The Patriots

by Anonymous

{Some interesting articles do claim that Asparagus has anticancer benefits here and here.  Although there is a shortage of scientific study on the vegetable, that's not to say that the notion is false simply because asparagus isn't effective against all forms of cancer. What drug is? Homeopathic cures are always worth investigating despite the negative din from the usual naysayers like Snopes, Hoaxslayer, etc, who among other things, enjoy protecting the drug empire and its billions. - The following claims for asparagus curing cancer are purely anecdotal and we make no claims as to their veracity.  However the medicinal benefits claimed in the links cited are trustworthy. - ED}

Several years ago I met a man seeking asparagus for a friend who had cancer.. He gave me a copy of an article,  entitled "Asparagus For Cancer" printed in the Cancer News Journal, December 1979. I will share it here, just as it was shared with me: I am a biochemist, and have specialized in the relation of diet to health or over 50 years. Several years ago, I learned of the discovery of Richard R. Vensal, D.D.S. that asparagus might cure cancer.  Since then, I have worked with him on his project. We have accumulated a number of favorable case histories. Here are a few examples:

by Allen Williams

Observing operation at Walgreen’s pharmacy located at 78^th and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas was a wonder to behold.  It is a modern drug dispensing facility with computer oversight, featuring a drive through, two service lines, an information window and a huge alphabetical prescription holding rack containing drugs for A to Z recipients, ready to dispense.

The first time I was there to have a prescription filled, the two service lines were six and seven persons deep and the drive through window processed a steady line of prescription orders.  (Eat your heart out McDonalds!) From what I could see there were a half dozen or so pharmacy techs of various nationalities scurrying about keeping the drive through window supplied and placing orders in the holding rack.  It was by far the most intensive activity in the entire store and undoubtedly responsible for Walgreen’s 2016 billion dollar profits.  It is for all practical purposes a highly successful retail network pharmacy.  But what about real healthcare?

Only one pharmacist oversaw this circus of activity that I could detect with who knows how many unseen individuals behind the scene hastily filling little plastic pill bottles with various medicines.  It was Obamacare’s assembly line medicine in full operation, a boon to the fortunate few who hold exclusive distribution status.: “The Obama administration decided to make a deal with the PhRMA to get them to support the legislation,” he told Morning Consult. “PhRMA got a number of favorable provisions in the legislation.”

As you might expect, in any quasi chaotic operation born of special interest deals, things were bound to go wrong.  In the multicultural- multinational drug market, the ‘mission statement’ is more important than the reality of care. Walgreen’s president, Greg Wasson claims: “One of the most unifying forces behind Walgreens 113 years of success is our purpose: to help people get, stay and live well.”

Really? But shouldn’t that process commence by ensuring that patients obtain ALL their prescribed medicines and not someone elses? After arriving at Walgreen’s about a month ago, I had requested my prescription records be transferred to Walgreens from CVS.  You AREN’T ALLOWED to retrieve your own prescription from a pharmacy under Obamacare; it has to be requested by ANOTHER PHARMACY. 

On March 27^th, I went to get my 2^nd prescription filled that clearly indicated there were two remaining refills on the bottle.  However, I was told at the counter that they had NO prescription records for that medication.  I informed them you should have the records as I had requested them to be transferred from CVS the last time I was at Walgreens.  But I had to request the transfer of my 2^nd prescription a second time and indicated that I would return on Wednesday of that week to pick it up.  

When I arrived at the counter on Wednesday a multicultural tech informed me that my pain killing medication was ready. I didn’t have a pain killing medication, I replied.  “Oh, then your Prednisone prescription is ready”, the tech said.  I don’t have a Prednisone prescription either; I wouldn’t take that stuff I replied.  Makes you wonder if diabetic customers are getting the correct medication and dosages, hmmm?  Nothing quite like being knowledgeable about whom you’re serving.

But regarding my 2^nd prescription they said: “CVS didn’t send that prescription to us because you have no refills remaining.”  But that wasn’t true as the prescription vial I handed Walgreens clearly displayed TWO refills and it had not yet reached the 12-month expiration limit. 

