The Silent Killers

Chapter 2: Second Thoughts on the Germ Theory

Did you ever wonder why the members of a family can eat the same food, drink the same water, sleep under the same roof, breathe the same air and be exposed to the same germs, yet only one family member becomes ill, and all the others remain healthy? The answer is obvious – that one family member had decreased defenses or resistance in his body. Decreased resistance due to a weakened or overreactive immune system is the primary cause of disease; germs (bacteria and viruses) are only secondary factors.

Think of disease in the body as rats at a garbage dump. Did the rats put the garbage there? Of course not. Rats are scavengers; they look for places to survive. They simply took advantage of an already existing garbage dump.

You will find an abnormal number of germs in a person with low resistance or weak immunity. Did the germs put the low resistance there? No! Germs are scavengers; they look for places to thrive. Certain germs that are associated with disease processes cannot thrive in a healthy body, that is why healthy people are not sick. However, some bacteria, which are living organisms, will take advantage of a person with low resistance, and a disease process will occur.

Viruses are in a different category than bacteria. Viruses are not alive, have no intelligence nor the desire to attack you. But a body with a depleted innate immune system will make copies of the virus and release them into the blood and lymph. This is called a viral infection and can result in symptoms, sometimes severe, depending on the strength of the overall immune system. It is important to know that the body is making copies of the virus, the virus is not making copies of itself. The virus can not control any processes as it is not a living organism.

As far back as the 1870’s, Louis Pasteur, founder of the germ theory, and Robert Koch, founder of Koch’s postulates of disease, were heavily criticized for their oversimplifications of the relationships between patient and germ. The critics pointed out that healthy men or animals were often found to have “disease causing” germs within them, and that the persons who fell victim to disease were those who were already debilitated and had low resistance.

Was it not possible, they argued, that the bacteria were only the secondary cause of disease, opportunistic invaders of tissues already weakened by crumbling defenses? Not only is it possible, but it is also undefeatably and undeniably so. Koch’s postulates even PROVE this, as I shall point out later. But first, let us address ourselves to the idea that healthy people DO have “disease causing” microbes or germs within their bodies.

There are tremendous amounts of microbes living in and on your body. They are called your NORMAL FLORA, and can be categorized as helpful, harmless, or potentially harmful (opportunists). Note: the normal flora can also be called the microbiome. In fact, your microbiome has about 40 trillion bacteria on you and in your right now and without them you would not be able to survive. You also have about 380 trillion viruses on you and in you. This is called the virome and without it you would not be alive.

In a helpful relationship the microbe and you receive benefit from each other. A good example of this is found in the normal flora of your large intestine. In this case, microbes living in your intestines manufacture vitamin K as well as some of the B vitamins. You benefit from these vitamins; on the other hand, the microbe benefits from you by getting its nutrients from your intestine. It’s a give and take situation.

Microbes that live on or in your body and do not help you or harm you fall into the harmless category. Many organisms making up your normal flora are in this group.

Opportunists, microbes that are potentially harmful, are very interesting. They live on and in healthy people, yet no adverse effects are seen. However, if that healthy person allows lowered resistance, or gets an accidental or surgical wound, the opportunists might become involved in a disease process. A good example of an opportunist is staphylococcus aureus (staph). About a third of the human population carry staph in their noses and throats without suffering any illness. However, if such a person allows their resistance to fall, a staph related pneumonia might develop.

The next group of bacteria has baffled the medical profession for years. These are the “disease causing” organisms that can be found in and on healthy people. This group is a direct contradiction to, and an embarrassment to the germ theory of disease, and therefore is not generally discussed among supporters of the germ theory.

Included in this group are such organisms as Neisseria Meningitidis (the meningococcus), the bacteria associated with epidemic meningitis. Many people who have never had the disease meningitis, and probably never will have it, carry this organism in their respiratory tracts.

