William Rea, M.D.: Lecture on Health Effects of Toxins--

both Mental and Physical effects

NOHA NEWS, Vol. XXVIII, No. 3, Summer 2003, pages 1-4.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF HEALTH AND DISEASE

[See also: Detoxification: The Concept | Psychiatric Effects of Air Pollution.]

From the May 7, 2003 NOHA lecture by William J. Rea, MD

William J. Rea, MD is founder and director of the Environmental Health Center (EHC) in Dallas, Texas. A thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon with a passionate interest in the environmental aspects of health and disease, he has received numerous professional honors, including being named to the world*s first professional chair of Environmental Medicine at the Roberts Institute of Technology at the University of Surrey in Guildford, England in 1988. He was awarded the Jonathan Foreman Gold Medal Award in 1987 and the Herbert J. Rinkel Award in 1993 - both by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. NOHA Honorary Member William J. Rea, MD, has treated over 30,000 patients from all over the world.

"This subject would be impossible to cover in only one lecture. It stretches through the entire textbook of medicine. If we had two or three years, perhaps we could, so I'm only going to touch on a few aspects." The main point is the environment. Everyone has to deal with it, and no one lives in a vacuum, no matter what your genetics are. You could consider your genetics as a "time bomb" waiting to go off with the right environmental trigger.

The most irrational and insane aspect of our current society is the way we spray toxic pesticides on most of the food we intend to eat. Pesticide applicators wear suits and gas masks to protect themselves against the toxic pesticides they are spraying on the food for others to eat. The soil is denuded - no life in it. There are very few "well" people in society today - most stand a one-in-one chance of getting cancer in ten years. Breast cancer occurs mostly in industrialized countries - only a few in the third world. The highest incidence of breast cancer in the world was in the State of Israel when they used chlorinated pesticides. Since then, they have changed and use slightly less toxic ones and the breast cancer rate in Israel has declined.

DRIFT
Most of the pesticide spray is going up into the air, and if the field is on a slope, a good deal of the remaining pesticide will get washed into our water. This is a global problem, so banning pesticides in the US is not enough. It takes only five days for the spray for grasshoppers in West Africa to blow across the Atlantic Ocean and reach the Florida Keys. Much of this "African dust" used to fertilize the rain forests in South America. Due to a slight change in the earth's rotational axis, this African dust now blows over Florida, then north into the central US Midwest. It takes only 36 hours for toxics sprayed in Lubbock, Texas, to reach Cincinnati, Ohio. It also only takes 36 hours for sprays in the Mississippi Delta to reach Minneapolis, Minnesota. Many people have this "pesticide rain" pouring down on and contaminating them. Several studies are showing that coral off the US Atlantic coast is disintegrating and dying. For those living on the west coast, the large pollutant cloud over India and China moves to Korea, and a good deal of it reaches the US Pacific coast west of the Rocky Mountains.

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The most irrational and insane aspect of our current society is the way we spray toxic pesticides on most of the food we intend to eat.
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One of Dr. Rea's patients moved to the Virgin Islands to escape all the air pollution in the US several years ago. Things went just fine for about five years; until she called back complaining of her symptoms returning. That was when they tested and discovered all the toxic "dust" coming from Africa containing fungus, bacteria, pesticides, and solvents. This toxic dust was causing both the patient's symptoms and the disintegration of east coast coral reefs. A vaccine has been made by Dr. Rea for this patient and others affected by African dust.

Another patient was a little girl who had gangrene in her toe. Her parents were told that in 24 hours it would spread up her leg and she could possibly lose her leg. She had been playing in a neighbor's yard that had just been treated by Chemlawn. After this child was admitted to Dr. Rea's environmental unit and given intravenous vitamin C, clean air, safe pure water, and organic food, she only lost the ends of two toes. However, once a patient has been hit by a pollutant, they develop secondary sensitivities. So next year the same neighbors treated with Chemlawn and the girl's leg turned blue WITHOUT any playing or direct contact. It was the extremely small amount of toxins from the drift through the air alone that caused this reaction in the girl. After this was treated, the neighbors and most of the community finally stopped using Chemlawn. This happened twelve years ago and the child is doing very well.

