By Dr. Thomas S. Lee, NMD

May 14, 2003  –  Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a dangerous respiratory infection that is quickly killing 5-15 percent of its victims after intense suffering and breathing difficulties.  World news agencies report the mobilization of the most densely populated regions of the world to quarantine and treat all suspected cases.

As of early May, the largest source of the epidemic is in China.  Beijing has quar

Quarantined over 18,000 people, with 2,177 confirmed cases and over 114 fatalities.  Hong Kong has the second largest outbreak, with 210 deaths and over 1,660 infections.  Estimates to date are that 7,100 people have the SARS infection and 515 people have died worldwide.

The size of the international response is overwhelming.  So too is the level of fear and concern SARS has triggered.  Every year, the world has influenza outbreaks that cause over a hundred thousand deaths with little comment.  These 500+ SARS casualties, however, have triggered a worldwide epidemic of fear and suspicion.

If comparable efforts as the SARS response were used against deadly and treatable infections like malaria

, cholera, influenza, and yellow fever, it would improve the quality and amount of life for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.  Yet these destroyers march on year after year.

Surely the current SARS statistics are tragic on a private level, but they are relatively insignificant compared to many preventable epidemics faced worldwide each year.  In any major American city, this number of deaths would represent a slow weekend of iatrogenic (doctor-caused) drug reactions, and the preventable casualties of alcohol and tobacco addictions.

The Bug

The likely cause of SARS has been identified as a variant strain of coronavirus.  This is a common type of influenza virus that routinely crops up in Asia, where interspecies sanitation issues have brought pigs, geese, and humans into close contact for centuries.  A virus is unique in its ability to transmit genetic information between species.

The complete genetic sequence of the SARS virus has been mapped and identified as unrelated to any coronavirus known thus far.  It has many scientists and governments quite nervous, despite its relatively unremarkable mortality rate.  Something is going on that is bigger than the medical concerns about this viral epidemic.

The Context

Last year, geneticists in Spain succeeded in cloning a coronavirus called TGEV (transmissible gastroenteritis virus) which produced an 80 percent mortality rate in newborn piglets .  These scientists were motivated to study coronaviruses not because of any malevolent attitude toward swine, but because this viral class has tremendous economic and medical impact on humans.

The activities of this class of virus include the common cold, gastroenteritis, and even multiple sclerosis, at various stages.  Medicines that work effectively upon these types of viruses could be highly profitable to whomever invented and controlled their patents.

Since the 1970s, genetic engineering has sought to understand and design life forms to benefit the sponsors of this research.  The technology has produced many medicines, vaccines, foods, and nutriceuticals that have enhanced the profits of corporations — and occasionally the quality of human life — in that order.  Some products, like the Terminator Gene inserted by Monsanto into its “suicide seeds,” never even got to the quality-of-life stage.

Many scientists have expressed concerns about the risks of genetic engineering technology.  Pioneers in this technology sponsored a moratorium in the mid-1970s because of concerns about creating drug and antibiotic resistant infections.  But money talks, and our modern biological environment is now the most genetically engineered that money can and did buy.

The SARS coronavirus could be an intentionally designed organism;  that is, a bio-weapon.  These projects have been undertaken by all the major militaries in the world.

Alternatively, SARS could have developed due to “horizontal transfer” — a kind of microbiological “collateral damage” that occurs when unplanned genetic mutations occur in the open, out of the control of the original designer.  Accidents do happen, both in and out of the lab.

Now, after over a quarter century of commercial applications in both medicine and agriculture, our bodies have become the laboratory.  More accurately, the living biological systems of plants, animals, and humans worldwide are now serving as the test tubes of private commercial research.  But without scientific proof that this is a rogue bioweapon, we cannot go after any criminals.  Rather, we need to put more accurate information and resources for the prevention of all communicable diseases into the hands of common people who suffer and die from them.

SARS is proving to be a fabulous vehicle for revenue enhancement to benefit the medical care providers, news media monopolies, and pharmaceutical cartels around the world who are best positioned to profit from all fears of contagion.  We cannot accuse the profiteers of disease and death of poor project management.  They, and the livelihoods and revenue streams they protect, have become excellent at what they do.

Caring for our loved ones is a universal motivator, so invoking a primal fear of loss and suffering is certain to sell a lot of medicine and votes.  This current epidemic of fear and suspicion is not about health care.

