical picture of Lyme Borreliosis in Croatia is dominated by erythema migrans, followed by neurological manifestations."

In Switzerland, according to researchers, "the incidence of tick-borne encephalitis has been clearly increasing since 2004, and this is caused mostly by Lyme Disease."

In Italy, 24 cases of Lyme Disease were documented over the last year. Keep in mind, the actual number of cases is probably much higher due to inadequate testing and diagnosis.

And let us not forget Canada. The Canadian Center for Disease Control states that "the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis, has a wide geographical distribution in Ontario, Canada, with a detected range extending at least as far north as the 50th parallel, and four out of five regions of Ontario affected."

Additionally, "The Lyme Disease spirochete was detected in 12.9% of I. scapularis adult ticks." Also according to Canadian authorities, "characterization of B. burgdorferi in Canada displays a connecting link to common strains of Lyme Disease found in the northeastern United States."

According to the Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory in British Columbia, "In 1994, British Columbia was declared an endemic region for Lyme Borreliosis."

In Alberta, Lyme Disease has been found to be common in rabbit ticks.

The Department of Medicine at McGill University, Montreal, notes in a recent report that "Lyme Disease is an expanding community health issue."

The poor recognition of Lyme Disease by the medical establishment is not a phenomena limited to the United States: On September 17, 2007, CBS News Canada reported the story of approximately 100 Lyme Disease sufferers who gathered on Parliament Hill in Canada to get the attention of Canadian physicians. The aim of the gathering was to get better testing for the disease and more federal money devoted to research—many in the group say they were misdiagnosed by their physicians.

Amazingly, according to the CBS report, "Lyme Disease is not a nationally reportable disease in Canada, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), meaning there are no statistics available on its prevalence." Yet, although not reportable, CBS goes on to state that "Borrelia burgdorferi is predominantly found in parts of British Columbia, southern and eastern Ontario, southeastern Manitoba, and parts of Nova Scotia."

Try to figure out that contradiction: not reportable yet found practically everywhere. The CBS article concludes with the story of a Canadian professor who, after suspecting Lyme Disease, was forced to travel to the United States and pay more than $15,000 out-of-pocket for treatment.

Now, with unrelenting persecution of Lyme doctors in the United States, appropriate Lyme Disease treatment may be harder and harder to find…anywhere in the world. The research identifying Lyme Disease in Canada goes on and on, with over 83 official, published studies on Lyme Disease in Canada. The Canadian Lyme Disease Association can be visited at www.canlyme.org.

In my first article I told of the ability of the Lyme bacteria to mimic many other diseases. Another very important fact to remember is that Lyme symptoms can also mimic many other diseases as well and that both the "early stage" symptoms and the later "chronic" stage symptoms are not consistent. In other words, your body can react in a variety of ways when the Lyme disease is activated in you.

This also means the bacteria can reside in you in a dormant and hidden stage for years before it may be activated. As we learn more and more about the disease it becomes more and more obvious that we know very little and most clinical research has been extremely limited to the early assumptions that only a tick transmitted disease that breaks out in a circular pattern from the bite is Lyme disease.

Hardly. Follow up studies have shown that as many as 85% of the cases do not show any signs of the inflammation from the tick bite and most detected bites are for new infection, not dormant infection already in your body.

There are studies that have shown the bacteria itself, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), has been around for many centuries and a hypothesis was offered that Bbsl may be the protective agent of juvenile and adult arthritis in Louisiana Tchefuncte Indians between 500 BC and 300 AD. If so it will revolutionize how the disease it viewed and treated. Strains of the bacteria have been found in humans in 30 countries or more on six continents and additional islands.

As for the ticks, there is more than enough evidence that it can be spread by a variety of insects and animals and even between humans. There are no studies characterizing immune reactivity to the bacteria in untreated patients from non-endemic regions and where symptoms have been present for one year to decades. Consistently, most serious studies have examined and tested only patients from limited geographic areas where high tick infection rate and acute human disease coincide. The immune reaction of infected patients not meeting 'Lyme disease' criteria have fallen outside rigorous scrutiny. However, studies have shown conclusively that a group of Bbsl-infected humans was not inoculated transdermally but rather acquired their disease congenitally or gestationally.

That means the human may well be the most likely 'vector' for Bbsl transfer to other humans. The label 'Lyme disease' has become, by convention, a semantic boundary that excludes consideration that an infectious agent responsible for a zoonosis may also exist independently as a non-zoonosis.

CDC-defining criteria do not address human congenital transfer and deny without proof that sexual transfer occurs. This mindset assures that Bbsl cases falling outside 'Lyme disease' criteria have not been considered in most research, nor reported to local health agencies. Thus the CDC position on intra-human Bbsl transmission is that 'Lyme disease bacteria are not transmitted from person-to-person', yet current human and veterinary data make this position indefensible.

Finally, a pregnant mother with a dormant and hidden Lyme bacteria could then transmit this to her infant passing on the bacteria to the next generation at birth. Thus a host of illnesses in infants may be a direct result of Lyme disease bacteria, undetected and untreated, mimicking other diseases. Many can be fatal.

In plain English, there are hundreds of identified strains of the Lyme bacteria so far and the method of transmission is far beyond what the establish criteria allow for Lyme disease. It is highly probable that the bacteria has existed for centuries if not more and that millions and millions of people throughout the world are infected. When the bacteria becomes active most are misdiagnosed but a far greater number are carriers of the dormant bacteria which could become active at any time.

That is far closer to the truth than anything the government can prove at this time and may help explain the previous unknown reasons for the explosion in certain diseases such as Autism, MS and other bacteria based infections as well as the explosion in a variety of mental diseases and problems like attention deficit disorder (ADD), antisocial personality, Anorexia Nervosa, Autism and Aspergers syndrome, depression and Fibromyalgia. It would also explain the failure to successfully treat Alzheimer's Disease.

The bacteria providing the foundation to Lyme's Disease can be detected in over 300 infections.

Part 3. When you become the Victim

Attacked by Lyme disease - When you become the Victim!

Before I get into the moment I knew something was terribly wrong, let me give you a brief overview of my background. From the time I was a kid growing up in Iowa I loved the outdoors, farms, ranches, camping out, hiking and playing in the woods. Being outside was the highlight of the day.

Then came Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and even camping out on family vacations. I was at peace outdoors. In high school and college I was a jock and among my passions was golf, so much so that I even worked at golf courses when I wasn't playing, yet more exposure to the outdoors.

Once I made it through early childhood I was a healthy kid suffering only injuries related to sports and being a kid. Only once in my life since I was a kid was I hospitalized, back in 1964 when I had an emergency appendectomy at the University of Arizona.

Since then I was only at an emergency room twice, for observation for exhaustion in the 1970's, and for straining my lower lumbar in the early 1980's when I landscaped my yard with 36 tons of Belgian block. For most of my life I have owned dogs, a carrier of ticks.

I continued to play golf, softball and basketball well into the 1980's and golf forever until today. Living in Iowa, Nebraska, California, Virginia, New Jersey, Kentucky and Maryland I always liked the outdoors, spent hours creating a natural landscape where ever I lived, and enjoying the sun. All of which exposed me to more and more ticks.

Medically, I started following the teaching of the traditional Hopi Indians in 1964 when I first visited their reservation in Arizona and spent much time ever since visiting and studying this unique nation of original Americans. By the 1980's I got to know an old Chinese herbalist in NYC's Chinatown and added this discipline to what I learned from the Hopi medicine people and elders.

I stopped taking vaccinations long ago, stopped taking antibiotics and pain killers, because of what I learned about how we are destroying our immune systems. Over the years my diet became rather good and my health was fine and I have not needed the service of a doctor in over 26 years. Fact is I never had a health insurance claim during that time though some jobs provided comprehensive health coverage.

I paid very close attention to my body and how it reacted to food, liquids, and life, meaning mastering stress in my life, and I had some very stressful jobs. To a nutritionist I had bad eating habits because I only ate once a day. To western medicine I had horrible sleeping habits as I never seemed to need more than about 3 hours sleep a night. Once I went to a sleep clinic but they could find no harmful effect from the lack of sleep.

This was how I functioned for 63 years until about four weeks ago.