 Another example of this group is Diplococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus). This organism lives in 40 to 70 percent of normal healthy people, yet it is the major organism associated with the disease pneumonia. Similarly, B-hemolytic streptococci, the bacteria associated with strep throat and scarlet fever, live in the throats of many healthy individuals.

So that settles it. Healthy people DO have “disease causing” organisms with their bodies. Now let’s get to Koch’s postulates. Koch’s postulates are presented in learning institutions as “proof of the cause of disease”. They certainly do prove the cause of disease; however, the cause is NOT the organism as the medical profession would lead you to believe. Koch’s postulates can be summarized as follows: From Basic Microbiology Third Edition by Volk and Wheeler, 1972, page 324, with permission of J.B Lippincott Company:

1.      The same organism must be found in all cases of a given disease.

2.      The organism must be isolated and grown in pure culture from the infected person.

3.      The organism from pure culture must reproduce the disease when inoculated into a SUSCEPTIBLE animal.

4.      The organism then must be isolated in pure culture from the experimentally infected animal.

Page 333 of the same text defines susceptibility as “lack of resistance”. So here we have it. Koch’s postulates prove the microbes are most definitely associated with disease; however, they are not the primary cause of disease; because first and foremost, LOW RESISTANCE must be present. Several factors influence the resistance of your body, and we will cover these later.

Medical professionals know that germs do not cause disease. They may not say so, but they know so. If a doctor or nurse was totally convinced that “germs cause disease”, why would he or she want the job? Doctors and nurses are surrounded by sick people. Sick people have germs. Medical professionals usually work in hospitals. Hospitals have the largest collections of germs anywhere on earth. They are actually germ concentration camps. If the doctor or nurse believed that “germs cause disease” he or she would run from the hospital like a scared rabbit. In fact, we did see some fearful health care practitioners during the Covid-19 debacle. The smart brave ones saw millions of positive covid tests in people who never got sick, so they stayed on the front lines with no fear.

Think about this. If germs cause disease, then why isn’t everyone sick all the time? Microbes are everywhere, all the time. They are part of the ecosystem; you cannot escape them. Enough germs are in your house or apartment to wipe out an entire city! There are more viruses in the breathable air around this planet than there are stars in the known universe, and it is estimated that you will breathe about 100 million various viruses every day whether masked or not. Why isn’t everyone dead? The answer is so obvious that it is too often overlooked: RESISTANCE OF THE BODY.

But what about the Black Death of the 14th century? How about all those American Indians who died from smallpox and tuberculosis? Didn’t germs cause these terrible epidemics? No. Poor environmental conditions and low resistance associated with these poor conditions caused the epidemics.

For strong resistance or a healthy immune system, you must have (among other things to be covered later) a good diet and a relatively comfortable low pollution environment. How much was known about diet in the 14th century? How about sanitation, was waste disposed of properly or did it rot in the streets? Were people sheltered from the harsh environment properly? Being exposed to harsh weather conditions will decrease body resistance. Did they have gas and electric heat? No – they burned coal and wood. Inhaling all that smoke and particulate matter in the air decreases body resistance.

Environmental factors explain why these diseases were so destructive. Yet not all got sick and died and medicine did not exist as we know it, so it follows that a percentage of them had very high resistance.

Modern medicine is finally beginning to admit that resistance is the major factor in disease, but they cannot seem to figure out why some people are more resistant than others. From Basic Microbiology Third Edition, page 333: “The fact that some persons have mild disease, as opposed to severe disease in others, emphasizes the variation in resistance between different individuals. For the most part we are unable to explain this variation in nonspecific or natural resistance.”

You will learn why resistance varies from person to person before you finish this book. Resistance of the body (your immune system) is always the key in a disease process, NOT the germ. This is where the difference in the approaches of modern medicine and natural healing has its roots. The medical approach is “kill the germ”. The natural approach is “strengthen the resistance of the body” or “strengthen or support the immune system”.