In a socialized healthcare system, the public pays for the costs incurred by individuals who used its services. This includes paying for the health services of citizens’ who have chosen to harm their bodies willingly (when it could have been prevented), in addition to individuals who become ill or require surgery through no fault of their own. There is no distinction here.
And while the US is the only developed nation not to provide universal healthcare for all its citizens – because the doctors and hospitals are privately operated – it still provides assistance to nearly half the population in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, and subsidies for low-income individuals and families, all of which are funded by taxpayers via federal and state governments.
And since the costs are “a burden on society”, in the sense that citizens largely pay for individuals who have incurred bills from hospital stays, treatments or medications, the public has a stake in your body, and the bodies of all citizens… Or at least that’s one appeal made by proponents of mandatory vaccination against Covid-19.
Your Body as a Bioweapon
In this respect, the belief that the government has jurisdiction to mandate vaccination – in the interest of keeping everyone healthy – isn’t that outlandish. However, this begs the question of where the line is drawn here….
For the sake of consistency, shouldn’t the State also regulate other societal variables that stress the medical system and taxpayers?
For example, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the majority of the “food” people put into their bodies leads to systemic chronic inflammation (SCI) – essentially the root of all disease – and is wreaking havoc on the healthcare system, creatings all sorts of costs for taxpayers in a subsidized system—much like what is currently occurring with unvaccinated individuals who have contracted Covid-19.
So obesity is very much a public health issue.
Vaccination vs. Toxin Consumption
The three types of public health crises are environmental, food, and toxic. Covid-19 is an example of a toxic public health crisis, and obesity is a textbook example of a food-related public health issue.
True, obesity isn’t contagious, as is the case with coronavirus. But it absolutely impacts more than just the individual who was made these choices and thus, is a public health issue.
And when approximately 60-80% of adults and 20-30% of children in most Western countries are now overweight or obese, it’s more than a public health issue… it’s a public health crisis.
To put obseity into context with the coronavirus, depleted immune system functioning – resulting from obesity – is probably the biggest variable indicative of whether you will be hospitalized or die from the virus.
Effectively, your suspectibily to hospitalization from Covid (but not whether or not you will contract it) is very closely correlated with how well your immune system functions—
Individuals who have asymptomatic or mild disease show a robust immune response early on during infection.
UK Research and Innovation, The Immune System and Long COVID
Patients requiring admission to hospital have impaired immune responses and systemic inflammation (that is, chronic inflammation that may affect several organs) from the time of symptom onset.
There are many factors which contribute to inflammation and impact immune system function, including physical activity of exercise, sunlight exposure, emotional stress, and most importantly, diet—
According to the World Health Organization, healthy foods and hydration are vital. Individuals consuming a well-balanced diet are healthier with a strong immune system and have a reduced risk of chronic illness, infectious diseases.
Science Direct, Immune Response in Covid-19: A Review
In patients with fatal COVID-19, the immune response ranges from diminished function to overactivation, eventually to a weakened immune response, and ultimately to death.
Frontiers in Immunology, Cellular Immune Response to COVID-19 and Potential Immune Modulators
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. A well-balanced diet primarily means a diet consisting of whole, prebiotic fiber-containing foods, and consuming a variety of plant and animal-based products.
Additionally, because of their impact on the gut microbiome and positive correlation with inflammation, a proper diet for optimizing the immune response also is largely free of refined grains and sugar, alcohol, and highly-processed foods containing preservatives (sodium benzoate), stabilizers (carrageenan), artificial colors, and conventionally-produced cooking oils, most of which contain high omega-6 fatty acids and have been processed with the chemical hexane.
A 2018 study from Nature Medicine looked extensively at a number of potential inflammatory triggers, primarily diet and environmental toxins–
The typical diet that has become widely adopted in many countries over the past 40 years is relatively low in fruits, vegetables and other fiber- and prebiotic-rich foods and high in refined grains, alcohol and ultra-processed foods, particularly those containing emulsifiers.
These dietary factors can alter the gut microbiota composition and function and are linked to increased intestinal permeability and epigenetic changes in the immune system that ultimately cause low-grade endotoxemia and SCI.
Furthermore, high-glycemic-load foods, such as isolated sugars and refined grains, which are common ingredients in most ultra-processed foods, can cause increased oxidative stress that activates inflammatory genes.
Several other nutritional factors can also promote inflammation and potentially contribute to the development of SCI. These factors include deficiencies in micronutrients, including zinc and magnesium, which are caused by eating processed or refined foods that are low in vitamins and minerals, and having suboptimal omega-3 levels, which impacts the resolution phase of inflammation.
More importantly, [longchain omega-3s] are precursors to molecules such as resolvins, maresins and protectins that are involved in the resolution of inflammation. The main contributors to the growing worldwide incidence of low omega-3 status are a low intake of fish and high intake of vegetable oils that are high in linoleic acid, which displaces omega-3 fatty acids in cell membrane phospholipids140,141.
In turn, various RCTs have shown that omega-3 fatty acid supplementation reduces inflammation and may thus have health-promoting effects.
Nature Medicine, Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span
Many of these findings examining diet were to be expected, but a lot of the results examining the microbiome of someone with a typical Western diet – in contrast with individuals in non-industrialized societies – and its link to inflammation and immune function were pretty eye opening… I boldened the text that I found the most riveting/fascinating.