The first signs of trouble. One morning in late April of this year I woke up and felt like I had twisted my hips during sleep and pinched a nerve. The pain was severe and I took it easy through the day. The next morning I woke up and felt the pinched nerve had caused a second pinched nerve at the base of my neck just between the shoulders. Within 48 hours I could barely move my arms, shoulders, lower back and legs from the severe pain.

In other words, there were none of the early detection signs of Lyme disease but several of the late stage or chronic stage signs of Lyme disease. This spring I had encountered ticks working on the yard and I had removed ticks from my dog almost every day. But there was no redness from any bites and they had never bothered me before.

My previous exposure to friends with Lyme disease and intense study I had made of it caused me to consider the possibility I might have it as I could barely walk within 48 hours. Then both hands went numb, as if frozen, and I lost all sense of touch from my wrists down. It felt like my hands were frozen, and I knew that feeling from winter blizzards on the Great Plains. No pain, just numbness.

By the third day I was still forcing myself, at great pain, to walk my dog for one mile early each morning but I noticed motor problems. When I first awoke I experienced extreme vertigo and when I tried to walk I felt my brain signals to my leg muscles were being interrupted and had a great deal of difficulty walking anything close to normal.

Fact was, probably because I have some background in theater and television production, I reminded myself at times of the Scarecrow character from the Wizard of Oz. My brain could not get my legs to do what I wanted. It was a disconnected feeling like when the Scarecrow tried to walk or dance. Once I started forcing myself to walk I became like the Tin Man and was very stiff and disjointed.

By the third day I felt little pain unless I moved but when I did move I became exhausted easily. The frozen feeling remained in my hands but my temperature remained normal and other people said my hands did not feel cold.

I began to think it might be Lyme disease except I had skipped all the early stage signs from the redness of a tick bite to fever, flu like symptoms, exhaustion, headaches, and other symptoms. If I had it I was exhibiting what I knew to be late stage symptoms which seemed quite strange to me.

Within a few days I was in for testing and though all my body measurements were normal, I had a serious problem because I could barely walk. Lab tests of blood and saliva indicated two markers for Lyme disease and from that moment on I focused on what to do next.

Because of the unexpected appearance of Lyme in my system I focused on the late stage symptoms and knew every thing I was experiencing fit the disease. Of course it also fit some of the many diseases I have discussed earlier as it mimics up to 300 infections. Caution about drawing a conclusion was eliminated when the testing showed the two Lyme markers.

As I said earlier, long ago I gave up antibiotics and pain killers because of the damage they do to our immune system. Other than providing short term relief from the bacteria, I had my doubts about the long term value of treatment with drugs anyway.

I was committed to finding the best treatment using natural products that built up the immune system rather than destroying it like antibodies can do. Because of the seemingly advanced stage of the disease, which I could not explain at the time, and the danger that a failure to address the problems quickly might leave me with permanent damage, I focused on two possible paths of treatment.

One was a new treatment I learned about in the past year that can be found at http://www.lymephotos.com based on the research by a Lyme disease victim who exhausted all conventional treatments over a 13 year period with no improvement in wiping out the disease. His research identified a heretofore unknown aspect to Lyme disease, that the bacteria seemed to work with a variety of parasites in your body. If both the bacteria and parasites were not treated together you might never fully recover from the disease.

After all his years of trial and error only one treatment seemed to attack both the bacteria and parasites and that was a combination of pure sea salt and Vitamin C taken in large quantities that attacked both bacteria and parasites by restoring your immune system. The instruction was to work up to 1 gram of salt and 1 gram of Vitamin C for every 10 pounds of body weight up to a maximum of 18 grams of each per day. Since I weighed slightly over 200 pounds I had to consume the 18 gram maximum at full strength.

I turned to my nutritionist and he said the best form of unprocessed salt, without any additives like aluminum, silica or iodine, was Celtic salt because it retained the most natural minerals. I was to take 18 grams per day, slightly more than three tablespoons per day.

For Vitamin C at the high levels required he recommended BIO-C which provides the Vitamin C through a proprietary blend of fruits, herbs, sprouts, and extracts whose diversity would be more amenable to the body at such high levels. I would need to take about 10 capsules a day.

However, because I was at the advanced stage I decided I also wanted to use another natural compound that also had recently achieved remarkable results in treating Lyme. Because the clinical work was done in Equator it was not recognized by the US which raises all sorts of questions about just how bad the CDC and FDA want to attack the problem.

Using Cat's Claw, a vine that grows in the Peru rainforest, there have been stunning results supplementing your damaged immune system. Cats Claw (Uncaria tomentosa) is a South American vine that works its way up the jungle canopy using sharp thorns on its stems. Many varieties of this plant are harvested by the Ashaninka people of central Peru, but there is one variety in particular called Samento that they value above all the rest.

This incredible plant, which has been used medicinally for more than 2,000 years by the indigenous people of the region, is now the subject of intensive investigation by scientists all around the world. Clinical evidence has shown that Samento is of great benefit for inflammatory and auto-immune disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and asthma. The plant is also showing great promise as a breakthrough treatment for Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome and other degenerative illnesses. In addition, it is an ideal herb for strengthening the immune system.

I ordered Samento through the Internet and as soon as it arrives I will be using it along with the salt and Vitamin C treatment already underway. So there you have it, the two types of natural treatment I am using and intend to use to attack the advanced stage of the disease. The combination attacks all the flaws I found in current treatment of Lyme disease from the failure to recognize the parasites to the use of antibiotics which destroys the immune system, the very thing that could have protected us from the bacteria in the first place.

After my first week on the salt and Vitamin C the feeling has returned to two fingers on each hand though the freezing cold sensation still remains. I have noticed a slight improvement in the nerves in my lower back as walking has become somewhat easier but I expect the Samento to attack the inflamed nerves much more aggressively when I start it next week.

The nerves at the base of my neck have relaxed a bit as well and the shoulders have loosened up although it is expected there will be some problems when the parasites, which are being driven out of the body by the salt and Vitamin C, start counter-attacking before they will be forced to flee. Right now the muscles in my upper arms are sore for no reason other than a parasite attack.

Much of the feeling of vertigo has gone although when I walk the morning mile by the end my fatigue level is such that I can feel the vertigo start to return. Too much continuous walking or too much continuous sitting seems to have the same impact.

There is no problem with my diet and digestion though I am trying to eat fresh and balanced foods and to eat at least two meals a day. Sleep is normal without pain. Throughout the whole ordeal I have felt no headaches, had no problem keeping my mind functioning normally, and do not feel any fatigue as long as I do not engage in excessive physical activity.

The big problems are the pain in the arm muscles which is constant, difficulty standing initially, and the numb fingers. When I pick things up I cannot feel pressure so I drop them often. Don't use the good china. And when I type the lack of feeling results in hitting a lot of double letters which I try to catch in edits so I apologize for any mistakes in the text. Finally, the lack of feeling is so complete that you can touch hot things and not know it or have the shower way too hot for the rest of your body. You just have to be careful.

The salt saturation in my body has resulted in some interesting changes, almost as if you are spending a lot of time swimming in the salty ocean. Dead skin peels off faster, your complexion clears up, and you have the feeling of salt in your eyes as if swimming.

Part 4. Treatment with non-western Medicine

Treatment with non-western medicine - What is the result?

It has now been three and a half weeks since I was diagnosed with the Lyme disease indicators and about four weeks since the symptoms, late stage, first appeared.

After years of research and monitoring alternative health techniques, when the disease was confirmed I was prepared with a treatment strategy. It was based on a few assumptions I want to review.

I would take no treatment that damaged my immune system.

I would limit treatment to natural products.

I would use three protocols for treatment each of which would help rebuild my immune system.

I would take no antibiotics or pain killer in order to be able to feel the effects.

I would attack both the bacteria and parasites with natural treatment.

I would report the truth on what I experienced to the readers.

Once I was tested using multiple techniques including blood testing and the Lyme markers were confirmed I was already experiencing late stage Lyme symptoms which indicated the disease had been present for some time in my body. As noted in an earlier article, none of the early stage symptoms were present.

In my case I woke up one morning feeling as if I twisted my lower back. By the next morning my arms were completely numb from the elbows through the hands. It felt as if I was frozen in those areas including all fingers. While I had use of my arms and hands, I could feel nothing. Other than the frozen feeling, like frostbite if you are from the Midwest, there were no other nerve conditions like shaking, loss of control, nervous twitch, etc.