We have a word for people and organizations that act out an agenda to benefit from someone’s fear or death, and that’s terrorism.  If the agenda is to damage another’s economic health or to steal their wealth, the term is piracy.  Neither tactic is particularly original or unique to a race or nation.

Consider the economic context for SARS.  Which economy is the only one making a profit in the world today?  What nations were most consistently opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?  And where is SARS being found and reported on?

This epidemic of fear, SARS, and most other non-disease “syndromes” and “disorders” provide social protections for the drug industry to invent their problems and patent their solutions.  This becomes evident if one learns the history of the pharmaceutical cartels.  Their budgets can buy and trade national governments like Pokemon cards, and they do, if there is profit in it.

This manipulation of whole societies for profit is an outrage, and we should identify the culprits and try to stop their evil doings.  But who among us, as an aware adult, can claim surprise?  Economic and biological wars have shaped our world for centuries.  This latest application of terrorism and piracy is just a refinement on the classics.

Where It Comes From

Infectious influenza strains come from the areas where conditions of sanitation and hygiene are the most ideal for them.  Traditional rural Asian cultures combine high-density human populations, low standards of sanitation and hygiene, and close contact with livestock populations of birds and pigs.  And few food source animals will ever enjoy better living conditions than their keepers.

The viral results of these incubating conditions spread through the biosphere like microbial descendants of Genghis Khan, with even worse attitudes about human life than his.  In the rest of the world, our immune systems take the beatings.  The survivors get the messages from these miniscule Kung-fu masters, whose regular visits actually help to keep our immune systems on their toes.

This is not to make light of the tragedy of millions of human deaths from infectious viral diseases every year.  It merely describes our reality as participants in a planet-wide biological system of balance.  This system requires the pathogen, the parasite, the predator, and the scavenger to support health by removing the unviable and weak.  Now that another source of these shadow forces, the warrior-germs, can originate with a geneticist’s commercial product or a weapon lab’s evil genius, our complex modern world is under even more pressure to survive and adapt.

What Is Being Done Now

Effective public health policies are often controversial and unpleasant.  To quarantine a city or apartment block takes political will and organization.  It requires money, muscle, discipline, power, men at arms, and then more money for the lawyers and the public relations campaigns.  Also, the word of a quarantine gets around quickly, and most people try not to demonstrate any symptoms, especially if their government is penalized economically in the world community if many of its people are sick.

Usually, the Chinese do nothing about the epidemics they export;  but in fairness, no other governments do, either.  It is too expensive and politically tedious.  When the U.S. government attempts to implement its own farcical domestic biowarfare procedures, it will achieve a similar enlightenment about the nature of political power.

SARS is costing Chinese and other Asian businesses huge sums in lost profits from trade, travel, and employment disruption.  This massive global cleanup and hygiene exercise has shocked many veteran public health professionals.  SARS is being creatively demonized by the international media to justify the enormous expenses in fighting, preventing, and treating it.  Academic and military experts are being courted and positioned to justify both the terror and the “necessary” drug treatments that are only available from patented, proprietary sources.

How is this being accomplished?  Hundreds of millions of colds and flu cases occur every year, and most are unreported.  If the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control cannot provide any clear differential diagnosis that would distinguish SARS fevers from these routine cases, how could anyone be able to tell the difference between SARS and the common cold or flu?  Certainly, electron microscopy at Stanford for the feverish Balinese pig farmer will not be offered anytime soon.

If and when a differential test becomes available for the SARS coronavirus, ask your doctor how much it will cost, and then just follow the money.  If SARS can functionally be defined as a cold or flu, the zooming numbers will move up into the range of urban legends very soon.  Again, if you can define the disorder or syndrome and require your product or service be used to treat it, then cause the taxpayer to enforce this, you’ve got an epic income stream.  It becomes a con game of a major scale;  one for the history books.

Huge changes in cash flows always follow from widespread public fear.  Right now, within medicine and politics, journal articles are being re-titled and resubmitted; funding grants are being redesigned, referenced, and retargeted; and position papers and curricula are being reformatted to highlight resumes and performance guidelines.  The printing industry anticipates rosy profits from pharmacy ads and flyers, while public hospitals await new supplies and budgets to further protect the public from the coming wave of sick customers.  Local and regional governments are adding medical acronyms to their budget requests, and lawyers are speed-reading case law for liability issues that might affect the deep pockets in travel and tourism.  World convention destinations in the Western hemisphere are graciously extending their welcome to all nervous convention planners that were formerly committed to Asian capitals.