Non-industrialized societies such as the Shuar hunter-gatherers of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Tsimané forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia, Hadza hunter-gatherers from Tanzania, subsistence agriculturalists from rural Ghana and traditional horticulturalists of Kitava (Papua New Guinea)—all of whom are minimally exposed to industrialized environments but highly exposed to a variety of microbes—exhibit very low rates of inflammation-related chronic disease and substantial fluctuations in inflammatory markers that do not increase with age.
More broadly, it has been hypothesized that a complex balance exists in the intestinal ecosystem that, if disrupted, can compromise its function and integrity and in turn cause low-grade SCI. It may thus be important to identify possible triggers of dysbiosis and intestinal hyperpermeability, which could potentially include the overuse of antibiotics, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and proton-pump inhibitors; lack of microbial exposure induced by excessive hygiene and reduced contact with animals and natural soils, which is a very recent phenomenon in human evolutionary history; and diet.
Nature Medicine, Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span
The ironic part is that many of the potential triggers of microbiome dysbiosis which were outlined are measures being taken to combat the spread of Covid. Especially in the early innings of the pandemic, excessive hygiene, administration of antibiotics and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were advised to slow the spread, as well as impede the severity of infection.
Further studies on the topic of microbiome health serve to confirm and support these findings—
Recent data suggest that the microbiota of industrialized societies differs substantially from the recent ancestral microbiota of humans. Rapid modernization, including medical practices and dietary changes, is causing progressive deterioration of the microbiota, and we hypothesize that this may contribute to various diseases prevalent in industrialized societies.
Nature Reviews Microbiology, The ancestral and industrialized gut microbiota and implications for human health
This is consistent with something I heard Dr. Zack Bush say recently during a podcast in which he was being interviewed.
He was speaking specifically of the Hadza people of Tanzania—an indigenous ethnic group of nearly 1,200 inhabitants, though only around 400 of the members still survive using their traditional foraging methods. Dr. Bush claims that the group has around 10x the amount of microbiome flora that Westerners commonly have.
While researchers were studying the community, a group of missionaries came through and delivered antibiotics to the tribe by the box. The researchers were instructed by their organization not to interfere, so the group, having no prior experience with antibiotics, ended up taking them all in one fell swoop. The researchers were devasted because they believed it was effectively the end of the gut microbiome of mankind.
However, very much to their surprise, they learned after sending stool samples back to a lab stateside, that the Hadza’s gut wall flora had returned to 100 percent the very next day after “one of the most massive antibiotic exposures any human could possibly get.”
In contrast, a 2018 study conducted by the journal Cell that looked at two weeks of probiotic administration among a group of Americans indicated 80 percent destruction of the gut microbiome.
This indicates the breakdown of the gut flora as purely diet-based, rather than evolutionary. Which is something that had already been postulated given the rise in obesity, autoimmunity disorders, and cancer since the 1990s, when glyphosate was first introduced on a large scale to the cropland of the Western world.
But the fact that there are tribes living today who are secluded from all other forms of civilization with pristinely-dirty, diverse microbiomes confirms lifestyle (diet, exercise and exposure to nature) is the largest determinant of your gut flora health, and thus your seceptibility to chronic inflammation, obesity, a depleted immune system, and severe adverse reaction from a virus.
As a result, the lifestyle decisions you make – especially your diet – impact your health, and the potential for you to require medical assistance or hospitalization. So in this regard, it is largely similar to the decision to receive a Covid vaccination or not.
If you have the freedom to decide if you’re going to trash your body (what toxic foods you put into it, and how sleep, exercise and sun-deprived you let it become) you absolutely should be allowed to decide what foreign bodies – in the form of a vaccine – are injected into it.
So, I’m willing to get on board with mandatory vaccination when diet is also regulated in the same manner. Of course, I’m being fasicous here; I don’t believe either are something the State should have the power to regulate.
I’m of the opinion that, because we live in a free and open society, (largely, still –despite vaccine requirements for many public places – in relation to other countries), the government should inform rather than decide, and make recommendations rather than mandates.
A Beacon of Hope for Bodily Autonomy
At least there are still some corporations who I can commend for also upholding this belief, and refuse to discriminate between customers on the basis of vaccination status. In-N-Out Burger is probably the best (and potentially only) example of a company still fighting for the individual autonomy of its patrons, and refusing to be strongarmed by municipal government mandates—
As a company, In-N-Out Burger strongly believes in the highest form of customer service and to us that means serving all customers who visit us and making all customers feel welcome.
We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government. It is unreasonable, invasive, and unsafe to force our restaurant associates to segregate customers into those who may be served and those who may not, whether based on the documentation they carry, or any other reason.
This is clear governmental overreach and is intrusive, improper, and offensive.
Arnie Wensinger, In-N-Out’s chief legal and business officer
This stance is in direct opposition to that of the majority of corporations, states and municipalities, and trade organizations. And those who oppose the mandates seem to take that position primarily because it will cost them business or employees—
I mean, frankly, I hope that Kyrie sort of — despite how strongly he feels about the vaccination — ultimately decides to get vaccinated, because I’d love to see him play basketball this season, and I’d love to see the Brooklyn Nets have their full complement of players on the floor.
Adam Silver, NBA Commisioner
Seemingly, it’s up to us as individuals to stand up for what we believe in – or fight against what we don’t – because the government, big business and public interest groups sure as hell will not.
And if you get discouraged, because of in light of this it seems like you against the world and that no one has your back, just know that there are plenty of other individuals out there fighting the same fight for bodily autonomy.
Rebel Bush Doctor 