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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

I'm very pleased to see this. This is long, but you'll probably find a couple of things that are worth your time. I'll start my rambling with my sketchy memory of an old study.

Around 20 years ago, I found a study from the 1970s. The bottom line is essentially this: the researchers were studying the effects of three chemicals on rats. Exposure to one chemical caused no problems. Exposures to two chemicals caused sickness. Exposure to all three chemicals caused death. Around this time, I spoke with someone at the EPA. I asked about how they go about testing the many thousands of chemicals that are in use; how they can test the incalculable combinations of them. He said that they can't aren't funded well enough to test them singly, never mind in the combinations in which they're used. IOW: they're not tested the way they're used in a single product; what about how we all use them together in various combinations in our lives?

The only place that I know of that tested products in this way is (was?) a small laboratory in Vermont called Anderson Laboratories. Using technology that was originally developed by the US Army during the Vietnam War, they expose mice to real living conditions using real products that we all buy: carpet, mattresses, toys, soap, trash bags, or even air samples from buildings that are suspected sources of sick building syndrome. Here's an excerpt from an interview:

“Have you tested pesticides on the mice?

“Rosalind Anderson: We try not to, because we have such frightening results from things that are supposed to be “normal”, like dish-detergent. If that’s so toxic, we really don't want to go to things that are supposed to be poisonous. We avoid pesticides like the plague. Pesticides are a serious problem, but we do not want to risk contaminating our laboratory with pesticides.

“We don't have a ventilation system that is powerful enough. With the ventilation system we have, we would have to take the whole system out, get it decontaminated, take it to the trash and install a whole new system. So we have avoided pesticides as much as we can.”

It's difficult to find information about their work, but a good introduction is this interview. You'll never look at what you have inside your home the same way again. And even if you do manage to clean most of these chemicals out of your life, you will always be exposed to the poisons that people wear on their bodies or use in their homes and places of business.

http://exposed.at/anderson.htm

I became interested in chemical harm due to my own chemical injury. What's interesting in my case is that I had symptom development long before I knew that it had anything to do with the chemical that caused it (formaldehyde) and the chemicals that trigger my symptoms, which are a wide range of commonly used products. The easiest to identify are fragrance products. The worst offenders are those that likely contain phthalates, which led me to read about endocrine-disruptors. From there I found the studies that found frogs could change genders with these chemicals. My suspicion about the trans phenomenon has been that there are any number of traits associated with gender and sex preferences, and perhaps these traits are under the increasing influences of the increasing use of chemicals.

Regarding autism, glyphosate is an obvious potential culprit given the huge increase in use over the same time that autism has increased (same with vaccines), but my suspicion is that the problem may be a combination of things: vaccines, pesticides, and the innumerable chemicals that are in our foods, personal care products, cleaners, and air fresheners. But autism is almost a red flag like cancer: its often the case that if no proof of cancer causation is found, a product is safe. This helps avoid the many problems that are also likely caused by these products such as neurodegenerative diseases, behavioral problems in children and adults, psychological problems, etc.

Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of money at stake along with the power to protect it. The tobacco industry was able to use plausible deniability to defer recognition of harm, but this problem is far more insidious. And far more dangerous.

An interesting blueprint of denial by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries can be found in the treatment of my disease: multiple chemical sensitivity.

https://annmccampbellmd.com/publicationswritings/publication-1/

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

An alternative hypothesis? Channeling my inner Brett Weinstein, it's hard for me to believe there's not an evolutionary component in all this. Years ago, someone pointed out that the baby boomer generation in America was the first generation to grow up that didn't have to worry about finding something to eat. Years later, we've progressed to a point where many don't seriously worry about any of their other needs - clothing, shelter, medical care - either. The welfare state has certainly helped fueled that, certainly, but that's a separate issue for another time.

Here's the evolutionary component, using the economic concept of wants and needs:

Before the twentieth century, needs were pretty much all that mattered. There was always next winter to worry about, how to survive in a world without electricity or refrigeration, a world in which you were only a crop failure away from severe deprivation and possible starvation.