The pharmacy didn’t seem to care about the administrative foul-up and refused to honor my request for a few emergency pills to hold me over until I could get the doctor to write a new prescription because as their pharmacist told me “.. it wasn’t legal.”  KMART did this regularly.  So was it legal to push off narcotic pain killers and prednisone on me because they mistook my identity?  It doesn’t invoke much confidence on my part in their professional capabilities.  Instead they had my third prescription ready (which I didn’t need) and tried to get me to take that in lieu of what I requested.  Starting to get the picture, yet?

Discussion with the pharmacist led to an agreement for Walgreen’s to contact my doctor and their automated system would then call me when my 2^nd prescription was filled.  But, there was no call from Walgreen’s automated system and I had to call it myself (and my doctor) to find out that my prescription was ready to pick up nearly a week later.  It doesn’t matter what you arrange with Walgreens, you will only get what they decide you can have.  Is it just me?  Well read some of the 1220 Walgreen complaints and decide for yourself.

CVS and Walgreens are battling it out to control the market for prescription drugs so customer care is way down the line.  Patient care comes in number four right behind legal liabilities, HHS directives and company policy.  Emphasis is on pushing the distribution sales of prescription drugs to the dehumanizing level, everything else is secondary.

I arrived at Walgreens’ on April 3^rd to pick up the 2^nd prescription, the pharmacist waited on me directly.  I informed him that Walgreen’s automated system didn’t call me and that I had to call it instead.  He did the usual security check with my birth date and then asked me to type in the last four digits of my telephone number which the system didn’t take.  This suggests that I quite possibly could have left Walgreens with narcotics never prescribed for me because of their malfunctioning system.  He continued to try to get the system to accept my phone number and I finally had to tell the Pharmacist to ring up my charges  as he wasn’t responsible for the malfunction. It was the people who installed it.  They could play with their computer later; I just wanted to complete my business and leave.

My first hint that Walgreen’s was more a greed driven enterprise than a healthcare outlet occurred when I was forced into their system from the collapse of KMART’s pharmacy.  And mind you, not that KMART provided inferior products or service but it simply wasn’t as good as Walgreen’s in marketing their slice of the Obamacare drug cartel.  KMART’s final pharmacy closure sent my prescription records to CVS, the bottom of the birdcage in prescription medicine.

The reader is well advised to seek other drug store providers if at all possible.

{This informative article was first published on LewRockwell.com. It has been re-published here by special permission of Dr. Miller. It's a long read but the health incites on iodine usage provided by Dr. Miller make it well worthwhile, particularly in the area of cancer prevention. We also wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Cleveland Chiropractic Institute of Overland Park, Kansas for their assistance in locating these materials on important public health issues. - Ed.}

Photo: Kelp off the coast of Hokkaido

Health comparisons between the two countries are disturbing. The incidence of breast cancer in the U.S. is the highest in the world, and in Japan, until recently, the lowest. Japanese women who emigrate from Japan or adopt a Western style diet have a higher rate of breast cancer compared with those that consume seaweed. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 77.85 years, 48^th in 226 countries surveyed. It is 81.25 years in Japan, the highest of all industrialized countries and only slightly behind the five leaders—Andorra, Macau, San Marino, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The infant mortality rate in Japan is the lowest in the world, 3.5 deaths under age one per 1,000 live births, half the infant mortality rate in the United States.

Now iodized table salt is the chief source of iodine in a Western diet. But 45 percent of American households buy salt without iodine, which grocery stores also sell. And over the last three decades people who do use iodized table salt have decreased their consumption of it by 65 percent. Furthermore, the much higher concentrations of chloride in salt (NaCl) inhibits absorption of its sister halogen iodine (the intestines absorb only 10 percent of the iodine present in iodized table salt). As a result, 15 percent of the U.S. adult female population suffers from moderate to severe iodine deficiency, which health authorities define as a urinary iodine concentration less than 50 μg /L. Women with goiters (a visible, noncancerous enlargement of the thyroid gland) owing to iodine deficiency have been found to have a three times greater incidence of breast cancer. A high intake of iodine is associated with a low incidence breast cancer, and a low intake with a high incidence of breast cancer.