In addition the twisted lower back now felt like a severe pinched nerve and when I walked I got vertigo. Also it felt like a severe pinched nerve between my shoulder blades which seemed to be causing the frozen arms. In the next few days my muscles became victim to parasite attack, severe pain in both upper arms, inability to lift my arms above my head, swollen joints throughout my body which seemed to trigger the vertigo, and fatigue after walking short distances.

Mind you I was in excellent shape the week before I got it and had been in excellent shape since 1984 when I suffered a physical injury. Also I had been bitten by ticks many times over the past seven years with no effect and no red rings around the bites. Our Southern Maryland riverfront location is almost like a swamp with high humidity and a warm, wet climate.

As for the treatments I chose, there were a few things I kept in mind. First I knew Lyme disease is the most under-detected disease in existence. Probably 40% of victims have the telltale red rings around a tick bite. Up to 60% of the cases go undetected or are misdiagnosed by western medicine as Lyme can mimic the exact symptoms of numerous major diseases.

Lyme Borreliosis causes, mimics, is manifested as, is misdiagnosed as, or is a contributing factor to more than 300 conditions, such as:

Acute coronary syndrome
Acute Meningitis
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Alzheimer's Disease
Bell's Palsy
Bipolar Disorder
Brain Tumor
Brown recluse spider bite
Cardiac Disease
Coronary aneurysm
Depression
Epilepsy
Fetal death
Fibromyalgia
Hepatitis
Infectious Mononucleosis
Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis
Lymphoma
Multiple Sclerosis
Peripheral Facial Palsy
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Sudden Infant Death (SIDS)
Tourette's Syndrome
Vertigo

Beyond concerns over these issues I was also aware that new research indicates the Lyme bacteria works in tandem with parasites in your body that are not affected by the standard western treatment of massive doses of antibiotics. For this reason many people will seem to recover from the antibiotics but in time the disease keeps returning often more virulent each time.

I have personally talked to and heard from patients with over 10 years of treatment with antibiotics and no sign the disease will ever go away. Also local support groups have advised me that long term members have died from the failure of the antibiotics to stop the disease. Early research indicates the parasites can actually form cocoons around the Lyme bacteria and protect it from antibiotics.

I adopted a treatment plan calling for three distinct lines of attack. I would start using pure salt vitamin C to attack the parasites. Before the days of purified salt, in which additives such as aluminum, silica and iodine are added to the processed salt, Americans used to eat 4-5 times as much raw salt. Apparently this had a major impact on keeping bacteria and parasites from residing in our systems and causing damage. As health officials told us to cut way back on salt, and the pure salt was replaced with the processed table salt now in use, and more and more vaccinations have been given to us, we have effectively destroyed much of our immune system.

My treatment began taking Celtic sea salt, a pure salt with high mineral content, along with the Vitamin C made with berry extract. I took 5 grams of each four times a day, for a total of 15 grams a day. This is about 4 tablespoons of salt a day and 12 vitamin C capsules of about 1000 mg each. It was split into three daily treatments.

Both of these treatments require far beyond the recommended daily intake but they were necessary to launch an attack against both the bacteria and parasites. The goal is to make the body an unsuitable host for the bacteria and parasites. Substantial quantities of water must be consumed to offset the impact of the salt and keep the liver and digestion system working normally.

After a week of this treatment I added Samento, a unique variety of Cat's Claw from the Peru rainforest that has tested up to 100 times stronger than traditional Cat's Claw. Over the course of several days I built up my intake to 12-15 drops three times a day. There were no problems with the taste and the drops just had to be added to pure water and allowed to sit for a minute before taking.

Samento, so new to America that there is no body of US approved tests, yet so old as it has been used by South American Indians for over 2,000 years, is one of the rainforest wonder drugs that seems to work on almost everything. Samento, in liquid extract form, has foreign clinical trials that show stunning success in treating Lyme disease and many other illnesses mimicked by Lyme.

By the end of my second week now with the dual treatment I noticed that the frozen hands began to change and within a few days three of the fingers on each hand regained all feeling. Now only the thumb and first forefinger are numb.

In my 3rd week of treatment I added the last of my three protocols which was another ancient herb called Dragon's Blood. This was used by the Chinese in ancient China and the Druids in ancient Celtic days and features resins and other extracts. Again slowly building my intake to allow my body to adjust I reached 12 drops per treatment three times a day by the end of the third week.

Dragon's Blood has been co-opted by wizards, magicians, witch doctors and VooDoo practitioners over the centuries but throughout it's long history it has been another of the wonder drugs. I must warn you this is about the worst tasting extract you will ever taste, worse even than the cod liver oil I drank as a kid. Back then the treatment was so bad you wanted to stay well. After trying several ways to take this stuff I finally stumbled on a gem. When I mixed the 12 drops of Dragon Blood with one ounce of root beer it eliminated the nasty taste completely. Guess I should add root beer to my list of wonder drugs.

As I enter my 4th week of treatment my nutritionist advisor is devising a protocol combining the three treatments to allow me to better schedule them during the day and to keep them separate to allow maximum impact on my body. Within days of starting the Dragon's Blood my aching joints started improving and I was able to walk up and down steps normally.

Just today I could do my morning walk with my dog of one mile without feeling vertigo toward the end of the walk. Also I was able to raise my arms above my head for the first time in four weeks without major pain. During the entire time I have tried to exercise my body to keep the muscles as close to being toned as possible although the pain limits the amount of exercise. Still I know it is important to keep exercising, especially the fingers, hands and arms which were numb, to make sure no permanent nerve damage is sustained.

I am now on full dosage of all three treatments and will keep you posted as I continue the road to recovery. It is sometimes painful, but the pain also tells me how the treatment is affecting my body. With the several improvements I have already noticed I am confident something is working to help me and I do feel stronger in terms of fighting off fatigue and exhaustion.

Please let me know what your experiences are concerning Lyme disease or the many diseases it can mimic. You can write to me through the Coltons Point Times or send the info to my direct email at ivyonoak@yahoo.com as I believe there is much new information we can share with the public as we all join forces to fight this most secret of all pandemics.

Part 5. Why the American Medical System Failed Us

Contrary to what most traditional media will report, America does not have the best health care system in the world. Our modern "Western" health care system is based on the simple philosophy of Wall Street, where the money comes from to fuel the health care industry.

The code, philosophy and investment model of Wall Street is; "It must meet the return on investment model for profitability." The goal of Wall Street is to get the maximum return on investment.

Not a bad code for money changers. But that same code that pushed Wall Street to become the main financial source for the health care industry by taking companies public starting in the 1940's is stopping the health care industry from meeting the number one goal of the Hippocratic Code.

"May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help."

The "joy of healing", a most noble calling and one that puts doctors at odds with the corporations of the massive health care industry. From the pharmaceutical companies to hospitals, clinics and insurance companies in the industry, healing is inconsistent with a "maximum return on investment".

Therein lies the fault and tragedy of the Western health care system, specifically here in America. In order for health care companies to get investment houses like Goldman Sachs to manage their trading they must get the maximum return on investment and healing people does not achieve it, treatment does.

The cash flow loved by Wall Street and the investors in health care companies comes from treatment of people with their patented drugs or diagnostic tools for the longest time possible. The longer you stay sick the more they will do to help you. Conversely, if you stay healthy you will not benefit from the health care system.

Before we can ever get our health care system working for us we must first educate ourselves. Long before America existed people were getting health care treatment. In China herbal medicine goes back thousands of years and Indigenous people have also practiced it for thousands of years.

While some medical breakthroughs have brought about significant advancement, especially in the diagnostic side of health care and surgical techniques, it is our addiction to modern medicine and constant diagnostic analysis, because that is what the doctors are taught and that is what the health insurance companies will pay for, that has made healing bad for business.

As a result, most of the thousands of years of healing through natural herbs, remedies and techniques by the Chinese and Indigenous peoples has been lost and is not part of our modern health care system. I cannot emphasize enough the tragedy of this change because the ancient way was always meant to heal people, protect them from disease, make them aware of their personal responsibilities toward their health, and make them a participant in the spiritual healing of their soul to help the physical healing of their body.

Today we have been brainwashed into delegating all control over your health, body and lifestyle to those companies financed by Wall Street and those government agencies whose leaders (presidents and congress) are influenced by campaign cash from those companies and Wall Street.