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Twenty years ago the Wironi Indians, who live at the headwaters of the Amazon River, were both pesticide free and completely disease free. They had pure water to drink and ate organic food. They rotated their crops on an eleven year cycle and burned down their homes every year so they could rebuild them elsewhere. At that time, this was the only place in the world where Dr. Rea could not measure any pesticides. Unfortunately, now that they have become "civilized," they are getting diseases like all the rest of us.
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A method of applying pesticides that is extremely prone to drift is spraying from an airplane. In Texas, they finally passed a law prohibiting aerial spraying whenever the wind speed exceeded a specified amount. But what about all of the pesticides that still go into the air on low wind or calm days?

INCREASES IN PESTICIDE USE AND DISEASES
Pesticide manufacture and sale is big business. Over $35 billion are spent on them annually worldwide. Of this, $15 billion is spent in the US alone. With all of this money, much is spent on counter-advertising with "spin," one-sided stories and testimony from industry "experts."

Many toxins are released from burning waste, which includes pesticides, mercury, and dioxins from Agent Orange. In Cambodia they are burning a lot of waste and the pollutants are being blown back to the US west coast. Perhaps we are now getting "paid back" partially for all the huge amounts of herbicides - 2-4D containing dioxin - that we sprayed there during the Vietnam War.

A Japanese study shows extremely high statistical correlation between "chef's disease" - a disease of the eyes, esophagus, and blood vessels - and their use of organochlorines, including DDT, benzene hexachloride, and PCBs. Since then these pesticides have been banned in Japan.

Cardiovascular disease is caused by environmental pollutants. One example is an aneurism (or growth) inside a blood vessel that is due to chlorinated pesticides. Cholesterol and triglycerides act as vehicles to carry these environmental toxins in the blood vessels.

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Another patient was a little girl who had gangrene in her toe. Her parents were told that in 24 hours it would spread up her leg and she could possibly lose her leg. She had been playing in a neighbor's yard that had just been treated by Chemlawn. After this child was admitted to Dr. Rea's environmental unit and given intravenous vitamin C, clean air, safe pure water, and organic food, she only lost the ends of two toes.
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Twenty years ago the Wironi Indians, who live at the headwaters of the Amazon River, were both pesticide free and completely disease free. They had pure water to drink and ate organic food. They rotated their crops on an eleven year cycle and burned down their homes every year so they could rebuild them elsewhere. At that time, this was the only place in the world where Dr. Rea could not measure any pesticides. Unfortunately, now that they have become "civilized," they are getting diseases like all the rest of us.


When many soldiers were returning with the "Gulf War Syndrome," why were all of their families getting sick too? Dr. Rea has determined that ninety to ninety-five percent of all American homes are contaminated with pesticides. This leads to the depression and/or deregulation of the immune system, allowing all the families to get sick. Instead of bacteria and viruses, we should look at the causes for the depression and/or deregulation of the immune system.

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE
This is the number one killer and generator of incapacity in the US.
Our first example is a young couple who had been married for five years. They had treated their basement with Dursban, an organophosphate pesticide, which gave out a foul odor. When the man went down to the basement to clean it up, he got chest pain, high blood pressure, and was rushed to the emergency room of the hospital with high blood pressure. Everything was OK for about four weeks until they had a large torrential rain and the sewer backed up flooding their basement. Again the man went downstairs to clean up, developed high blood pressure and chest pain, and was rushed to the emergency room with a tear in his aorta (the large blood vessel leading into the heart). He died in surgery and later organophosphate pesticides were found in his heart. The widow had brain damage, also as a result of the pesticides. This was an unnecessary and total disaster!

Learning Disabilities and Brain Scans
Looking at brain scans of many people, there are very few "normal" brains. A normal scan would have a smooth, yellow outline. Many others have large white/yellow swellings in the sides. Others are a lot smaller than normal. Many of these patients with small brains and short-term memory loss came from Gulf War patients and from workers on the Alaska oil pipeline spill. There were several with a virtually invisible scan. Fortunately, with treatment, most of these patients could return almost to normal.