Needs are few and defined. Wants are unlimited - anything at all that an individual can imagine. Human nature evolved from the very beginning to deal with hard-headed reality. That so many can no longer differentiate between fact and fantasy is predictable, time no longer dedicated to basic needs fueled more time and energy being spent on wants. A credible hypothesis? I believe so.

In a 'Forbidden Planet' sense, the human race has become the Krell.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

I mean I think other chronic conditions such as extreme allergies and asthma should be lumped in. Especially was one can see how their variations of immune system dysfunction. And what was the final verdict on SIDS? Puh them on their back...nothing more to see here? The more you look around the more we're so immersed in it that its been normalized. Its hiding right in front of us. 'if vaccines were so dangerous we'd see it?' It might be right there. 'If a chemical was do dangerous we'd know?' How long did it take for lead to get removed?

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I live in corn and soy country. I was maintenance man for a small company that maintained housing for people with profound autism. Watching them drug those people with 20+ daily pharmaceuticals, I intuited it was environmental factors combined with predatory health care, being a gardener too and knowing how well the green revolution tracks with autism and chronic illness more generally. When I hear about parents proactively transitioning their 4year olds, I assume it has moved into terminal stage.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

2,121 nuclear weapons tests since 1945 also probably contribute in some way.

My thesis covers 5 groups of toxicants:

mercury from coal fired power plants:

ingredients in plastics:

pesticides and herbicides:

EMF and RFR: and

pharmaceuticals (Tylenol, SSRIs, and vaccines).

The long version is here:

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/handle/2123/20198/Rogers_T_thesis.pdf

The quick summary is here:

https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/the-political-economy-of-autism

The tl;dr version is that vaccines seem to cause the most harms because there are so many of them, they are so toxic, and they bypass the body's defense mechanisms (skin, stomach, etc.).

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Excellent thought provoking article Mathew. The US is without doubt an over medicalised country, and then on top of that add in environmental, agricultural and dietary issues, and hey presto, you have a sick population. A couple of thoughts….. I’d be intrigued to know what vaccine rates and autism numbers are in European children relative to those in the US. Also look into the impact that natural birth vs Caesarian has on the developing micro biome of the new born, and then breast versus bottle feeding. I’d also have a look at Jennifer Bilek’s ‘11th Hour’ blog, https://linktr.ee/the11thhourblog, some very interesting stuff re trans. On that point, it appears that for young people transition is more common for girls (female to male), whereas older transitioners are more likely to be the opposite direction. There is a clear distinction here, and fetishism, misogyny, and medical/pharmaceutical greed needs to be analysed. Keep up the good work, as ever a great read!

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Sep 7, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

There is no doubt everything you do or consume has an impact of your health. However not everything has the same magnitude of impact. Combinations of certain factors could magnify the impact. The largest impact probably comes from the nutritional quality of the food you eat. While trace amounts of toxins are not good they are probably not a big impact. You can't eat 50 pounds of sugar and then claim your health problems were caused by glyphosate. A lot of the food in the stores is processed junk and should not be consumed on a regular basis. Medications for depression, blood pressure, cholesterol will change who you are over time. Smoking, alcohol, and other recreational drugs can also impact your health. I do not know the magnitude of the effect of the regular vaccines, but it is probably significant. I find that just spending time outdoors makes me feel better. I find that just listening to "the news" is like an injection of negativity into my brain. I have sometimes wonder if they are adjusting our hormone levels with food additives. It's a theory.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

I think the food industry should be in your diagram somehow.

Farming chemicals and processed foods make people sicker, which is exactly what big pharma wants.

Sick enough to want to buy expensive meds, but not too sick that they can't work and earn a good income.

I'm sure they call it "the happy middle ground".

