Ice Buckets: Not the Cure for ALS

Ice Buckets: Not the Cure for ALS
Participants challenge others on video to do it or donate money to ALS before dumping ice cold water over their heads. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Sayer Ji
8/22/2014
Updated:
8/22/2014

Let’s stop pretending like pouring ice on ourselves means anything until we can acknowledge the research that some of the causes and cures for ALS already exist -- none of them involving pharmaceutical intervention.

The ALS Association’s ‘Ice Bucket Challenge,’ as of the writing of this article, has grossed over 41 million dollars in donations, which “has driven hundreds of thousands to join the fight against ALS,” according to a recent Huffington Post blog written by Jose Costa.

The perpetual meme of ‘fighting’ idiopathic diseases -- meaning, diseases ‘with no known cause’ -- has become the most successful cause-marketing strategy of our time, with billions of dollars raised without appreciable yield for the ultimate outcome: saving lives.  Just look at Susan G. Komen, which raises billions for races and research into pharmaceutical and/or radiation-based treatments, but has yet to do anything to stem the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of healthy women (1.3 million women falsely diagnosed of breast cancer in the past 30 years), much less improve the survival times of those who actually do have a life threatening form of breast cancer.

For organizations that explicitly confess their ignorance about causes or cures of diseases they presumably intend to overcome, co-opting the good intentions of the mainstream with viral social media campaigns has become the flavor of the day.

In these monthly ‘Wars’ against disease, neither the combatants or victims stand to make much ground because no one is looking at root causes, the essential precondition to removing them and finding a real cure.

At Greenmedinfo.com we have spent years finding studies on about 3,000 ailments -- obtained through the government’s own biomedical research database MEDLINE -- that can clearly be identified to have unnatural/manmade causes and natural solutions.

Take a look at our ALS page now, and you will a wide range of published and peer-reviewed studies indicating that we shouldn’t be spending so much time raising capital, but rather awareness as to the already obvious ways we could reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. Some highlights include:

Some of the Actual ALS Causes:

  • Lead: 4 studies on the lead-ALS link indicate that lead exposure can contribute to the etiology of ALS. If that’s the case -- or if we even consider it a potential cause -- reduce and/or eliminate exposure and then detoxify the body from it. This is so obvious that apparently the ALS Association, and the conventional medical establishment, chooses to ignore it.

  • Pesticides: Should we be surprised that highly brain- and body-toxic chemicals could contribute to a neurodegenerative condition? If you read the ALS Association’s “About ALS page,” you would be left with the impression that we have no idea what causes this terrible disease. Here are 3 studies showing a link between ALS and pesticide exposure.

  • Statin Drugs: Yes, we should not be surprised. With 300+ adverse health effects linked to statin drugs in the biomedical literature, and neurotoxicity #1 on the list, ALS has also been found to be a possible side effect of this highly toxic class of cholesterol lowering drugs. Remember, the dry weight of the brain is largely compromised of lipids (including cholesterol) Any drug that suppresses the ability to produce this brain-essential compound, could contribute to a wide range of neurological conditions. And here is proof that statin drugs are one of them: statin-ALS link.

  • Cigarette Smoking: No mystery here. Tobacco kills, and it isn’t just the nicotine and the thousands of chemicals naturally occurring or added afterwards to ‘enhance’ the effect. It’s the radioactive polonium 210 within them  -- the subject of a decades old cover up -- that is the primary cause of tobacco associated morbidity and mortality. No wonder this highly toxic plant’s smoke has been linked to ALS. How does the ALS Association overlook this obvious risk factor openly on it’s site?

  • Monosodium glutamate (MSG): MSG is an ominpresent contaminant -- classified as an FDA approved additive - in tens of thousands of foods in the world’s food supply today. Here is a 2010 study linking MSG to the pathogenesis of ALS.

These are a sampling of some of the full vetted, biomedically-confirmed contributing causes, but thankfully, the ‘curative’ natural agents are far more numerous. Of the 39 substances found to have potential therapeutic value in ALS -- none of which Big Pharma, or their cause-marketing collaborators, acknowledge - these are the most compelling we have found:

ALS Solutions:

  • Coenzyme Q10

  • Vitamin E

  • Vitamin B12

  • Progesterone

  • Testosterone

  • Estradiol (estrogen)

Don’t forget the basics: something as simple as moving the body -- exercise --

Keep in mind, these are only the studies we have indexed, with limited resources and time.  Go to the National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic citation database and search yourself. You will have 23 million abstracts under your fingertips. Search for “ALS” and you will find over 13,000 published studies on the topic

Let’s hope the ALS Association puts their newly contributed money where their mouth is, and dedicate it to finding solutions that relieve the suffering of those with the condition. Those who donate money, show that they care enough to give up a fragment of their financial freedom to help others.  But if the causes are at least partially known (including pharmaceuticals that do more harm than good) -- chemicals that damage the brain -- and the solutions are as well -- addressing nutritional deficiencies and chemical/toxicant exposures and correcting them -- let’s at least stop pretending raising more money, or making a game of pouring ice on oneself is anything but a charade to distract from the real solution.

Let’s stop pretending like pouring ice on ourselves means anything until we can acknowledge the research that some of the causes and cures for ALS already exist -- none of them involving pharmaceutical intervention.

This article was originally published on www.GreenMedInfo.com. Join their free GreenMedInfo.com newsletter.

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Sayer Ji is the author of the best-selling book, “Regenerate,” and is founder and director of GreenMedInfo.com, the world’s largest open-access natural health database. As a natural health rights advocate, Mr. Ji cofounded Stand For Health Freedom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting basic human, constitutional, and parental rights, and recently launched Unite.live, a worldwide platform for conscious content creators.
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