In short, things are popping, and for the stagnant economies of the West, it’s about time.  If only someone could amp up that kill ratio!  Sorry to be blunt, but business is business.  A professor of mine long ago clarified this situation with his answer to my idealistic question about why we had not yet found a cure for AIDS.  “Well,” he said, “there are lots more people making a living from it than dying of it.  Who wants to kill the golden goose?”  It’s cynical, but true.

Active Prevention

So what can you do?  Start by informing yourself.  Read and inquire from professionals who understand the laws of human health, and veterans of other infectious viral outbreaks, particularly influenza-related.  Hundreds of intelligent, compassionate professionals are stepping up to inform and educate the public about the nature of this epidemic and others of its type that are probably soon to appear.  Most have very useful pieces to add to the puzzle.

Don’t limit yourself to the work of any one expert, when so much knowledge is available to you over the Internet.  And don’t paralyze yourself by an enchantment with your inner skeptic.  It’s foolish to expect one person to have all the right answers or expect them to be the same as your own.  Foolishness is for victims.

Then, make sure to get yourself healthy in advance, for two good reasons:

1.  Strength.  You’ll need time and energy to do your research.  If you are sick or weak, you won’t be able to do much to help yourself or anyone else.

2.  Credibility.  The situation cries out for substantial change in how people live and work in this modern world.  If you are the one crying out for others to change, don’t blow it for the rest of us by sounding even sicker than your audience.

How To Beat A Viral Infection

Viral infections can only be beaten by a strong immune system, using a fever response that virtually “cooks” these tiny genetic fragments while they are in the midst of their mayhem.

Most conventional medicines actually do the reverse, by working to suppress fever symptoms.  Everyone is looking for a quick way to feel better, and over-the-counter cold medicines enable your co-workers to drag into your office and share their infectious presence with you and your friends for days and weeks.  Typical cold medicines only prolong a cold or flu by protecting the virus from the body’s full-strength immune response.

Never suppress a fever, or take medications that effectively shut off your immune system with a virus onboard.  Sick people who refuse to stay home are actually helping to spread the flu far and wide.  Very soon, the drugstore sees a jump in the sales of these so-called “medicines.”  What a great business model.

Steps to Take

Here is the best way to stop a viral attack in its early stages, along with some ideas for aggressive treatment of an advanced case.

When you feel the first tickle in your throat or shakiness that signals the onset of a cold or flu, pay attention and make good, quick decisions.

1. Cancel work and fun, and keep your distance from family members and other people you don’t want to infect.

2. Obtain and use teas, herbs, and supplements that will crank up your body heat.  There are many to learn about, such as yarrow, peppermint, elder, lomatium, citrus peel, ginger, etc.

3. Skip big meals and sweet treats.  Hot, nutritious soups are great, but eat light and stay a bit on the hungry side.

4. Head for a hot bath, have some herbal teas beside your bed, put on an extra blanket, and go from bath to bed and sweat under the covers.  Feel free to get up for a hot shower and more hot tea, then go back to bed for more sweat and sleep.  If you perform this response early enough and hit the virus with enough of this heat and sleep, you will chase it away quickly.  The medical term for this is hyperthermia, and it is valued for treating even the most severe viral infections.

5. When you feel better, take a cue from our elders and plunge into a cold shower, or at least end a hot shower with cold water.  Towel yourself vigorously to warm up, and off you go, back at it!

Natural medicine has many effective methods to help defeat viral attacks, despite the drone of fear-mongers in the media.  If you face this test of treating a viral infection, present the following list of keywords to your caregivers and help them join you in searching for the tremendous results being found with the use of these agents and techniques.  This list is by no means exhaustive.

Hyperthermia, beta-glucan, colloidal silver, lomatium, yarrow, essential oils, Virgin Coconut Oil, lauric acid, monolaurin, Vitamin C, Armour thyroid, lysine, N-acetyl cysteine, calcium D-glucarate, chicken soup, zinc, ginger, homeopathic medicine, iodine, fasting, and more.

After you beat a few colds and flus with these techniques, you will have a lot less to worry about.  The needs being met by these epidemics of fear like SARS and various other staged emergencies are not yours or mine.  The more empowered you become at solving your own health problems simply and affordably, the less you will fear the unknown, and the more able you will be to help yourself and others.

References and Links

1. PNAS 2000: 97: 5025-7.

2. Fever and the Mystery Disease SARS:  A Bioterror Weapon Spreads Around the World

3. SARS:  A Great Global Scam