By
Dec Twohig
London, UK
Once again Chet Day has demonstrated why he stands head and shoulders above the majority of those working, on-line, in the healthier living field. His new book on bioterrorism merits as a definitive work, amongst the many rushed out in the wake of September 11. It goes a very long way towards redressing the balance.
The majority of those inadequate volumes available pander to panic. Perhaps the desire to be first in, with a book on protecting the individual and family against risk is laudable, though the actuality is that most appear to have been strung together in haste, with one eye on the main chance, and the big bucks flowing from a practical demonstration of Lenin’s dictum that the purpose of terror is to terrify. Most offer little in the way of good advice, good sense, and solutions that are applicable in a society where the spectre of the bioterrorist has been hyped up so unrealistically.
There are a number of aspects to consider when looking at bioterrorism. Firstly, outside a small number of countries, where it has been used ineptly by totalitarian governments, it isn’t quite as easy as it might appear to utilise in a highly sophisticated society such as that found in the USA or UK. The largest risk comes not from hostile governments, but small groups of zealots or outright maniacs with the funding necessary, and a total lack of regard for their own lives.
This is both a strength and a weakness for the terrorist group. The weakness lies in the lack of expertise and ability to perfect a delivery system for the professionally produced agent that will cause a maximum number of casualties. Quite simply, it is inaccurate and inefficient to consider any large scale use of bioterrorism as a practical concern. And there lies the strength summed up by Lenin.
Most people know very little about the agents of bioterrorism, other than some of the names bandied about in the media -- anthrax, smallpox, plague and so on. None of these diseases are new and some are incredibly ancient and can be tracked through the millennia by specialist researchers such as those at the Centre for Emerging Diseases in Jerusalem. Almost all are now extremely rare, so rare that the average physician will never encounter a single case.
The difficulty is that the very names inspire fear, and it is this fear which is the principle aspect of the bioterrorist threat. If you look at some extremely incompetent attempts to spread anthrax through the mail in America, you’ll discover that very few died, not so many were infected, and the impact on buildings was small. Yet the panic induced ran from coast to coast, and, in the absence of any formal accurate information, at grass roots level, and a very high level of ignorance amongst both lay people and physicians – who may no longer be taught the pathology of some of these rare diseases, in their training – panic set in.
This was promptly exploited, and the results showed in the mass purchase of antibiotics such as Cipro and doxycycline, not to treat an existing disease process, but taken as a prophylactic measure -- just in case. Apart from being a blatant misuse of powerful antibiotics, which can lead to the development of resistance for the future, both these preparations have a long list of serious side effects, some of which may prove lethal or create long-term damage. Yet like a flock of panic stricken sheep, the pharmacies of the land were besieged by the worried well, spooked into a course of action both unnecessary, and completely useless.
Furthermore, the small scale use of letter distribution succeeded in closing down organisations as a precaution, sending home large numbers of staff, paralysing the international postal systems while security checking precautions were implemented, and provided the media with a heaven-sent opportunity to up their viewing figures by endless facile discussions on the nature of the threat and its implications.
The US Government has been spooked into considering new legislation under the guise of “protection,” which effectively forms an attack on, and a limitation of, individual rights of the citizen. Once again, personal privacy gets eroded.
So, in this sense, bioterrorism is very useful as a means of causing chaos in society, without actually needing to cause an epidemic. Imagination does a much better job. And it can only succeed where individuals are lacking in good, accurate, information that covers the threat in depth and in a way that the average non-specialist can understand.
This information was NOT available prior to September 11, 2001. Or not in an accessible and user-friendly fashion. After the onset of the anthrax threat, there was a wave of publications distinguished mainly by their mediocrity, on the one hand, and their partisan nature on the other. The majority were barely disguised attempts to sell a “protective” product.
Many of these “protectives” made the snake oil remedies of the wild west frontiers look positively respectable, and many were completely useless to the point of being fraudulent. But, in the absence of knowledge, and the presence of panic, the unscrupulous were able to rake in a fortune. All those decaying warehouses, full of gas masks dating back to the trenches of France in the First World War, miraculously emptied into retail outlets and sold out. No one ever questioned the fact that they would have been supremely useless in the face of modern bioterrorist agents in the first place.
Chet has quietly sat back and researched his subject for the last few months. It can be said that he displayed a total disregard for commercial opportunism in not joining the hucksters rushing out the hasty books while the going was good. This is a measure of the man, and one reason why, if Chet publishes a book, it is time to sit up and take note. The content will be well laid out and authoritative. This book is mind-blowingly comprehensive and detailed. It covers all the known major agents and diseases involved in the greatest of depth – and in a user-friendly fashion. This is a book which can be understood both by the health professional, and the layperson with no prior knowledge.
