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A Nation of Drug Addicts
and the Impact on our Environment
In the
following interview, John Easterling -
treasure hunter, rainforest explorer and
founder of Amazon Herb Company, shares with
us what’s happening to our environment and
why people are returning to the plant
medicines of the earth.
Kosa: John, I know one of your
degrees is in environmental studies, and
you’ve been sharing with me some of the
shocking news of what’s going on in our
environment, and its impact on our health.
John:
Yes, very shocking, Kosa. I’ve always been
interested in environmental studies, and I
am involved on a daily basis with plants and
their relationship with people. Not too long
ago I read Stephen Harrod Buhner’s book,
“The Lost Language of Plants.” In his book,
Buhner exposes how we are polluting our
environment with the pharmaceuticals that
are intended to heal us. In addition to the
billions of pounds of industrial waste that
is going into the environment, there is a
new and frightening generation of
environmental toxicity that’s upon us:
America has become a nation of drug addicts.
In 1991, for
example, there were 42 billion dollars of
pharmaceuticals sold. A short eight years
later, in 1999, that number rose to 113
billion. It’s an exploding business - the
amount of pharmaceuticals that are consumed
by people in this country. This drug use is
in epidemic proportions. There were 2.8
billion prescriptions written last year, yet
there are only 280 million people in
America. That’s 10 prescriptions for every
man, woman and child in America. This is
shocking. Anti depressants, tranquilizers,
psychiatrics drugs, chemo therapy drugs,
pain killers, fungicides, antibiotics and so
on.
The toxic
waste from the pharmaceutical drugs is
beginning to show enormous repercussions in
our environment. After these pharmaceutical
drugs are eaten, where do they go? They
return to our environment, to the soil, to
the water table.
There is over
one million chemo therapy patients in the US
right now. 650,000 tons of chemo bodily
waste enter the sewage system each year.
These chemo therapy agents are not easily
bio degradable, so as they are excreted back
into the environment they are still very,
very toxic. 650,000 tons is 1300 million
pounds of toxic waste that’s excreted,
directly back into the environment, into the
sewage system, and it ends up in the water
table.
Kosa: That’s almost inconceivable,
especially when you add it up the numbers
over, say, ten years.
John:
It’s almost inconceivable. And then of
course, everyone knows about the over use of
antibiotics. I had antibiotic treatments as
a child that were just considered normal
People go to the doctor and they feel almost
cheated if they don’t get some antibiotics
or something before they leave. We’ve
declared a war on bacteria, and antibiotic
is of course something to kill life – anti
biotic. Bacteria is not a foreign agent. In
fact, our bodies have, at any given time,
one to two pounds of bacteria; there’s
bacteria on the outside of our skin, there’s
bacteria living inside of us. Not all
bacteria is bad. Yet somewhere along the
line we declared war on bacteria. Perhaps
when microscopes came along and we could
actually see them, we thought, “Oh, this is
a germ - this is the enemy.” So, we declared
war on bacteria and have gone on a rampage
of antibiotics, of killing bacteria. In
1949 there were 156,000 lbs of antibiotics
produced. By 1999 there were 50 million lbs
of antibiotics produced. 20 million lbs
goes into the animal feed –to the pigs and
chickens and cows that they are trying to
keep alive long enough to eat. Because
these animals are really sick, they’re in
real small pens and they can barely stand
up. Who cares? They’re going to kill them
anyway and then they’re going to eat them.
These animals are saturated with antibiotics
to keep them alive and those antibiotics
again are consumed by people. Those
antibiotics end up back in the water supply,
back in the sewage system, back in the water
table. So the American soil today is awash
with antibiotics. These antibiotics are not
biodegradable. They are still killing
bacteria - they’re killing bacteria in the
soil.
In the soil -
that’s where bacteria has one of its biggest
positive roles. The cycle of life requires
bacteria. When the leaves fall from the
trees, the bacteria convert those leaves
into mulch, into nutrient material that the
next generation of plants utilizes to grow.
So when you’re killing off the bacteria,
this is creating something new that is
unparalleled in recorded biologic history.
There’s
another area of biological concern – if you
look at fish. Where do all of these drugs
end up? Look at the two top prescription
drugs in America - by number of
prescriptions that are written. The two top
ones are Premarin, which is a conjugated
estrogen hormone, and Synthroid, which is a
synthetic thyroid hormone. Chris Metcalf at
Trent University in Canada found 400 parts
per trillion of Estrone in local waste
water. 400 parts per trillion. So that kind
of rang his bell, and he started thinking we
had better take a look to see how this can
affect the population, because when it’s in
the waste water then it ends up in sewage
systems, it ends up in the water table, it
ends up eventually being recycled into tap
water, ground water, and being consumed.