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One example was a very bad kid whom they were considering for hospitalization. Instead, he went to Dr. Rea's environmental unit where the child could breathe pure air and drink pure water so most of the toxics left him. Within forty-eight hours he returned to normal and started studying again. After he was "hit" with only one brief whiff of the pesticide, his symptoms returned and he became paranoid.
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Unfortunately, a half to two-thirds of our children appear to have learning disabilities, ADD and/or ADHD. Usually, they are treated with Ritalin and given psychiatric counseling. The real question that should be asked is: How many of our schools are we spraying with toxic pesticides? How many burn fossil fuels, and/or have formaldehyde containing carpets? One example was a very bad kid whom they were considering for hospitalization. Instead, he went to Dr. Rea's environmental unit where the child could breathe pure air and drink pure water so most of the toxics left him. Within forty-eight hours he returned to normal and started studying again. After he was "hit" with only one brief whiff of the pesticide, his symptoms returned and he became paranoid. The same results occurred after a similar small "hit" of formaldehyde and of phenol. Apparently, they had sprayed the school while all the children were in it!! Of course there was brain damage not only to the janitors, but to the school administrators as well. There is only one day any school should be sprayed (if it is sprayed at all) and that is after the last day of school.

We should stop contaminating our schools and homes! Besides ceasing to spray with pesticides, we should stop using toxic solvents in the carpets, and start cleaning the air ducts. Another kid, who was Dr. Rea's child, walked out of class as soon as they started spraying in the classroom. The teacher was about to charge truancy but Dr. Rea had a few words with the teacher. Apparently, fifty to eighty percent of the other students had complained, and the teacher admitted, "come to think of it, I don't feel very well either!" These toxins affect your reasoning as well as many other things.

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We should stop contaminating our schools and homes! Besides ceasing to spray with pesticides, we should stop using toxic solvents in the carpets, and start cleaning the air ducts.
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In another case at a high school, the students were told not to park their cars in a certain lot near where they were fixing the roof with a powerful chemical that could eat the paint off cars. Dr. Rea's daughter got a headache from the fumes and walked out of class. Dr. Rea wrote a very nasty letter: If the chemical could eat paint off a car, what might it do to students? Apparently, it got through because the superintendent called back on Sunday (when normally he would be relaxing).

Spraying of Airlines
Most of the airlines used to spray their planes heavily with pesticides. This caused a number of strokes in passengers. One minor advantage to the tragedy on September 11, 2001, is that most of the airlines no longer use pesticides - primarily due to the high cost. The one major airline that has gone bankrupt and deserved it, has finally started to listen to reason.

Root Causes of Disease
When a pollutant enters the body, one of two things can happen: (1) hypersensitivity; or (2) chronic degenerative diseases such as disk damage, hardening of the arteries, and arthritis. Both of these things can lead to organ failure and eventually death.

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If [our microcirculation] is not working, even the very best nutrients cannot get to the cells and help us. We have to get oxygen to all the cells.
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Much of the environmental damage is done to connective tissue, which makes up sixty to seventy percent of the human body. This connective tissue contains (1) the immune system; (2) the neurological system; and (3) the circulatory system. All three of these will receive environmental pollutants, send a signal to the brain that they are not working right, and then that damage will cause a disease.

All of the following environmental contaminants can cause cardiovascular disease:
* Fluorocarbons - damage us as well as the ozone layer
* Glycerin
* Formaldehyde - the most common and widely spread according to a study
* Chlorophenothane (DDT)
* Phenol
* Toluene - solvents
* Chlorine - another reason to avoid drinking chlorinated water
* Petroleum
* Alcohol
* Hydrazine - rocket fuel, which causes aneurisms like those in the man who died
* Cigarette smoke
* Turpentine
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leaches contaminants into the medicine, and often would ruin the treatment of sensitive patients.
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Microcirculation
What makes us all really function is microcirculation. If it is not working, even the very best nutrients cannot get to the cells and help us. We have to get oxygen to all the cells. Dr. Rea often treats patients by opening the microcirculation with oxygen therapy and by giving magnesium. He always uses "old fashioned" equipment - ceramic, glass bottles and wood, instead of plastic. Plastic always leaches contaminants into the medicine, and often would ruin the treatment of sensitive patients.

Balance of Nerves within Heart
Innervation within the heart is very important. All nerves have to be in balance. This condition allows Yoga experts to start and stop their hearts at will. It also allows giant sea lizards from the Galapagos Islands to stop their hearts when they are laying their eggs deep down in the ocean.

Atrial-fibrillation is irregulation of the heart. An example is one lady who had a rib pinching her heart. The surgeon removed the pinching bone and cut two nerves intentionally. Unfortunately, the lady continued with atrial-fibrillation, which no medication could cure for five years, until she finally visited Dr. Rea. He determined in his environmental unit exactly what foods and chemicals she was hypersensitive to, she now avoids them, and is able to lead a healthy life without any medications!

