Opinion piece by Marco Cáceres

Perhaps the most egregious example of clever sleight of hand (... not to mention the outright, blatant rewriting of history) on the part of public health officials in the United States occurred in 1954 when the U.S. government changed the diagnostic criteria for polio. It was the year that medical researcher and virologist Jonas Salk produced his inactivated injectable polio vaccine (IPV). The vaccine was licensed in 1955 and began to be used to inoculate millions of children against polio.

The Salk vaccine has been widely hailed as the vanquisher of polio, and it is commonly used as the shining example of how vaccines are the miracle drugs for combating infectious diseases... and now even against diseases that are not infectious. Pick any disease, illness or disorder you want. You got cancer, cholera, peanut allergies, stress, obesity... we'll develop a vaccine for it.

What the apologists for the Salk vaccine regurgitate from a common script (... some might say scripture) is that before the vaccine was introduced and tested on one million children-the so-called "Polio Pioneers"-in 1954 more than 50,000 people in the U.S. were contracting polio each year, and that by the end of the 1950s the numbers were down to less than 10,000. Ergo, the Salk vaccine saved the U.S. from polio. Open and shut case.

Hmm, not so fast.

What is conveniently omitted from this heroic story is that the reason the number of polio cases in the U.S. dropped so precipitously following the mass introduction of the Salk vaccine in 1955 was not medical, but rather administrative. Yes it's true, in 1952 there were 52,879 reported cases of polio in the U.S. And yes, in 1955 the number went down to 28,985, and by 1959 it had dropped to 8,425. But first of all, it's important to note that the numbers were already declining significantly prior to the initial use of the Salk vaccine. In 1953, there were 35,592 cases of polio in the U.S. So there were other things going on in the U.S. at the time totally unrelated to the Salk vaccine.

More importantly, though, in 1954 the U.S. government simply redefined polio. Yes, the government can do that. It does this kind of stuff occasionally in order to help it meet its public policy objectives when it is unable to actually achieve them. How often have you heard of Congress playing smoke and mirrors, gimmicks with the national budget deficit, or on the issue of the unemployment rate? Exactly.

When it comes to government and public policy, the truth is seldom absolute. That's just the nature of the beast.

According to Dr. Bernard Greenberg, head of the Department of Biostatistics of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health:

In order to qualify for classification as paralytic poliomyelitis, the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for at least 60 days after the onset of the disease. Prior to 1954, the patient had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for only 24 hours. Laboratory confirmation and the presence of residual paralysis were not required. After 1954, residual paralysis was determined 10 to 20 days and again 50 to 70 days after the onset of the disease. This change in definition meant that in 1955 we started reporting a new disease, namely, paralytic poliomyelitis with a longer lasting paralysis.1

As I wrote in my piece The Salk 'Miracle' Myth...

Under the new definition of polio, thousands of cases which would have previously been counted as polio would no longer be counted as polio. The change in the definition laid the groundwork for creating the impression that the Salk vaccine was effective.

A recent article in the British Medical Journal set off a bit of a firestorm with its claim that "the antibiotic course has had its day." The authors challenged the very widespread belief that you should keep taking every last dose of antibiotic prescribed by your physician even after you feel better. This advice has long been claimed to be key to preventing antibiotic resistance.

The challenge to that claim has sparked a backlash, with physicians and public health officials expressing concern about an overly complex message that could result in encouraging patients to go rogue and ignore their doctors' prescriptions.

All of this is a bit amusing to experts like me, who have been actively challenging this silly dogma for a long time, but without the recent media attention. So let me try to bring some clarity to the debate, which really isn't that complex, so you understand what to do when your doctor gives you a prescription for antibiotics.

Why taking too much of an antibiotic is drug abuse

I'll start with the bottom line first. It is absolutely false that continuing to take antibiotics after you feel completely better will reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Quite to the contrary, it will very likely promote the emergence of antibiotic resistance!

A recent article in the New York Times (July 25, 2017) asked the question, "How important is iodized salt to the American or European diet?"

The answer to the question was convoluted. At the beginning of the article the author stated, "Most Americans who eat a varied diet get enough iodine even if they don't use iodized salt."

This statement is a perfect example of "fake news." According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, U.S. iodine levels have fallen nearly 50% over the last 40 years. ⁽¹⁾ And, studies of women of childbearing age show that nearly 60% of U.S. women are deficient in iodine with over 10% severely deficient. ⁽²⁾

It was 2 o'clock on a Tuesday, and I felt surprisingly awake. Attentive. Even productive.