The main complementary medical approaches are covered with impressive thoroughness, and here again Chet shows his mettle since he has covered just about every applicable modality without fear or favour, and without censoring out those which might be considered a little more hopeful than realistic. His purpose is to inform and educate, and this book does the job splendidly, giving you all the facts you could wish for, and in 148 pages all the knowledge you would need to be in a position to make informed decisions.
The book is interactive, and not only are the sources quoted fully, but there are hyperlinks a-bounding to websites and resources full of even more detailed information. Well laid out, bug free, and very simple to move backwards and forwards on the computer.
If I have one collective wish for this new book, it is that it finds a home on the shelves of every physician in the land, as an educational tool in the short term, and a reference source in the long term. Most medical practitioners have never encountered a case of small pox or plague; very few have encountered a case of anthrax, even in rural areas. Few received any educational coverage in their scholistic curriculum, because these diseases are regarded as too insignificant in a modern era to waste time on.
This is a very big mistake, because it isn’t simply the threat of bioterrorism that counts, but the fact that in a world that is linked, in a matter of hours, by plane, a single case of one of these conditions can cause a lot of problems thousands of miles away. Smallpox and plague are rare today, but they still exist, and so do conditions such as ebola and lassa fever, both of which could cause an epidemic, given the right conditions – and these might well have zip to do with a bioterrorist threat.
There is ample detail for a physician to be able to complete his or her education in these matters to a very high degree of up-to-date knowledge, and while this book is, obviously, orientated towards the complementary approach, it will also have a place for the allopathic physician, open-minded enough to wish to know what gives, on the other side of the fence.
Furthermore, Chet has once again unleashed his passion for the preservation of past wisdom, and included several papers which date back to times when diseases of this sort were rather more commonplace. As an archivist of the priceless, and almost lost, Chet has a sure touch and the scent of a bloodhound. It adds up to gripping reading.
But, you may be thinking, I don’t need a book on bioterrorism because I have more chance of being struck by lightening. Well, maybe this explains why Chet has been working 18 hour days, seven days a week for the last few months. If you want to know about the use of vitamin C as a therapeutic agent on a generic level rather than the specific usage in treating bioterrorist derived conditions, this gives you a university level insight into it, and much more via the hyperlinks. If you want to know all about colloidal silver – including how you can make it at home, in complete detail, this book has it all. Chet is a big fan of therapeutic fasting, and this largest section of the book covers the subject of fasting in the sort of detail you will not find in a popular paperback on the news-stand. This is a reference work, you’ll turn to time and again for information you can trust and rely upon, in the home.
True to form, Chet has included some ‘bonus’ appendixes at the end of his main thrust in the shape of familiar country: healthier living. I would suggest that this book would be worthwhile if only to get your hands on these pages. They cover every angle.
And this struck me, too, reading the book. The sheer fairness of it. Chet has covered the pros and cons of some very diverse treatments, and included detail that he might not personally espouse, on the grounds that if a work is to be truthful and accurate and provide the maximum richness of illumination and choice, it is inevitable that some sensitive matters be touched upon, eg the use of distilled water, and the use of soy products in the nutritional section.
I’m not going to say that this is the best book Chet has published, because this would imply that some of his others were of a lesser standard. It is a book that ought to have been published a long while ago, long before September 11 and the psychological and emotional traumas that followed and muddied the water. It is both a stunning work of reference, and a book you’ll dip into for information and advice in contexts far removed from the spectre of the terrorist, and if you, the lay person have an atom of common sense, you’ll have a whip-round for the modest cost, and donate a copy to your community health centre. The medical staff there, almost certainly, will not have been exposed to this learning, and as a groundswell of “being prepared,” this book will remain “live” for decades.
There will, inevitably, be those who will criticise Chet for being “commercial” as though this were some kind of tarnish on his escutchion, as a healthy living source. Sit down, and imagine yourself, sitting day in day out, for three months, barely taking the time to eat and rest adequately, corresponding with sources around the world, studying, composing, editing, and finally, releasing this masterpiece. And live in the real world. Chet lives with a degree of passion for what he does that few of us can hope to emulate, and he richly deserves to be recompensed for producing another volume which does the world one huge favour. Not just the USA but every country where there is a concern for these unpleasant diseases, and a concern for the best possible treatments. The cost is modest, as ever, and out of all proportion to the gift of knowledge coming again from CasaDay.