While the current testing regime for covid infection has a lot of questions rising from alleged false positives and manipulation of statistics; likely contamination of samples at any stage, numbers of reagents needed to process a sample, temperatures required, viral load of the sample being tested and number of cycles needed to produce an exponentially meaningful result, there is also much multi-disciplinary research being undertaken, away from public discourse, examining the whole phenomenon of Covid 19 and coronaviruses. One area of which is the analysis of people who have died from it, rather than with it. These researches are holistically growing the knowledge of our human condition.
One area of research is the role of the gut and its microbiome in maintaining a healthy body. Professor Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology, and Dr Claire Steves, of Kings College, London, have discovered that people with a poor or badly developed microbiome are the worst affected by Covid. I hope to be corrected and proved wrong, but it is my understanding that people worst affected and dying from Covid, were ingesting mainly processed food products in their diet. I’m sure this research will have its detractors and critics in exactly the same way as the discoverer of radium, stomach ulcers and other discoveries we now accept and take for granted. A few people might scoff at the idea that gut microbiota have any influence on overall health, but cutting edge research is proving otherwise.
Some people need more proof than others, which is as it should be, but to attack any subject using a little knowledge gleaned from newspaper headlines, is not science.
“Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a heap of stones is a house.” Quote from ‘Science and Hypothesis’ (1905), Ch 9, by Henri Poincare (1854-1912).
A holistic approach to our health is essential. Tackling symptoms of any illness or ailments afflicting mankind, is one wet-dream of a pharmaceutical industry; keep tackling symptoms forever. Once a cause of illness is eliminated – no more symptoms, no more remedies, no more profit.
Diminishing, concealing and ridiculing people pointing to a cause of illness can be quite lucrative. Think of tobacco; sugar, lead in petrol, non-stick coatings for cookware – there are so many examples of industry and businesses being prosecuted for covering up the maladies caused by their products. All in the name of profits and wealth. There are people for whom the idea of eliminating causes of illness and thereby reducing profits, is anathema; totally unthinkable and unrealistic. But such people really do exist, in the media industry, chemical industry, oil industry, food industry, pharmaceutical industry – to name a few. In the top echelons of any major transnational corporation may be someone willing to sacrifice a certain amount of safety for profit. People like these often lack sincerity, empathy, natural love for humanity, and regard the accumulation of wealth as the goal of life. Do people like these have a spiritual dimension to moderate their desires? Are they cut off from the Universe, from the higher aspects of their true selves? Or is this what they are?
Are such people likely to deny that life is an expression of the Universe? In the same way people, who are cut off from the Universe, might insist that life is existential because they personally feel no connection to it?
But there is spiritual connection between all life forms this Universe has produced, and in this material life we still have an energy body, part of and attached to, the Universe, needing to be fed and nurtured. We ingest material food, and with it, the non-material energy which is part of that food, in a natural cycle of life. Since ancient times, this energy body has, among other names, been called the Aura. Nutritionists tell us that the fresher our food, the better. One reason is the strength of the non-physical energy in it. Processed food materials are denatured; have no natural energy left in them. Some processes of preservation for fresh fruit and vegetables destroy this natural energy field, irradiation is the most effective. Irradiated foods contain all the vitamins, minerals and calories needed by the material body to survive, but lack life energy. To remain healthy we must sustain, nourish and feed our energy body, it is our connection to the Universe and our true, higher selves. Anything breaking this connection reduces us to the level of those people deifying money, at any wider cost; to planet or life, health or suffering, decay and decline, or thriving.
Who are people lacking a spiritual dimension? Why do they lack this inclusive faculty? Do they know about spirituality in the form of teachings when they were children and adopt it because it serves a material purpose for them? It will be interesting to find out if such people believe that religion is a spiritual connection to the Universe, or another concept altogether. In reality, all religions are artificial; man-made structures, owing the briefest nod to spirituality.
In answer to the question, ‘Why is this happening?’, someone once said, ‘Follow the money’. Follow the money to find reasons for pollution, ill health, suffering and Global warming. Follow the Profit. Is this too cynical? Could even a fraction of this be true? If a fraction is true, multiply that fraction by the factor of Global scale.
Recommended viewing. ‘What is lab grown meat? The lecture is presented by Neil Stephens, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Brunel University, London; a lecture from ‘The Future Of Food’. Supported by New Scientist magazine.