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Sep 8, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

About a decade ago, my boss at a genome center (he was the director) wanted to do a study with fruit fly cell lines and maybe daphnia, subjecting them to single chemicals and mixtures of chemicals, at varying doses. Instead of looking at ld50, we would have been examining gene expression changes. We were unable to find any nih grant calls that could have funded it.

John Colbourne, the scientist who would have coordinated the gene expression work, has since moved on from that position but still maintains that chemical testing needs to move beyond Ld50. His latest project:

https://precisiontox.org/contact/

But we need to think beyond chemicals. We need to factor in our altered circadian rhythm (light is a drug) and our altered electromagnetic environment in the pathophysiological picture. The biohacking world has much written about these, mostly self experimentation and anecdotes.

All of these (air pollution, chemical everything, emf, light and fluoridated water) impact mitochondrial functioning. Doug Wallace has many pieces out showing how dysfunctional mitochondria contribute to chronic disease, but especially neurodegenerative disease. Martin Pickard did a postdoc with Wallace and showed how even psychological stress can diminish mitochondrial function.

I am in a Facebook group with Derek Jensen, author of "deep green resistance". His opinion is that human biology is incompatible entirely with the industrial world. I am inclined to agree.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

It appears that the trans movement dovetails nicely with the great reset. It fractures families, creates ideal (for pharma) long term medical dependency, and best of all becomes a dead-end for procreation.

Over the last 2 plus years parents got a new window into their kids classrooms and were understandably alarmed by all they observed. More stories have since surfaced regarding schools efforts to quietly subvert parental authority while promoting gender curiosity. Just my observation.

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Lead is at least one of the causes for the fall or the Roman Empire. There are indications that incompetent emperors like Caligula were affected by lead poisoning.

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Sep 12, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Ok this may be on to something. I found myself recently questioning how the hell are so many people increasingly identifying as trans and I could only conclude there must be something accumulating in the water or food supply. There is also a decent correlation to rising diabetes and rising autism. An Australian doctor has done some procedures that indicate changing the gut microbiome can reduce the symptoms of autism.

I do a lot of gardening without glyphosates, but I had assumed it would break down with exposure to UV like most chemicals. If it doesn't, that is a big problem.

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Sep 10, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

In the past few decades both testosterone and sperm count have drastically declined in men. This is linked to several chemicals found in plastic, bis-phenol and phthalate if I recall correctly. I think I read that these chemicals can also affect female fertility as well. I think this can also be one of the drivers of the huge increase in trans that we see.

I also think that this is driven from above by wealthy and powerful people. See the ESG movement in finance, which causes a lot of institutions to push trans to gain diversity brownie points and thus get financing.

In the case of teenage girls, it has all the hallmarks of a hysteria. I was also reading about something called "spoonies" which are young women who are chronically ill and encourage each other online in various social media groups. I don't doubt that these young women have pain and fatigue. But why are so many young women feeling so sick? This predates the mRNA vaxxes, though I'm sure they don't help matters.

So many messed up people. So much mental illness. So much physical illness. All I can say is something is very, very wrong. And it is deeply disturbing.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

So many questions… Many “mountains of research” needed to fill in all the “rabbit holes” we’re finding these days. To mix in a few more metaphors, I’m glad that you guys are tugging at these various threads and shining the spotlight on all of these issues.

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Sep 6, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford

Read. There is a scientific battle going on right now about this. Lots of (well-funded) denial. More studies underway right now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_health_issues#Innate_immune_activation

Then have a look at this particular example:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789584/

Genetically susceptible individuals literally suffering early-onset Alzheimer's due to mold and its toxins, because of some combination of our use of fungicides causing changes to these molds and their toxins, and something about our modern lives causing greater bioavailability of these pathogens.

The CDC has been trying to ignore this for about 25 years now like they tried with Chronic Lyme. We're still a long way from showing full causality, but it's not a pretty picture because literally a quarter of our buildings have issues with dampness and mold.

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Physicists are trained, maybe overtrained, to look for unified statements,. With that excuse out of the way: Because vaccines are toxins, you could simplify the subtitle to "Toxins".

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