The people have lost their voice in health care, and the ancient cures have been ruled unprofitable by the powers that be on Wall Street and in our nation's Capitol.

No where is this more apparent than in the diagnosing and treatment of Lyme disease.

To understand this first let us look at antibiotics.

An antibiotic is a drug that kills or slows the growth of bacteria. Antibiotics are one class of antimicrobials, a larger group which also includes anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-parasitic drugs. Antibiotics are chemicals produced by or derived from microorganisms meaning parasites or germs such as bacteria and fungi.

They do not help the immune system but temporarily replace a function of the immune system if used properly to attack a bacteria. Over use of antibiotics, meaning more than a few days or that they are prescribed to often will weaken whatever part of the immune system they try to help.

Since antibiotics, by definition, are substances or compounds that kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, it's good to keep two things in mind. First, antibiotics destroy not only bad bacteria but also good ones. Second, antibiotics are only effective against bacteria, not viruses or parasites.

A key discoveries in recent Lyme research done worldwide is that the Lyme bacteria is common to hundreds of other illnesses, and that there is evidence that Lyme disease is not just a bacteria but also a parasite. This means Lyme can be misdiagnosed as hundreds of other diseases, and that to truly wipe out your Lyme disease you must treat the bacteria and parasites.

The Western medicine approach to Lyme disease, when it is correctly identified which may be a very small percent of the time, is a very high dose of antibiotics. This does not effect the parasites which can protect the Lyme bacteria from antibodies. Thus more and more people have reoccurring cases of Lyme and normally each time it gets more severe. Make no mistake, Lyme can kill you. If you have taken antibodies and it comes back it has not been successfully treated.

Each time you take antibodies you are putting more and more germs, parasites or whatever is in the antibody into your body, each time you are potentially damaging your immune system, and each time you are destroying good bacteria your body needs to protect you.

Since antibodies were just discovered in 1929 with the discovery of penicillin from fungi, there have been tens of thousands rushed to market. Yet mankind existed for thousands of years previously with no antibiotics. Lyme was not even discovered until 1975. As antibodies and vaccinations have become more and more common in Western medicine drug resistant cells, more cancer and many drug resistant diseases have been recognized.

Common sense tells us that Lyme must have existed for years or centuries before something triggered it in our bodies. The only logical conclusion is that the destruction of our immune system since the 1940's through the expanded use of antibodies and more recently body scans, MRI, CAT, Mammograms, X rays and other diagnostic tools, with their radiation emissions, have triggered the worldwide outbreak.

Since all the ancient cures are not recognized by Western medicine, we have lost our ability to treat the disease and cannot even successfully identify it. The Lyme bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, has many ways of hiding from a battery of tests by mimicking other diseases and no tests are done for Lyme parasites, parasitic nematomorph.

If you had symptoms like those found in Lyme and began treatment with natural herbs immediately you would not go through the massive confusion, misdiagnoses and lack of adequate treatment for the Lyme. In addition, even if you did not have Lyme but one of the other diseases mimicked by Lyme the treatment would not be harmful because the natural treatments will strengthen your immune system at a minimum, and be may even be effective in treating your actual disease since there is similar bacteria.

I am using three distinct natural treatments. First is Samento, an herbal extract from the Peru rain forest that has been used for 2,000 years to protect the Indigenous people of the rain forest. A second is from ancient Chinese medicine called Dragon's Blood, again natural and again in use for over 2,000 years. The third is intensive doses of salt and vitamin c intended to boost the immune system while making your body an unsuitable host for the Lyme bacteria and parasite.

None of these will be prescribed by your doctor because they are from Eastern and Indigenous medicines and cultures, not pharmaceutical companies. The fact more and more people are being healed with these techniques while more and more people being treated with antibodies are not getting cured because it keeps coming back should open your eyes.

A Plea for Help

I am asking your help in spreading the word about these treatments and hope you will send the links to all my articles to anyone and everyone with Lyme, interested in Lyme, or even being treated for the hundreds of diseases that Lyme can mimic. You can see these lists in Part 1 of the series.

So far many emails have been received from people suffering Lyme disease and I am asking that they all keep in touch with me to compare notes on the natural alternatives and their impact. I will continue to update you with reports on my treatment and condition.

You have a chance to demonstrate for the world to see that our health should not depend on spending $14,000 a year for health insurance to diagnose and treat us but on the ancient wisdom and remedies that kept people healthy an a nominal cost.

Those of you wishing to write my private email can contact me at

ivyonoak@yahoo.com

and let me know your status with Lyme, your current treatment and if you are interested in learning more about the natural treatments I am taking.

I have no financial interest in any company involved in my treatment or supplying the natural herbs and extracts and only want to empower you to take charge of your body, health and life. No one can know the degree you are suffering without experiencing the many ways it attacks your body. The effect on me is far more extensive than what other victims described to me so I appreciate what you are experiencing.

At the same time we need to get the federal government to make meaningful progress toward true health reform by embracing the ancient Eastern and Indigenous herbs, remedies and techniques intended to heal and strengthen, not addict the patient to lifelong treatment.

Part 6. Where can the Truth be Found?

Where can the truth be found?

It has been eight months since I was first diagnosed with "possible" Lyme disease. My last report in June discussed how the conditions had settled in with swollen joints, numb hands, odd behavior from my neurology system and frustration finding the truth about the bacteria.

As for the treatment, nothing seemed to be doing anything more than keeping me from getting worse so I then turned to the Eastern and ancient medical treatments and I found a 76 year old Chinese Doctor who has been practicing traditional Chinese medicine for over 55 years.

Dr. Shi-hua Wu, CMD, OMD is a professor of Traditional Chinese medicine, a US licensed Acupuncturist & Herbologist and a Clinical Consultant in Acupuncture & Herbology, quite a list of credentials for the diminutive doctor from China who works out of Chinatown in Washington, DC.

According to the professionals who came to my rescue in late November, Dr. Wu probably saved my life because unbeknownst to me, at the time I found him after several months of no progress in getting better, the weakness throughout my body was causing my organs to begin failing. That was in late September.

The numb hands led to nerve problems and two areas of pinched nerves in my spine which started after I got the disease and left me with occasional problems standing, walking and climbing steps. By October it had been months since I was in public and I had no intention of being seen as I looked like a drunken sailor trying to walk and I didn't even drink.

Dr. Wu formulated an extra-ordinary herbal tea for my condition using 24-28 Chinese herbs and requiring me to follow a full page of preparation instructions taking several hours to make a weeks supply. He also began twice a week acupuncture at his Chinatown office. He would study my condition each visit and put in 35-65 needles depending on what he found. He also gave me some other herbs to take daily.

If you know ancient Chinese medicine, to over simplify it, the intent is to restore your body to full functioning by bringing your body into balance. With a history of 2000 to 3000 years, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has formed a unique system to diagnose and cure illness. The TCM approach is fundamentally different from that of Western medicine. In TCM, the understanding of the human body is based on the holistic understanding of the universe as described in Daoism, and the treatment of illness is based primarily on the diagnosis and differentiation of syndromes.

The TCM approach treats zang--fu organs as the core of the human body. Tissue and organs are connected through a network of channels and blood vessels inside human body. Qi (or Chi) acts as some kind of carrier of information that is expressed externally through jingluo system. Pathologically, a dysfunction of the zang-fu organs may be reflected on the body surface through the network, and meanwhile, diseases of body surface tissues may also affect their related zang or fu organs. Affected zang or fu organs may also influence each other through internal connections. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment starts with the analysis of the entire system, then focuses on the correction of pathological changes through readjusting the functions of the zang-fu organs.

Evaluation of a syndrome not only includes the cause, mechanism, location, and nature of the disease, but also the confrontation between the pathogenic factor and body resistance. Treatment is not based only on the symptoms, but differentiation of syndromes. Therefore, those with an identical disease may be treated in different ways, and on the other hand, different diseases may result in the same syndrome and are treated in similar ways.

The clinical diagnosis and treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine are mainly based on the yin-yang and five elements theories. These theories apply the phenomena and laws of nature to the study of the physiological activities and pathological changes of the human body and its interrelationships. The typical TCM therapies include acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qigong exercises. With acupuncture, treatment is accomplished by stimulating certain areas of the external body. Herbal medicine acts on zang-fu organs internally, while qigong tries to restore the orderly information flow inside the network through the regulation of Qi. These therapies appear very different in approach yet they all share the same underlying sets of assumptions and insights in the nature of the human body and its place in the universe. Some scientists describe the treatment of diseases through herbal medication, acupuncture, and qigong as an "information therapy".