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All nerves have to be in balance. This condition allows Yoga experts to start and stop their hearts at will.
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Stress affects the adrenalin nerve, which leads to imbalance. Nervous system balance can now be measured through (1) the eyes and (2) the heart. You are hooked up to a machine and computer, which measure certain levels at certain places. You are asked to lie down, then to sit up. Normally, there is a dip in the readout at the point at which you sit up. A drunken Russian sailor was tested once, and he showed NO dip when he sat up.

Hormones
DDT and other environmental contaminants can act as "hormone mimics" and affect your estrogen level. Blood vessel walls respond causing blood clots. In addition to females having menopause, a similar condition occurs in older males. The drastically lower sperm counts in most males throughout the world are primarily due to toxic pollution.

Heart Scans and Blood Clots
We can get heart scans, as well as brain scans. A normal heart scan does not show any extensive thick white areas. Heart scans should be done in three dimensions showing three views.

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The ten who went through the environmental unit and discovered the foods and chemicals to avoid, needed no more medication and could turn the phlebitis on and off at will from exposures. They saved potentially millions of dollars.
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The environmental, instead of the traditional treatment for blood clots, can save millions of dollars. Phenol leads to slow blood then blood clots. A test was given to twenty patients with this condition. The ten with the traditional treatment of probiotics got phlebitis (inflammation of a vein) and needed to be on blood thinners for the rest of their lives. The ten who went through the environmental unit and discovered the foods and chemicals to avoid, needed no more medication and could turn the phlebitis on and off at will from exposures. They saved potentially millions of dollars.

EXAMPLES OF PATIENTS

* A patient had gangrene in the blood vessel to her leg (similar to the little girl who lost a part of her toes after playing on grass treated by Chemlawn). It turned out that corn was the root cause.
* Some adult patients can get acne, bruises, petechiae (minute red spots), purpura, or spontaneous bruises, all from pollutant injuries. Often bruises can result from using plastic instead of glass containers. One lady with awful bruises got worse with every blood transfusion. Once she was in the environmental unit and got a transfusion with glass containers, her bruises improved. Just to test, after she received another traditional transfusion with plastic containers, her condition got worse from the phthalates, which are used to make the plastic soft.
* Another patient lost only two toes (instead of his whole leg). The culprit turned out to be the nightshade family, which includes potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, and tobacco.
One man was told by his traditional doctor that he needed to have his artificial valve replaced every five years due to "wear and tear." He would deliver pizza during the mold season and get arrhythmias. When he finally made it to Dr. Rea's unit and was tested for atrial-fibrillation, it turned out that the culprit was mold, pizza, and cheese. He has now made it for twenty years without any replacement of his artificial valve.
* A young man of only 37 was getting heart attacks. After he visited Dr. Rea's environmental unit, they cleared up. However, they returned when he was challenged with formaldehyde. It turned out that his occupation was an undertaker, and his father had been an undertaker before him. To top it all, his bedroom was located directly over the embalming room!
A policeman who often drove in different patrol cars had "Glade" sprayed in his car, which led to chest pain, emergency room, and a near fatal arrhythmia. It turned out that he was raised in Georgia where they grow peanuts and spray all the time. A diet of organic food and fresh water along with minerals, vitamins, and a beach house on the coast cured him.
* Finally, an old lady with a large, expanding heart complained of shortness of breath and hives. Her EKG was very abnormal. Her doctors told her she was too old to get any heart surgery, and to sit back and die. However, she visited Dr. Rea's unit, was tested, and turned out to be low in iron, chromium, and zinc, and to have excess mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. After getting estrogen, testosterone, a sauna, and oxygen treatment, she has now recovered. She can walk and bicycle five miles daily. Best of all, every year she sends Dr. Rea a package of organic, shelled macadamia nuts as additional thanks.
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The drastically lower sperm counts in most males throughout the world are primarily due to toxic pollution.
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HOW TO TREAT ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS

* Clean houses. They should be pesticide free, gas free, and have hardwood floors. Fresh air - by filtration or a good location - is most important of all.
* Injection therapy for secondary sensitivities.
* Heat therapy.
* Nutrition - maintain proper vitamin, amino-acid, and fatty-acid levels.
* Exercise in environmentally controlled conditions. After patients got sick from fumes of equipment, they cleaned all the oil lubricants with graphite.
* Spring water in glass bottles
* Build immune boosters from the patient's own cells.

CONCLUSION
Even though environmental contamination is very bad and widespread, you can DO many things about it, without medications.