I love my job, but on a normal afternoon, I find myself searching for distractions in the depths of my inbox and on Facebook.

That Tuesday in June was different. I knocked out one to-do list item after the next. I felt not just focused, but genuinely happy and relieved to be making so much progress.

It was the moment I realized how effective the ketogenic diet could be.

The "keto" diet is experiencing a surge in popularity thanks to Silicon Valley tech workers who evangelize its ability to promote weight loss, boost energy, and possibly prolong life itself.

I've been writing about bone broth for a long time. I've been drinking it even longer. I'm not sure you can get anything much more primal than a heap of bones cooked for hours into rich, gelatinous glory. Ritual and taste aside, however, I count quality bone broth as an important supplemental food. The copious health benefits are simply too substantial to pass up.

Some of you, I know, are bone broth fans-a few even connoisseurs. You've been making your own for decades, maybe with recipes you learned in your grandparents' kitchen. But what does the average Primal type need to know about bone broth? What goes into making it? What are the distinct health advantages? Are there risks or downsides? What are the alternatives? Finally, what about some recipes? I'm glad you asked....

Government agencies protect big agriculture at the expense of our health.

Don't worry, eat your hamburger. That's what the CDC is saying as another "mad cow" was found in Alabama in July. The cow suffered from an "atypical" version of Mad Cow (BSE), says the CDC, which occurs spontaneously and cannot harm humans. Sounds good until you read that the atypical assertion is merely a CDC "theory" and the agency admits "transmission through feed or the environment cannot be ruled out."

There is a reason government officials are quick to defend the safety of the U.S. beef supply. Within hours of the first mad cow discovered in the U.S. in 2003, China, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and 90 other countries banned U.S. beef. Ninety-eight percent of the $3 billion overseas beef market vanished. It has taken 14 years for the U.S. to re-establish its beef exports and other beef-exporting countries have had similar woes. If an atypical version of BSE that threatened no one didn't exist, governments might want to invent one. In fact, the research behind the atypical theory is primarily floated by government ag departments.

Lately, the science has really been stacking up evidence against consuming sugars in excess.

In addition to being linked to conditions like obesity, diabetes, inflammatory diseases, eating high levels of sugar has been associated with mental illnesses like depression. In a study published July 27 in Scientific Reports that followed over 8,000 adults over 22 years, researchers from University College London found that men who reported consuming foods that contained 67 grams of sugar per day or more were 23% more likely to be diagnosed with clinical depression after five years from when the study began.

A doctor at the University of Colorado Hospital has become a YouTube sensation. That's because she has developed a simple maneuver to treat vertigo at home.

CBS4 Health Specialist Kathy Walsh first explained the treatment in a story in 2012. Since then, it's gotten 2.6 million views on cbsdenver.com.

Sue Ricker says that's because it works. Vertigo sent Ricker's world spinning. "It was just debilitating. Everything about you will move, will spin. I couldn't drive. I couldn't walk. I had to hold onto the wall and it was very, very scary," Ricker told CBS4's Walsh. The retired teacher from Aurora had her first vertigo episode 10 years ago. "Eventually it wore off after a few days, but it would come back," said Ricker.

Vegetarians are often fond of preaching the healthy virtues of their meat-free diet.

But giving up chicken and beef in favour or carrots and broccoli is making them more miserable, say experts.

Going veggie may leave devotees suffering from vitamin and mineral deficiencies that can affect their mental health.

A study by Bristol University of almost 10,000 men in the south west of England found that those who gave up meat were almost twice as likely to suffer depression as those on a conventional balanced diet.

It found the 350 committed vegetarians had a higher average depression score compared to others.

Claiming a 'Deadly Internet-Driven Cult' is driving poor statin drug sales, a prominent cardiologist says the hundreds of 'side effects' reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature and by patients are just 'imagined.'

Medpage Today just published an article titled, " CardioBrief: Statin Denialism Is 'A Deadly Internet-Driven Cult'," which features the opinion of Steven Nissen, a prominent Cleveland Clinic cardiologist, who claims that internet-driven "statin denial" is having deadly consequences, citing statistics in an editorial in Annals of Internal Medicine that only 61% of people given a prescription for a statin were adherent at 3 months.

Nissen's scathing editorial states:

"we are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of our patients to Web sites developed by people with little or no scientific expertise, who often pedal 'natural' or 'drug-free' remedies for elevated cholesterol levels." The anti-statin forces employ two distinct strategies, "statin denial, the proposition that cholesterol is not related to heart disease, and statin fear, the notion that lowering serum cholesterol levels will cause serious adverse effects."