The work performed by Dr. Wu became far more important as October rolled around and there were strange environmental factors that came into play. A persistent but undetected propane leak filtered into my house over several months and the silent gas, which cannot be smelled, poisoned me. At the same time a year of extreme rain had left the area filled with mold from the standing water and the fact the Potomac River was running at extremely high tides since early spring. Yet another complication for my weakened state.

Then there was the torrid heat wave starting when I got sick last May and extending through the entire summer meaning constant air conditioning in a closed in house that was contaminated by leaking propane and mold spores. Add to that the tragic death of my 250 pound Irish Wolfhound after two weeks of infection whose cause has never been identified, an infection so powerful it caused a 107 degree fever and stopped my dog from being able to stand in spite of the best treatment possible from his vet. After nearly two weeks in which I had to treat him, move him and feed him by trying to shove his massive weight around as I was too weak to lift him, he died in my arms.

By that time I was unable to even stand from the sheer exhaustion and dual emotions of fighting my own serious health problems while trying to save my best friend and protector. When he died it was the lowest point I can remember in my life. Though Dr. Wu was keeping me alive, the new environmental issues and death of Coolin magnified everything that was going wrong.

Sensing my rapidly weakening condition just before Thanksgiving my brothers came out from Kentucky and took me back for extensive treatment that would finally help me turn the corner and start healing. Once in Lexington and under the care of Debbie Alsheimer, a functional medicine practitioner and founder of Prospect Health Solutions.

It is the belief of people like Debbie that diet, nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins play a central role in the function of the body because they may predispose your body to illness, provoke symptoms and modulate the activity of biochemical mediators. What does that mean? Here is my lay person interpretation of what Debbie does after spending three weeks under her intensive care.

She uses a very sophisticated bio-feedback machine with the ability to analyze 10,000 frequencies in the cells of your body. It is based on earlier work of Nikola Tesla and Royal Rife in using electrical frequencies to destroy invasive cells in our bodies and bring our bodies back into balance. Her work involves the extraordinary combination of Eastern Traditional Chinese Medicine with Chinese herbology, acupuncture, Western Medicine and Intuitive analysis.

The result is a microbiologic analysis of the cell structure identifying cells and organs that are damaged or corrupted and then developing a protocol to return your body to balance. Sickness or disease resulting from abnormal cell activity caused by bacteria, virus, fungi or parasites is her passion and specialty and there is none more mysterious than the Borrelia bacteria found in Lyme.

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are microscopic, unicellular, and cell-cluster organisms. This includes eukaryotes such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes. Viruses and prions, though not strictly classed as living organisms, are also studied. Microbiology typically includes the study of the immune system, or Immunology. Generally, immune systems interact with pathogenic microbes; these two disciplines often intersect which is why many colleges offer a paired degree such as "Microbiology and Immunology". Microbiology is a broad term which includes virology, mycology, parasitology, bacteriology and other branches. A microbiologist is a specialist in microbiology and these other topics.

Previous articles I have written on the subject have detailed the difficulty of Western Medicine in identifying Lyme, the common misdiagnoses of Lyme as one of the 100 or so diseases it can mimic, and the failure to recognize and destroy the parasites that protect the Lyme bacteria from antibodies. I have also written about the incredible explosion of drug resistant cells now attacking our bodies as a result of the failure of our immune systems to operate properly due to the inability of Western Medicine to protect us.

The very nature of life in America requires a broad based approach to the diagnoses and treatment of diseases, especially in light of the proliferation of drug resistant illnesses rapidly affecting Americans. Add to that the severe environmental deviations we may encounter including physical location, exposure to air and water pollution, long term effects of fertilizers and pesticides on food supply, radiation exposure from television, cell phones, cell towers, computers, x rays, MRI, Cat scans, and excessive prescriptions for antibodies and vaccination protocols.

That still leaves the biggest sin of all - our personal health in America - our lack of proper diet and healthy eating. Every one of these factors contributes to the destruction of our immune system and it would be nearly impossible to find someone with a fully functioning immune system. Because of the over-prescription of antibodies and other drugs our bodies have developed a resistance to traditional Western medical treatment for diseases and these drug resistant cells that evolve are the greatest danger yet to successful health treatment and health maintenance.

People like Debbie Alsheimer understand the changing nature of our microbiology and the need to attack the problem from multiple disciplines using the best of Eastern Chinese medicine and acupuncture along with ancient herbs and Western Medicine techniques if we are to have a chance to rebuild our immune systems and be healthy again.

As a result of her efforts and that of Dr. Wu I am finally reversing the trend and recovering. Both found that Lyme was not the only problem I had in spite of my relatively good health before I got sick. It had been 26 years since I last saw or needed a doctor.

The remnant nerve problems and some parasite presence are the last of the Lyme issues to resolve and both are being treated with Chinese herbs, acupuncture and physical therapy. My goal is to be completely free of Lyme and other problems detected within four months, to have restored my immune system to be much stronger than before I got sick, and to be back on the golf course by spring.

If you are a victim of Lyme, or have fallen sick from some unidentified disease or "bug", you should contact Debbie or Dr. Wu for help. Of course if you were really smart you would contact them before you get sick. Both have the ability to read signs of impending problems in your body before they are detectable by conventional medical exams. You can reach them at the following.

Dr. Shi-hua Wu
Washington, D.C.
Phone (202) 789-5466

Finally, I have created a blog containing the complete Lyme Disease series of seven articles I wrote so you can read them in one place. The link is

http://lymediseasesecretpandemic.blogspot.com/ /

and please share this link with anyone who might benefit from the series.

Part 7. The Final Chapter

It has now been 2 years since I began my personal journey with Lyme Disease and 20 months since I wrote the first of the "Lyme Disease - the Secret Pandemic Sweeping America" series in the Coltons Point Times.

Many people including friends strongly opposed my commitment to seeking out a natural cure for a disease the medical community virtually ignores, a disease that is sweeping the sleeping nation.

The path was far more difficult and painful than I expected in that the practitioners in the various alternative medicine disciplines knew little more than the traditional medical people about the disease, yet they were far advanced in testing potential treatments and cures.

Here in America the entire drug approval system and federal regulation favors the pharmaceutical giants to the extent of making it nearly impossible to get US approval for new drugs including natural compounds from small business or health practitioners.

So here was my personal case history. Lyme Disease markers were found in my system 24 months ago. By June of 2010 I was unable to function physically with numb hands and arms, aching joints, and an inability to balance when I tried to walk. In October and November of 2010 over 100 gallons of propane leaked into my house from the propane tank just outside the kitchen window. It killed my 240 pound Irish Wolfhound and nearly killed me.

I did not discover the propane leak until late December.

By November my only treatment for Lyme was natural and required 15,000 mg of vitamin C and 15,000 mg of salt every day. My nutritionist, Michael Guidry of Alexandria, Virginia, was guiding me through a series of natural treatments and procedures that seemed to be having a positive effect.

At the same time I was going to my Chinese doctor, Dr. Shi-hua Wu in Chinatown, Washington, D.C., who provided a custom herbal tea (24 different herbs) and acupuncture. Dr. Wu is a well known teacher and master of Eastern Chinese medicine, he is a master herbologist, and has performed acupuncture for 55 years since leaving China.

My sudden turn for the worse, unbeknownst to me, was the propane poisoning.

My brothers from Kentucky, sensing I was far sicker than I admitted, came to Maryland and literally carried me to the SUV for a mad dash to Lexington, Kentucky. There waited Debbie Alsheimer, a practitioner of functional health. I had no clue what that meant. Yet in my condition and pain anything would have been better.

She used a combination of bio-feedback, identifying nutritional deficiencies, physical therapy and exercises, and plain old intuition to give me a program to attack the many treacherous tentacles of Lyme.

Because of my inability to exercise, let alone even walk, I found out that between January of 2011 and October of 2011 I also pinched five nerves in my neck to shoulder region, nerves that controlled things like the blood and oxygen flow to the brain and caused false readings from my sensory preceptors. Doesn't that sound academic?