Animal studies show that iodine prevents breast cancer, arguing for a causal association in these epidemiological findings. The carcinogens nitrosmethylurea and DMBA cause breast cancer in more than 70 percent of female rats. Those given iodine, especially in its molecular form as I₂, have a statistically significant decrease in incidence of cancer. Other evidence that adds biologic plausibility to the hypothesis that iodine prevents breast cancer includes the finding that the ductal cells in the breast, the ones most likely to become cancerous, are equipped with an iodine pump (the sodium iodine symporter, the same one that the thyroid gland has) to soak up this element.

Similar findings apply to fibrocystic disease of the breast. The incidence of fibrocystic breast disease in American women was 3 percent in the 1920s. Today, 90 percent of women have this disorder, manifested by epithelial hyperplasia, apocrine gland metaplasia, fluid-filled cysts, and fibrosis. Six million American women with fibrocystic disease have moderate to severe breast pain and tenderness that lasts more than 6 days during the menstrual cycle.

In animal studies, female rats fed an iodine-free diet develop fibrocystic changes in their breasts, and iodine in its elemental form (I₂) cures it.

Russian researchers first showed, in 1966, that iodine effectively relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease. Vishniakova and Murav’eva treated 167 women suffering from fibrocystic disease with 50 mg KI during the intermenstrual period and obtained a beneficial healing effect in 71 percent (it is reference 49 here).

Then Ghent and coworkers, in a study published in the Canadian Journal of Surgery in 1993, also found that iodine relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease in 70 percent of patients. Their report is a composite of three clinical studies, two case series done in Canada in 696 women treated with various types of iodine, and one in Seattle. The Seattle study, done at the Virginia Mason Clinic, is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 56 women designed to compare 3-5 mg of elemental iodine (I₂) to a placebo (an aqueous mixture of brown vegetable dye with quinine).

Investigators followed the women for six months and tracked subjective and objective changes in their fibrocystic disease.

A statistical analysis of the Seattle study (enlarged to include 92 women) was done, which shows that iodine has a highly statistically significant beneficial effect on fibrocystic disease (P < 0.001). Iodine reduced breast tenderness, nodularity, fibrosis, turgidity, and number of macroscysts, the five parameters in a total breast examination score that a physician blinded to what treatment the woman was taking, iodine or placebo, measured. This 36-page report, now available online, was submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1995 seeking its approval to carry out a larger randomized controlled clinical trial on iodine for treating fibrocystic breast disease. It declined to approve the study, telling its lead investigator, Dr. Donald Low, "iodine is a natural substance, not a drug." But the FDA has now decided to approve a similar trial sponsored by Symbollon Pharmaceuticals. This company is enrolling 175 women in a phase III trial, registered on clinicaltrials.gov. (Any women with fibrocystic disease reading this who might be interested in participating in this study should call its sponsor, Jack Kessler, Ph.D., at 508-620-7676, Ext. 201.)

Most physicians and surgeons view iodine from a narrow perspective. It is an antiseptic that disinfects drinking water and prevents surgical wound infections, and the thyroid gland needs it to make thyroid hormones—and that’s it. The thyroid gland needs iodine to synthesize thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), hormones that regulate metabolism and steer growth and development. The thyroid needs only a trace amount of iodine, 70 μg a day, to produce the requisite amount of T4 and T3. For that reason thyroidologists say that iodine is best taken just in microgram amounts. They consider consuming more than 1 to 2 mg of iodine a day to be excessive and potentially harmful.

Expert opinion on iodine is now the purview of thyroidologists. Mainstream physicians and surgeons accept their thyroid-only view of iodine and either ignore or discount studies that show iodine in larger amounts provides extrathyroidal benefits, particularly for women’s breasts. Thus a leading textbook on breast disease, Bland and Copeland’s The Breast: Comprehensive Management of Benign and Malignant Disorders (2003), fails to mention iodine anywhere in its 1,766 pages.