Metcalf found the Japanese fish he used as
study subjects, when exposed to different
levels of Estrone in water, that at 10 parts
per trillion, the fish began to exhibit
inter sexual changes - they started showing
both male and female characteristics. At
1000 parts per trillion, every male fish in
his study transformed into a female.
Kosa: Wow, that’s scary!
John:
That’s going to be really scary to half the
population who are males who aren’t
necessarily interested in under going a
gender change. But, that’s what is
happening in the real world. All of these
drugs, Americans are eating hundreds of
millions of prescriptions, are ending up
back in the water supply and being
re-consumed by the population. German
scientists found from 30 to 60
pharmaceuticals present in the tap water and
ground water samples they tested. Think
about it, 30 to 60 pharmaceuticals are in
the everyday water supply.
Kosa: So, that means that even those
of us who are not taking prescription drugs,
we’re still getting the drugs in our water?
John:
Yeah, if you’re not taking prescription
drugs, you’re still taking prescription
drugs. You’re taking it in proportions that
actually have a physiological effect, a
physiological change. This is the
environment that we’re living in today and
it is very frightening. And again I say it
is brand new - this has happened just in our
generation. So, we’re just now beginning to
experience the side effects. We’re seeing
all of the degenerative issues, the
degenerative disease, the new things coming
along. Here in Florida you’ve got alligators
being born with no sex organs. This is
pretty scary stuff.
Kosa: This is very scary stuff. So
let me ask you, John, how do you see
individuals making a difference? How do they
educate themselves, and what choices can
they make?
John:
There’s going to be millions of people that
will tune into this message and there’s
books being written, and information on the
internet. So, this information will spread
very quickly, and because we’re such an
information oriented society now so many
people are becoming aware of this.
A recent study
by Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS)
Journal showed that 68 million Americans
considered environmental and social issues
when they’re making buying decisions. So
this is on the minds of a lot of people. And
91% of the people they surveyed are
interested in protecting the environment, 59
% said that they would prefer products that
are made in a sustainable manner, and a full
83% said that they support sustainable
business practices. So, there are very
strong social consciousness trends that have
evolved. That shift has already started.
You’re asking about a solution, it has
already started; people are aware and are
beginning to make more intelligent choices.
Kosa: So, how is this awareness
affecting businesses? How are they
responding to the desire of the people to be
more conscious towards the environment and
to be better stewards of the earth?
John:
As a demand is created then that demand is
filled. People are interested in their
health, they’re interested in longevity,
they’re interested in looking good, being
strong and vital members of society –
they’re driving a new trend in natural
products. They’re driving a huge industry
that’s evolved into dietary supplements;
vitamins, minerals, and herbs and
supplements. The low nutritional content in
the food supply and the high degree of
environmental toxicity is driving the
natural health industry. It’s critical that
we protect ourselves from these
environmental toxicities and build our
immune systems so that we are not affected.
People are no
longer thinking whether they should
supplement or not, now they’re thinking
what is the best supplementation in the
market place. The best supplementation we
are finding are plants that are not grown in
the United States, not grown in soil that’s
awash with antibiotics, not cultivated, not
genetically engineered, but wild plants.
So when you go
looking for wild plants eventually you end
up in the Amazon rainforest, because that’s
the highest concentration of pure life
energy left on earth. The plants coming
from the Amazon are strong, vital plants,
plants that haven’t been cultivated. They’re
beyond organic - we’re talking wild plants.
A plant in its natural habitat is the
strongest of the species. It’s got the
density, the chemistry, the phyto-nutritional
factors. And our bodies have been geared
from the beginning of time to extract our
nutrient matter from plants. So when you
have wild plants with their full profile of
vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes
completely built in – you have a life force
that is capable of detoxifying, nourishing,
and rebuilding your body. Wild plants are
what conscious people are looking for, and
the Amazon rainforest is our greatest source
on Earth.
Kosa: Thank
you for your time and valuable information
John.
"It has been
estimated that as many as 75 to 90 percent
of the world’s rural people rely on herbal
traditional medicine as their primary health
care. It appears neither possible nor
desirable to replace this herbal medicine
with western medicine."
- Ole
Hamann
(in Akerle, Conservation of
Medicinal Plants)
"I
believe the exploration of the Amazon
Rainforest and the discoveries it yields
will be recorded by history as the most
dramatic story of our century. I am
confident of this because of two simple
facts: 1) degenerative disease is the
leading cause of death in the modern world;
and 2) the Amazon Rainforest is the richest
source of nutrients and life energy on our
planet."
-
Amazon John Easterling,
Founder and CEO of Amazon Herb Co.
"Join me in
the Amazon friends, and think green. If we
all give herbal medicines the chance they
deserve, botanical medicine will spread like
kudzu, and the world will be the better for
it."
- James
A. Duke, Ph.D.,
The Green Pharmacy |
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