It means my senses went haywire. When my hands touched something hot it felt frigid. Large areas of my torso would suddenly become hot, or cold, for no reason. I could pick up a scalding hot pan on the stove and not feel the heat.

By October of 2011, on another of my trips to Kentucky for treatment and analysis, a chiropractor who specializes in nerves, Dr. Mark Miller, found the five pinched nerves and started releasing them. This will take a few months but I am well on the way to full recovery.

Today, after recent blood tests and physical exams by western doctors, I am free of any Lyme, there is no permanent nerve damage, no traces of the gas poisoning are left in my blood, and a program of traction, physical exercise, very limited dietary supplement and will power has me well on the way to full recovery.

Through it all I remained true to my goal of seeking only a natural cure for the disease.

Why me? I mean why should I get well when millions of people are painfully and often permanently suffering from the little understood Lyme Disease pandemic that is sweeping our nation?

I can't say but this much I know. What I have learned from the hundreds or maybe thousands of readers of my stories is that people need to know there is hope and there is help to conquer the disease.

So many people emailed me after reading the story telling me of the tragedy of the treatments and lack of results they achieved in their own battles against Lyme. Even when a massive dose of antibodies did finally overcome the bacteria of Lyme we are yet to know the consequences of such a massive jolt on our immune system.

Over the years many forms of treatment actually wind up hurting us like how antibodies destroy our immune system, how chemotherapy treatment will destroy your organs and the long term consequences of massive radiation from cat scans, MRI and excessive x rays.

I had a team throughout it all consisting of Michael Guidry, a nutritionist from Alexandria, Virginia; Dr. Shi-hua Wu, Eastern (Chinese) doctor, herbologist and acupuncturist from Chinatown, Washington, D.C., Debbie Alsheimer, a functional health expert from Lexington, Kentucky; and Dr. Mark Miller, a chiropractor who knows nerves from Winchester, Kentucky, just outside Lexington.

On the mystical side I had LaKotahasie Frazier, a powerful Native Medicine Woman, healer and teacher, we call her Lakota. Her Indian name is Buffalo Woman Comes Running and Lakota is of Abanaki, French and Lakotah descent.

I have long been a believer in Eastern Chinese medicine and Native medicine and prayers as a result of my friendship with the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Medicine Wheels, sweat lodges and other Native ceremonies, like the Chinese practices, have been used for thousands of years to heal.

Of course there were others not of this dimension like Jesus and the Holy Mother Mary, endless sources of hope through faith and prayer. Never underestimate the power of faith and prayer in life and healing.

In addition to the aforementioned there was one other thing unusual about my quest. It was the use of an ancient Chinese herb used for thousands of years to heal. Recently it was discovered this natural compound, stefania de cantis, could do what the federal health authorities acknowledge has never been achieved in Western Medicine, provide a mechanism that results in the destruction of drug resistant cells in people.

Ironically, virtually all those members of my team and the natural treatments and herbs they used to heal me ARE NOT ALLOWED OR COVERED under conventional health insurance programs or Medicare in the

USA

although they are allowed in the rest of the world.

If our politicians are serious about health care reform they will allow such time tested practices and herbs and redirect our health care system to heal the body, not just treat an illness or injury.

If you know anyone suffering from Lyme Disease please let them know about this series of stories and that an announcement is imminent about a natural way to overcome the disease with no harmful side effects. Many suffer, a number have died, and we are all living in a sea of confusion about Lyme. I hope I have helped people get through the maze and I want people to know there is real hope.

As Harry Chapin immortalized in words through the magic of music, we are all just travelers on the road to Kingdom Come. We need not be victims as well.

Finally, I have created a blog containing the complete Lyme Disease series of seven articles I wrote so you can read them in one place. The link is

http://lymediseasesecretpandemic.blogspot.com/ /

and please share this link with anyone who might benefit from the series.

AFTA NAFTA - More of the Bill Clinton Legacy - Hoodwinking the Public - Protecting the Rich - The First Family of Goldman Sachs

Recently President Obama put intense pressure on Congress to pass a major new trade treaty and the news media failed to give it even cursory attention. It was twenty-three years ago the last Democrat President jammed a trade agreement down the throats of American workers and politicians and the negative consequences are still felt today.

Twenty-three years ago Bill Clinton slammed the NAFTA trade bill through congress in 1993, then implemented it in 1994, and we are just beginning to see the House of Cards it was built on and understand the Shroud of Secrecy he constructed to protect the rich.

Do you remember when Bill Clinton and his Vice President Al Gore undertook one of the most savage attempts at character assassination ever staged from the White House during the furious debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)?

The target of this attack was the very person who helped Clinton become president in 1992, Ross Perot. In that election, Clinton won with just 43% of the vote. Bush got 37.4% and Perot got 18.9%. Perot's vote total kept Bush from being re-elected.

Only twice in the entire history of American politics did a third party candidate get more votes than Perot in 1992. In 1856, Millard Fillmore got 21.5% of the vote, and in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt got 27.3% of the vote, neither won. In fact, only three times in our history did a president a lower percent of votes than Clinton received and they were John Quincy Adams, Woodrow Wilson, and Abraham Lincoln.

I worked as a media advisor to Ross Perot during the NAFTA debates and witnessed firsthand the incredible attempts to discredit Perot. The Clinton administration used a national debate between Al Gore and Perot on the Larry King show as the showcase using lighting, the chair placement, the camera angles, and every other trick in the book to diminish Perot and undermine his concerns.

Eventually, everything Perot warned could happen did happen and the Clinton-Gore victory in time would be among the most devastating of the Clinton years. Democrats, the unions, all the minorities, and American manufacturing got sold out by the Clinton promise and to this day have continued to ignore the consequences.

In the end only Clinton and Gore were laughing, all the way to the bank, as both became the richest ex-president and ex-vice president in history, each raking in well over $200 million in personal wealth after gutting the nation's long term economy.

You need not take it from me, look at the analysis by NPR, a Progressive stalwart of the Democratic party, and even the AFL-CIO, whose blind faith in the Democrats has nearly destroyed all the good unions have accomplished. Listen to their words when it comes to the economic security of America thanks to the Clinton trade initiative.

Once upon a time during the debate over NAFTA Clinton and Gore made many promises, and Perot warned the opposite would happen. Vilified by the news media and the Clinton administration, Perot told the truth, Clinton and Gore did not, and the American public, are still paying for it.

Here are what others had to say about NAFTA.

AFL-CIO America's Unions

What have workers learned from 20 years of NAFTA?

· It’s a flawed model that promotes the economic interests of a very few and at the expense of workers, consumers, farmers, communities, the environment and even democracy itself.

While the overall volume of trade within North America due to NAFTA has increased and corporate profits have skyrocketed, wages have remained stagnant in all three countries.
Productivity has increased, but workers’ share of these gains has decreased steadily, along with unionization rates.
NAFTA pushed small Mexican farmers off their lands, increasing the flow of desperate undocumented migrants.
It exacerbated inequality in all three countries.
And the NAFTA labor side agreement has failed to accomplish its most basic mandate: to ensure compliance with fundamental labor rights and enforcement of national labor laws.

How It Is Destroying The Economy

By Michael Snyder

Global Research, 17 August 2014

The Economic Collapse 14 August 2014

NAFTA Is 20 Years Old – Here Are 20 Facts That Show

Back in the early 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement was one of the hottest political issues in the country. When he was running for president in 1992, Bill Clinton promised that NAFTA would result in an increase in the number of high quality jobs for Americans that it would reduce illegal immigration. Ross Perot warned that just the opposite would happen. He warned that if NAFTA was implemented there would be a “giant sucking sound” as thousands of businesses and millions of jobs left this country. Most Americans chose to believe Bill Clinton. Well, it is 20 years later and it turns out that Perot was right and Clinton was dead wrong. But now history is repeating itself, and most Americans don’t even realize that it is happening. As you will read about at the end of this article, Barack Obama has been negotiating a secret trade treaty that is being called “NAFTA on steroids”, and if Congress adopts it we could lose millions more good paying jobs.

It amazes me how the American people can fall for the same lies over and over again. The lies that serial liar Barack Obama is telling about “free trade” and the globalization of the economy are the same lies that Bill Clinton was telling back in the early 1990s. The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Paul Craig Roberts…

I remember in the 90′s when former Presidential candidate Ross Perot emphatically stated that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) would create a giant “sucking sound” of jobs being extracted away from the U.S. He did not win the election, and NAFTA was instituted on Jan. 1, 1994. Now, 20 years later, we see the result of all the jobs that have been “sucked away” to other countries.

