>On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Peter wrote:

>> Quiz: What
>> do Aajonus, Bruno and Ronald have in common. Answer: Their attitude to
>> parasites which they, depending on the circumstances, believe  are
>> either harmless or have a beneficial, healing effect on the body.

 Michael:
>What is this based on?  Is there any scientific type evidence backing this
>up?

As your resident microbiologist (M.ASCP 81, retired) I must speak to this
very misleading and potentially harmful concept. I cannot think of any
possible source for this unscientific theory, except for a possible
misunderstanding of the word parasite, which is (within this current frame
of reference) a microorganism living in, with, or on our body with harmful
effect. Such microorganisms can be and often are deadly--other times they
are just health compromising.They are not friends of our health.

Perhaps someone formulated this general theory based upon the fact that
saprophytic microorganisms can live off dead and decaying tissue in-on-with
our bodies, and do no harm, such "good guys" as alpha streptococci (but
there is an pathogenic alpha strep. called S. pnuemoniae which could really
ruin your day.).They do not necessarily feed on pathogens, the body has
other defenses.It is not assured that alpha strep or non-pathogenic E. coli
, for instance, will happily engorge themselves on  pathogens or decay in
our body, and thus free us from concern about ingesting same. This is an
extremely dangerous assumption, as the children ingesting insufficiently
cooked hamburgers contaminated with _pathogenic_ E. coli were unfortunate
enough to learn.

Furthermore, there are potentially life-threatening exotoxins and endotoxins
produced by some microorganisms which could make your routine detox episodes
seem quite pleasant by comparison.

As to raw fish: there is, for instance, a parasitic worm found in fish known
as Diphyllabothrum latum which when ingested and established in the human
body will grow a foot or two in length, just under the skin usually, and
primitives thus infected have only one recourse: they slit the skin, roll up
the worm centimeter by centimeter on a stick, day by day, it takes weeks to
finally remove this parasite. This is the only recourse. Want to gamble that
its' ova are not in the bite of sushi-sashimi you are eating? Are all food
producers ethical, and dedicated to our health?

>Similarly with seafood.  I don't really have much of an ethical problem
>with eating sashimi.  But I do start thinking about all the pollution in
>the rivers and ocean and then decide maybe its not such a great idea.
>Pollutants can really accumulate in the larger fatter (and tastier) fish
>like tuna and mackeral.  Add the possibility of getting fish parasites and
>I usually pass.

Pollution can indeed be a creeping death, a case of tolerating a little OK,
but like radiation, the build-up,  -well-  builds up. Read medical
magazines, not ads, please, the "web" also is rich in info--to discover that
several antacids have been shown to contain lead. Think of OsCal, with
oystershell -- shellfish contaminated in relative shallow water (as are many
of our food fish) by heavy metals disgorged with impunity into our no longer
safely unlimited ocean waters. The kelp beds off the coast of CA are
polluted and dying, the magnificent whales who pass by to their calving
grounds are found to have levels of such toxics just barely sustainable. The
hormone look-alikes which are causing the procreation aberations leading to
species extinctions are another problem to deal with.
It seems to me that the government, holding hands with the medical political
community, have attempted to explain the frightening increase in cancer
deaths of all types by attempting to deal with this statistically, saying
the increase is due to our increased longevity.

Balderdash. Look at the health of people on islands, such as Okinawa, which
have no industrial pollution.  They die of old age, routinely in 90's and
100's, working in their gardens, going to bed, dying peacefully in their sleep.

There is no question in my mind as to the healthy advantages of raw food,
but (as with routine cooked and processed and polluted foods from the
supermarket, there is less and less safety in our food supply.Political
advocacy is of paramount importance now. In France, I understand, families
routinely have their vegetable garden in their front yard, their milk cow
and animal foods living in the back yard, producing enriching manure for the
front yards.

How sane.

Pat