Iodine has an important and little understood history. Studying kelp researchers have shown how iodine does this and found that kelp will absorb increased amounts of iodine when placed under oxidative stress. Other rersearches have shown that iodine increases the antioxidant status of human serum similar to that of vitamin C.

Iodine also induces apoptosis, programmed cell death. This process is essential to growth and development (fingers form in the fetus by apoptosis of the tissue between them) and for destroying cells that represent a threat to the integrity of the organism, like cancer cells and cells infected with viruses. Human lung cancer cells with genes spliced into them that enhance iodine uptake and utilization undergo apoptosis and shrink when given iodine, both when grown in vitro outside the body and implanted in mice. Its anti-cancer function may well prove to be iodine’s most important extrathyroidal benefit.

Iodine has other extrathyroidal functions that require more study. It removes toxic chemicals—fluoride, bromide, lead, aluminum, mercury—and biological toxins, suppresses auto-immunity, strengthens the T-cell adaptive immune system, and protects against abnormal growth of bacteria in the stomach.

In addition to the thyroid and mammary glands, other tissues possess an iodine pump (the sodium-iodine symporter). Stomach mucosa, the salivary glands, and lactating mammary glands can concentrate iodine almost to the same degree as the thyroid gland (40-fold greater than its concentration in blood). Other tissues that have this pump include the ovaries; thymus gland, seat of the adaptive immune system; skin; choroid plexus in the brain, which makes cerebrospinal fluid; and joints, arteries and bone.

Everyone agrees that a lack of iodine in the diet causes a spectrum of disorders that includes, in increasing order of severity, goiter and hypothyroidism, mental retardation, and cretinism (severe mental retardation accompanied by physical deformities). Health authorities in the U.S. and Europe have agreed upon a Reference Daily Intake (RDI), formerly called the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), for iodine designed to prevent these disorders, which the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates afflicts 30 percent of the world’s population. The RDI for iodine, first proposed in 1980, is 100-150 µg/day. Organizations advocating this amount include the American Medical Association, National Institutes of Health’s National Research Council, Institute of Medicine, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, WHO Expert Committee, and the European Union International Programme on Chemical Safety. These health authorities consider an RDI of 100-150 µg/day of iodine sufficient to meet the requirements of nearly all (97-98%) healthy individuals.

This consensus on iodine intake flies in the face of evidence justifying a higher amount. This evidence includes animal studies, in vitro studies on human cancer cell lines, clinical trials of iodine for fibrocystic breast disease, and epidemiological data. An intake of 150 µg/day of iodine will prevent goiters and the other recognized iodine deficiency disorders, but not breast disease. Prevention of breast disease requires higher doses of iodine. Indeed, a reasonable hypothesis is that, like goiters and cretinism, fibrocystic disease of the breast and breast cancer are iodine deficiency disorders (and uterine fibroids as well).

What Albert Guérard writes about new truths applies especially to iodine: "When you seek a new path to truth, you must expect to find it blocked by expert opinion." The reigning truth on iodine is that the thyroid gland is the only organ in the body that requires this micronutrient, and a daily intake of iodine considerably more than what the thyroid gland needs is potentially harmful. The new truth is that the rest of the body also needs iodine, in milligram, not microgram amounts.

These are the four most common formulations of inorganic (nonradioactive) iodine, as iodide (I^-) with or without molecular iodine (I₂): Potassium iodide (KI) tablets, in doses ranging from 0.23 to 130 mg; super saturated potassium iodide (SSKI), 19-50 mg of iodide per drop; Lugol's solution, 6.3 mg of molecular iodine/iodide per drop; and Iodoral, each tablet containing 12.5 mg iodine/iodide. Both Lugol’s solution and Ioderal are one-third molecular iodine (5%) and two thirds potassium iodide (10%). Studies done to date indicate that the best iodine supplement is one that includes molecular iodine (I₂), which breast tissue prefers.