According to an article by the Economic Policy Institute on 1/3/14:

“Clinton and his collaborators promised that the deal would bring “good-paying American jobs,” a rising trade surplus with Mexico, and a dramatic reduction in illegal immigration. Considering that thousands of kids are pouring over the border as we speak, well, how’d that work out for us?

Many Americans like to remember Bill Clinton as a “great president” for some reason. Well, it turns out that he was completely and totally wrong about NAFTA. The following are 20 facts that show how NAFTA is destroying the economy…

#1 More than 845,000 American workers have been officially certified for Trade Adjustment Assistance because they lost their jobs due to imports from Mexico or Canada or because their factories were relocated to those nations.

#2 Overall, it is estimated that NAFTA has cost us well over a million jobs.

#3 U.S. manufacturers pay Mexican workers just a little over a dollar an hour to do jobs that American workers used to do.

#4 The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States has more than doubled since the implementation of NAFTA.

#5 In the year before NAFTA, the U.S. had a trade surplus with Mexico and the trade deficit with Canada was only 29.6 billion dollars. Last year, the U.S. had a combined trade deficit with Mexico and Canada of 177 billion dollars.

#6 It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

#7 One professor has estimated that cutting the total U.S. trade deficit in half would create 5 million more jobs in the United States.

#8 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States. In fact, many of them are now being built in Mexico.

#9 NAFTA hasn’t worked out very well for Mexico either. Since 1994, the average yearly rate of economic growth in Mexico has been less than one percent.

#10 The exporting of massive amounts of government-subsidized U.S. corn down into Mexico has destroyed more than a million Mexican jobs and has helped fuel the continual rise in the number of illegal immigrants coming north.

#11 Someone making minimum wage in Mexico today can buy 38 percent fewer consumer goods than the day before NAFTA went into effect.

#12 Overall, the United States has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

#13 Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#14 We have fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than we did in 1950 even though our population has more than doubled since then.

#15 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, only 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#16 As I wrote about recently, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.

#17 Because we have shipped millions of jobs overseas, the competition for the jobs that remain has become extremely intense and this has put downward pressure on wages. Right now, half the country makes $27,520 a year or less from their jobs.

#18 When adults cannot get decent jobs, it is often children that suffer the most. It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.

#19 In 1994, only 27 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

#20 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

NPR Public Citizen February 10, 2014

NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013:

Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement

Excerpts - see full post at http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf

In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold to the American public with grand promises. NAFTA would create tens of thousands of good jobs here. U.S. farmers would export their way to wealth. NAFTA would bring Mexico’s standard of living up, providing new economic opportunities there that would reduce immigration to the United States.

NAFTA was an experiment, establishing a radically new “trade” agreement model. It exploded the boundaries of past trade pacts, which had focused narrowly on cutting tariffs and quotas. In contrast, NAFTA contained chapters that created new privileges and protections for foreign investors; required the three countries to waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American; limited regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extended medicine patent monopolies and limited food and product safety standards and border inspection.

After nineteen years of NAFTA, we can measure its actual outcomes. The grand promises made by proponents remain unfulfilled. Many outcomes are exactly the opposite of what was promised. Many U.S. firms used the new investor protections to relocate production to Mexico to take advantage of its low wages and weak environmental standards and to attack NAFTA countries’ environmental and health laws in foreign tribunals. Over $340 million in compensation to investors has been extracted from NAFTA governments via these “investor-state” challenges.

The small U.S. trade surplus with Mexico pre-NAFTA turned into a massive new trade deficit. The pre-NAFTA U.S. trade deficit with Canada expanded greatly. Overall, the inflation-adjusted U.S. trade deficit with Canada of $29.1 billion and the $2.5 billion surplus with Mexico in 1993 (the year before NAFTA took effect) turned into a combined NAFTA trade deficit of $181 billion by 2012.1 The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated that the NAFTA deficit had eliminated about one million net American jobs by 2004.2 Meanwhile, U.S. food processors moved to Mexico to take advantage of low wages and food imports soared. U.S beef imports from Mexico and Canada, for example, have risen 130 percent since NAFTA took effect, and today U.S. consumption of “NAFTA” beef tops $1.3 billion annually.3 The export of subsidized U.S. corn did increase, displacing over one million Mexican campesino farmers. Their desperate migration pushed down wages in Mexico’s border maquiladora factory zone and contributed to a doubling of Mexican immigration to the United States.

The U.S. public’s view of NAFTA has intensified from broad opposition to overwhelming opposition to NAFTA-style trade deals. According to a 2012 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll, 53 percent of Americans believe the United States should “do whatever is necessary” to “renegotiate” or “leave” NAFTA, while only 15 percent believe the

United States

should “continue to be a member of NAFTA.” Rejection of the trade deal is the predominant stance of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.4 NAFTA has drawn the ire of Americans across stunningly diverse demographics. A 2011 National Journal poll showed strong rejection of the status quo trade model from both lower-educated and higher-educated respondents,5 and a 2010 NBC News – Wall Street Journal survey revealed that a majority of upper-income respondents have now joined lower-income respondents in opposing NAFTA-style pacts.6 In addition, a 2008 Zogby poll found majority NAFTA opposition across nearly every surveyed demographic group, including independents, Hispanics, women, Catholics and Southerners.7

U.S.

Job Loss, Not Gain

Projections on trade balance, jobs prove wrong. In 1993, Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) projected that NAFTA would lead to a rising U.S. trade surplus with Mexico, which would create 170,000 net new jobs in the United States.8 This figure was trumpeted by the Clinton administration and other NAFTA proponents. Hufbauer and Schott based their projection on the observation that when export growth outpaces the growth of imports, more jobs are created by trade than are destroyed by trade.9 Instead of an improved trade balance with Canada and Mexico, however, NAFTA resulted in an explosion of imports from Mexico and Canada that led to huge U.S. trade deficits. According to Hufbauer and Schott’s own methodology, these deficits meant major job loss. Less than two years after NAFTA’s implementation, even before the depth of the NAFTA deficit became evident, Hufbauer recognized that his jobs prediction was incongruent with the facts, telling the Wall Street Journal, “The best figure for the jobs effect of NAFTA is approximately zero…the lesson for me is to stay away from job forecasting.”10

Huge new NAFTA trade deficit emerges. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada of $29.1 billion and the $2.5 billion surplus with Mexico in 1993 (the year before NAFTA took effect) turned into a combined NAFTA trade deficit of $181 billion by 2012.11 This represents an increase in the “NAFTA deficit” of 580 percent. These are inflation-adjusted numbers, meaning the difference is not due to inflation, but an increase in the deficit in real terms. The U.S. deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada has worsened considerably more than the U.S. deficit with countries with which we have not signed NAFTA-style deals. Since NAFTA, the average annual growth of the U.S. trade deficit has been 45 percent higher with Mexico and Canada than with countries that are not party to a NAFTA-style trade pact.12 Defenders of NAFTA argue that the NAFTA deficit is really only oil imports. Although oil accounts for a substantial portion of the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico, the oil share of the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico actually declined from 77 percent in 1993 to 55 percent in 2012.13

Services and manufacturing export growth slows under NAFTA. A key claim of supporters of NAFTA-style trade pacts is that they create jobs by promoting faster U.S. export growth. By contrast, growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 percent over the last decade.14 Manufacturing and services exports in particular grew slower after NAFTA took effect. Since NAFTA’s enactment, U.S. manufacturing exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the rate seen in the years before NAFTA.15 Even growth in services exports, which were supposed to do especially well under the trade pact given a presumed U.S. comparative advantage in services, dropped precipitously after NAFTA’s implementation. During NAFTA’s first decade, the average growth rate in U.S. services exports fell by 58 percent compared to the decade before NAFTA, and has remained well below the pre-NAFTA rate through the present.16

One million American jobs lost to NAFTA. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the rising trade deficit with Mexico and Canada since NAFTA went into effect eliminated about one million net jobs in the United States by 2004.17 EPI further calculates that the ballooning trade deficit with Mexico alone destroyed about seven hundred thousand net U.S. jobs between NAFTA’s implementation and 2010.18 Moreover, official government data reveals that nearly five million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost overall since NAFTA took effect.19 Obviously, not all of these lost U.S. manufacturing jobs – one out of every four of our manufacturing jobs – is due to NAFTA. The United States entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, China joined WTO in 2000 and the U.S. trade deficit with China soared thereafter. However, at the same time, given the methodology employed, it is also likely that the EPI estimates do not capture the full U.S. job loss associated with NAFTA. Service sector jobs have also been negatively impacted by NAFTA, as closed factories no longer demand services. EPI estimates that one third of the jobs lost due to the rising trade deficit under NAFTA were in non-manufacturing sectors of the economy.20
...

