Western medicine tends to diagnose most diseases as a germ or viral problem. We have become so conditioned to this concept that we tend to see microbes as the cause of all disease conditions. These values derive from Pasteur’ s Germ Theory which gained wide acceptance in the mid-19th century. But it is important to note that there are other more cogent but less considered concepts of germs and the causes of ill health.
To tackle the germ theory first: Antoine Bechamp, a gifted chemist-physician-naturalist-biologist saw things quite differently from his contemporary Pasteur. Bechamp learned through his research that germs settle when the conditions of the body provide the right milieu or terrain, what natural healers refer to as toxic settlements. It is an ignored fact that Claude Bernard, a renowned physiologist of the same era, triedfor years to convince Pasteur of the validity of Bechamp’ s conclusions. Toward the end of his life Pasteur finally acknowledged acceptance of Bechamp’s research when he said, “Bernard avait raison. Le germe n’ est rien, c’ est le terrain qui est tout.” (“Bernard was right. The microbe is nothing, the soil is everything.”)
Viewing germs/viruses from this different perspective, how does a toxic terrain develop in man? From childhood we are bombarded by all sorts of toxic chemicals: additions to our food supply such as preservatives, colorings, dyes, flavor enhancers, bleaching agents, peeling agents, stabilizers, fungicides, anti-foaming agents, mold inhibitors, dough conditioners, anti-oxidants, plasticizers, binders, drying agents, bactericides, soil conditioners, weed killers, ripeners, and on and on; fluorine and chlorine, additives to the water supply; plus there are innumerable contaminants that flow into our reservoirs; carbon monoxide, chlorofluorocarbons in the air among the multitude of daily toxic emissions. Add to this the effect of drugs (prescription and recreational), x-rays and the never-to-be-underestimated power of stress in upsetting metabolism and we get an idea of the enormous burden on our body to maintain health.
Our immune system is the housekeeper/sentinel that has to constantly reject these materials as foreign substances. Can you imagine how burdened this system is to keep pace with the huge quantity of foreign (toxic) material? It becomes overwhelming. When the toxic input becomes greater than the immune system can eliminate, the toxins become cumulative and the immune system becomes sluggish. This creates the terrain that makes the body vulnerable to many disease states. We refer to this polluted terrain as Toxic Bioaccumulation.
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) are exactly that an immunodeficiency problem. But is the breakdown in the immune system a result of a virus or is it that the body provides an environment or terrain favorable to that virus? Could it have been spread by a dentist to his patient, or from sexual contact, or an infected needle or would the person have developed the disease regardless of any contact because the conditions in his/her body had reached the point of providing the right terrain for the germs to settle?
Isn’ t Duesberg’ s position, that AIDS is caused by other factors including recreational drugs (poppers), more accurate? Isn’t this a more logical explanation for immunodeficiency than the presence of HIV? Isn’t this why some people with the same exposure are resistant to the disease and why Montagnier, co-discover of HIV, feels it is not HIV alone that causes AIDS?
Germs invade us all the time; it is Nature’ s design. All of us are exposed to similar conditions, but we do not all develop illness. So let’ s put the “horse before the cart.” Maintaining the health of the terrain will maintain the health of the housekeeper/sentinel, i.e. immune system. This is a more logical concept of HIV This is what is called host resistance our best defense against disease.
It is important to remember Pasteur’s final acceptance of Bechamp’s conclusion: the microbe is nothing!