Iodine was used for a wide variety of ailments after its discovery in 1811 up until the mid-1900s, when thyroidologists warned that "excess" amounts of iodine might adversely affect thyroid function. It is effective in gram amounts for treating various dermatologic conditions, chronic lung disease, fungal infestations, tertiary syphilis, and even arteriosclerosis. The Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Szent Györgi (1893-1986), the physician who discovered vitamin C, writes: "When I was a medical student, iodine in the form of KI was the universal medicine. Nobody knew what it did, but it did something and did something good. We students used to sum up the situation in this little rhyme: If ye don’t know where, what, and why Prescribe ye then K and I"

The standard dose of potassium iodide given was 1 gram, which contains 770 mg of iodine.

Regarding KI and other iodine salts (like sodium iodide), the venerated 11^th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911, states, "Their pharmacological action is as obscure as their effects in certain diseased conditions are consistently brilliant. Our ignorance of their mode of action is cloaked by the term deobstruent, which implies that they possess the power of driving out impurities from the blood and tissues. Most notably is this the case with the poisonous products of syphilis. In its tertiary stage—and also earlier—this disease yields in the most rapid and unmistakable fashion to iodides, so much so that the administration of these salts is at present the best means of determining whether, for instance, a cranial tumor be syphilitic or not."

For many years physicians used potassium iodide in doses starting at 1.5 to 3 gm and up to more than 10 grams a day, on and off, to treat bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with good results and surprisingly few side effects.

There is a case report in the medical literature of a 54 year old man who, thinking it was iced tea, drank a "home preparation" of SSKI in water that his aunt kept in the refrigerator for her rheumatism. Over a short time he consumed 600 ml of this solution, which contained 15 gm of iodide, an amount 100,000 times more than its RDI. He developed swelling of the face, neck, and mouth, had transient cardiac arrhythmias and made an uneventful recovery.

Dr. Guy Abraham, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA, mounted what he calls "The Iodine Project" in 1997 after he read the Ghent paper on iodine for fibrocystic disease. He had his company, Optimox Corp., make Iodoral, the tablet form of Lugol’s solution, and he engaged two family practice physicians, Dr. Jorge Flechas (in 2000) and Dr. David Brownstein (in 2003) to carry out clinical studies with it.

The project’s hypothesis is that maintaining whole body sufficiency of iodine requires 12.5 mg a day, an amount similar to what the Japanese consume. The conventional view is that the body contains 25-50 mg of iodine, of which 70-80 percent resides in the thyroid gland. Dr. Abraham concluded that whole body sufficiency exists when a person excretes 90 percent of the iodine ingested. He devised an iodine loading test where one takes 50 mg and measures the amount excreted in the urine over the next 24 hours. He found that the vast majority of people retain a substantial amount of the 50 mg dose. Many require 50 mg a day for several months before they will excrete 90 percent of it. His studies indicate that, given a sufficient amount, the body will retain much more iodine than originally thought, 1,500 mg, with only 3 percent of that amount held in the thyroid gland.

Thyroid function remains unchanged in 99 percent of patients. Untoward effects of iodine, allergies, swelling of the salivary glands and thyroid, and iodism, occur rarely, in less than 1 percent. Iodine removes the toxic halogens fluoride and bromide from the body. Iodism, an unpleasant brassy taste, runny nose, and acne-like skin lesions, is caused by the bromide that iodine extracts from the tissues. Symptoms subside on a lesser dose of iodine.

As theses physicians point out, consuming iodine in milligram doses should, of course, be coupled with a complete nutritional program that includes adequate amounts of selenium, magnesium, and Omega 3 fatty acids. Done this way, an iodine intake 100 times the reference daily intake is "the simplest, safest, most effective and least expensive way to help solve the health care crisis crippling our nation," as the leader of The Iodine Project, Dr. Abraham, puts it.

People who take iodine in these amounts report that they have a greater sense of well-being, increased energy, and a lifting of brain fog. They feel warmer in cold environments, need somewhat less sleep, have more regular bowel movements, and improved skin complexion. These purported health benefits need to be studied more thoroughly, as do those with regard to fibrocystic breast disease and cancer.