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Villanova Wildcats win NCAA Basketball National Championship in Epic Game 77-74

Villanova, the small Catholic college with about 10,000 students from Philadelphia took on the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels with about 30,000 and gave us one of the greatest national championship games in history.

Playing before 70,000 fans in Houston with millions watching on television, both teams put on an exceptional display of why college sports are so popular. March Madness is the NCAA national championship tourney with 68 teams battling it out to see who is number one.

This season was full of upsets with numerous teams reaching number one during the season only to be beaten and it was one of few college seasons where none of the top teams finished the season unbeaten.

North Carolina is one of the legendary basketball programs in America with five national titles while Villanova has just one national title, 31 years ago, to its credit. Of course the Tar Heels are also home to Michael Jordan whose last second shot brought them a national title.

There were no Michael Jordans in this game. The star for the Tar Heels was a guard from Iowa but even with no marquee players, heroes were plentiful. The Iowa guard sank a three point shot with just 4.7 seconds left in the game to tie it after Villanova had surge to a ten point led with about seven minutes to play.

In the first half North Carolina pulled ahead by seven point, but by the middle of the second half Villanova had reversed the game and were ten points ahead. A furious run by Carolina the last five minutes resulted in the three point shot with 4.7 left to tie the game.

The Wildcats threw the ball in, their star dribbled across the half court line, then handed it back to a teammate who let fly a long three point bomb just as time ran out and the buzzer rang ending the game. What seemed like an eternity but in fact was just fractions of a minute went by before the ball swooshed through the hoop.

As the 70,000 exploded when they realized the shot was good and the players and coaches stood momentarily in shock, confetti rained from the ceiling and the Wildcats realized they had pulled off one of the great upsets in an amazing game.

The top scorer for Villanova came off the bench to score 20 points, he only scored 25 total in the previous four games. The hero scoring the winning bucket had a brother playing for North Carolina. Another Villanova star was home schooled in high school by his Christian family and taught basketball by his mother.

I mention no names because this game had so many of the most unlikely heroes they all deserve credit.

Both teams should be proud and thanks Villanova for showing us giant killers still have a chance in America.

Break Time - Reality Can Wait!

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Saturday, April 02, 2016

American Elections 7 - Tips for International Followers - Why the media and political parties have it all wrong - they forgot about Independents

Sometimes the most obvious is the most difficult to see and when it comes to the American media the most obvious and most logical is most often overlooked. Ever since Obama first ran for office there has been a peculiar Main Street media fascination with the Tea Party movement and when it comes to the liberal media, it became an obsession.

For some odd reason the Lame Street media has been afraid, fearful, and terrorized by the thought that the Tea Party and its seemingly radical right wing supporters represents a grave threat to the American political process.

If the media wants to condemn a conservative commentator they label them "Tea Party" whether they have any affiliation with the Tea Party or not. It is the liberal way to stigmatize the on air personalities that cause so much havoc in their lives.

Yet most conservative commentators have never joined the Tea Party and view it as an element of the Republican party, not a separate institution. So the Democrats have tried to diminish any threat from the Tea Party by talking about the splintering effect the Tea Party has on the Republicans.

I suspect they just don't get it.

The only threat to the two party system in America is their arrogance in thinking there really is just two parties in the country and their failure to see we are rapidly approaching the point of no return when more American are alienated by both political parties and their partisan nonsense when in truth there is little difference between them.

Every election we get closer to the point when there are going to be more Independents than BOTH Democrats and Republicans. When over 50% of the public believes neither party serves the public but both parties have become their own Special Interests.

With the continuing decline in public confidence in our political parties, politicians and media and with the continued ignorance or deliberate effort by the media to disregard the growing number of Americans rejecting both political parties that day we cross the 50% threshold is rapidly approaching and will most certainly be here by 2016 or 2020.

The following is a Gallup Poll which most media failed to report on the continuing surge in the number of Independents in

America

. They are the real danger to the two party system and the real hope for healing our Nation.

January 8, 2014 (first published)

Record-High 42% of Americans Identify as Independents

Republican identification lowest in at least 25 years

by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-two percent of Americans, on average, identified as political independents in 2013, the highest Gallup has measured since it began conducting interviews by telephone 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Republican identification fell to 25%, the lowest over that time span. At 31%, Democratic identification is unchanged from the last four years but down from 36% in 2008.

The results are based on more than 18,000 interviews with Americans from 13 separate Gallup multiple-day polls conducted in 2013.

In each of the last three years, at least 40% of Americans have identified as independents. These are also the only years in Gallup's records that the percentage of independents has reached that level.

Americans' increasing shift to independent status has come more at the expense of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Republican identification peaked at 34% in 2004, the year George W. Bush won a second term in office. Since then, it has fallen nine percentage points, with most of that decline coming during Bush's troubled second term. When he left office, Republican identification was down to 28%. It has declined or stagnated since then, improving only slightly to 29% in 2010, the year Republicans "shellacked" Democrats in the midterm elections.

Not since 1983, when Gallup was still conducting interviews face to face, has a lower percentage of Americans, 24%, identified as Republicans than is the case now. That year, President Ronald Reagan remained unpopular as the economy struggled to emerge from recession. By the following year, amid an improving economy and re-election for the increasingly popular incumbent president, Republican identification jumped to 30%, a level generally maintained until 2007.

Democratic identification has also declined in recent years, falling five points from its recent high of 36% in 2008, the year President Barack Obama was elected. The current 31% of Americans identifying as Democrats matches the lowest annual average in the last 25 years.

Fourth Quarter Surge in Independence

The percentage of Americans identifying as independents grew over the course of 2013, surging to 46% in the fourth quarter. That coincided with the partial government shutdown in October and the problematic rollout of major provisions of the healthcare law, commonly known as "Obamacare."

The 46% independent identification in the fourth quarter is a full three percentage points higher than Gallup has measured in any quarter during its telephone polling era.

Democrats Maintain Edge in Party Identification

Democrats maintain their six-point edge in party identification when independents' "partisan leanings" are taken into account. In addition to the 31% of Americans who identify as Democrats, another 16% initially say they are independents but when probed say they lean to the Democratic Party. An equivalent percentage, 16%, say they are independent but lean to the Republican Party, on top of the 25% of Americans identifying as Republicans. All told, then, 47% of Americans identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 41% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party.

Democrats have held at least a nominal advantage on this measure of party affiliation in all but three years since Gallup began asking the "partisan lean" follow-up in 1991. During this time, Democrats' advantage has been as high as 12 points, in 2008. However, that lead virtually disappeared by 2010, although Democrats have re-established an edge in the last two years.

Implications

Americans are increasingly declaring independence from the political parties. It is not uncommon for the percentage of independents to rise in a non-election year, as 2013 was. Still, the general trend in recent years, including the 2012 election year, has been toward greater percentages of Americans identifying with neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party, although most still admit to leaning toward one of the parties.

The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans' record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties, of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally.

The increased independence adds a greater level of unpredictability to this year's presidential election. Because U.S. voters are less anchored to the parties than ever before, it's not clear what kind of appeals may be most effective to winning votes. But with Americans increasingly eschewing party labels for themselves, candidates who are less closely aligned to their party or its prevailing doctrine may benefit.

Now that we are halfway through the 2016 election cycle it is clear that the Independent will dominate in the general election, and the "outsider" candidates have demonstrated tremendous strength in the primary elections. Both political parties are actively trying to stop the outsiders and protect the political establishment and status quo, but Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump may be more resilient than expected by the media.

Survey Methods

Results are based on aggregated telephone interviews from 13 separate Gallup polls conducted in 2013, with a random sample of 18,871 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline and cell telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, nonresponse, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, and cellphone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2012 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the July-December 2011 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2010 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

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