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carolyn kostopoulos's avatar

many years ago, a man and his wife decided to leave the rat race. they bought a run down farm near athens, georgia and started farming regeneratively. the wife was a sensitive animal lover and had named their 1000 chickens and could literally tell them apart.

one day she came to her husband in a panic and said "doris looks like she's having an asthma attack!" within a few hours, doris had died. by afternoon they noticed other chickens choking, gasping, wheezing and dying. they called the vet.

he diagnosed Newcastle virus and told them to cull their entire flock, buy all new chickens and he would vaccinate them against the virus. the vet went back to his office to await their decision.

they talked about it and decided that chickens in nature aren't vaccinated and, while it would be hard to watch, they should just let the disease play out.

what happened was utterly predictable to anyone with half a brain and a modicum of common sense. one third of the chickens died of the virus, one third got pretty sick but pulled through and one third never got sick at all.

so instead of killing their entire flock of 1000 birds, having to buy more chickens and then incurring a large vet bill, they were left with 2/3 of their original flock of which 1/3 had natural immunity and the other third had acquired immunity. they did not buy any new chickens, but rather allowed their immune chickens to reproduce. years later, they have healthy strong birds and no vet bills. they've never had a problem with Newcastle virus again.

after i read this story in the book written by the farmer about his early experiences on the farm, i looked into Newcastle virus. when it does spread to humans through very close contact with chickens like you'd have on a regenerative farm, it manifests as a case of pink eye AND confers immunity to certain cancers. in fact MSKCC in NY was studying Newcastle virus as a possible treatment for cancer (shades of Coley's toxins).

this raises a few questions. if you think back into history, people had much closer contact with a variety of animals. my grandmother kept chickens in the backyard of her NJ 2 family house. so chicken farmers and mostly everyone else would come into regular contact with poultry. a farmer might have 1000 birds and your grandmother might have only 5 but everyone would have had regular contact with chicken viruses which would give their immune systems a work out. in addition, their backyard gardens would afford them exposure to all manner of soil bacteria, microbes and fungi.

not only did they have a degree of independence when it came to their food, they also were probably less prone to cancers and were generally hardier than the vaccinated for everything kids you see now who can't live in the world if there's a peanut nearby.

some years back, we visited the farm for a two day class in cheese making. by then the farmer had discovered his gift with cheese, expanded his cheese cave and was providing cheese to all the best restaurants in and around athens, had won many awards and had started a thriving mail order cheese business.

i'm 70 and so had only 3 childhood vaccines. i'll stack my health up against any 20 year old. needless to say, i've never heard anything again from the MSKCC research into Newcastle virus and cancer.

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Daniel Nagase MD's avatar

Until people form communities that separate from the state, the mechanisms of slavery will continue.

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