From the July 1999 Idaho Observer:

Case studies show toxins to blame for anger, viciousness

Murder, rape, road rage, homicidal schoolyard rampages, domestic violence and child abuse have become synonymous with the American experience. Science is proving that the sociopathic manifestations of a nation that has lost its moral compass are being exacerbated by the man- made poisons that are accumulating in our bodies.

by Don Harkins

Zane Gard, MD, and others, have amassed evidence which indicates that most of our present sociological miseries are the result of a populace that has been rendered toxic from its exposure to millions of chemicals

Better dying through chemistry

The last four generations of Americans have wholeheartedly embraced the chemical company-promoted slogan, “Better Living through Chemistry.”

Most of us believe that crop yields have increased through the liberal use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides and that paints, plastics, solvents and other chemicals that we use daily are safe to use. Most of us also believe that chemically processed food is healthy and nutritious.

We are beginning to realize that with these beliefs come a high price.

“There has been a ten-fold increase in the use of pesticides on farmland over the past 30 years. In spite of this increased use, the average annual crop losses have remained constant, and the specific losses to insects have actually doubled. Furthermore, 99 percent of the pesticides applied to gardens and crops never hit their intended pest targets. After all of the spraying, the crop losses due to all pests, i.e. microorganisms, fungi, insects, rodents, etc., are about the same as they were 50 years ago,” wrote James P. Carter, MD, Dr. PH, in the book “Racketeering in Medicine.”

By 1999, our world is one where incidence of cancers are at an all time high, chronic fatigue afflicts at least one member of almost every American family and a variety of immuno-suppressive and psychological disorders are epidemic all over the nation.

According to the report “Why is Irritability, Anger and Viciousness Increasing?” (Gard, et al, March, 1994), since 1965 over four million chemical compounds have been reported in scientific literature. As of 1981, of over 70,000 chemicals currently in production, 3,000 have been intentionally added to our food supplies and over 700 can be found in municipal water supplies. Food and food storage processes utilize 10,000 other chemical compounds that can lessen the nutritional value of commonly consumed, pre-packaged foods.

We are also exposed to a long list of other chemicals that are potentially toxic to the body. The list includes petrochemicals, industrial waste, pharmaceutical drugs, street drugs, hormones, dental amalgams, vaccines, radiation (x-rays, radioactive waste), pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, paints and solvents. “The result is an incredible chemical avalanche to have befallen the human race in a relatively short time,” wrote Dr. Gard.

Dr. Gard, who was himself exposed to toxic levels of dioxin in Sturgeon, MO, in 1980, stated that, “The “full barrel,” or “overload” phenomenon can be explained by the fact that everyone has a specific level of tolerance which must not be exceeded in order to maintain health.”

Dr. Gard and others have successfully treated hundreds of people who have been diagnosed with “chemically-induced immune dysregulation,” “environmental illness” or “toxic chemical syndrome.” It is their experience that people, all of them with different metabolisms, will accumulate toxins without necessarily knowing it through food, water, and household, industrial, lawn and agricultural chemicals until the day that they get a large enough dose of a toxin. From that day forward, their bodies begin to rebel. They become chemically sensitive, sickly, emotionally unstable, irritable, clumsy and unmotivated. The ability to concentrate, learn and remember may be noticeably compromised and the ability to control emotions such as anger may be lost.

“I would like to see the autopsy reports on those young men who murdered all of those people at Columbine High School in Colorado,” commented Dr. Gard who believes that the boys most likely had toxic levels of poisons in their bodies.

There is ever increasing evidence to suggest that thousands of commonly used drugs and chemicals are stored in the body indefinitely. For example, organochlorides such as DDT have been proven to remain stored in the fat deposits of people for 20-50 years. Though stored in fat, the toxins may be re-released to the bloodstream during times of physical stress (illness, excessive heat, exercise), or emotional stresses like anxiety and trauma.

When the body is unable to properly metabolize toxins, “symptoms such as fatigue, mental confusion, hostile feelings, mild aggression or severe psychotic states may result,” Dr. Gard said.

Interestingly, research being conducted by Dr. Frank Falck, et al, supports the observations of Dr. Gard by indicating that fat itself is not the cause of conditions such as breast cancer in women. Dr. Falck's work shows that it is the toxins and pesticides stored in the fat which cause the cancer.

The National Academy of Sciences reported that the average American consumes 40 milligrams of pesticides each year in food alone and carries about 1/10 of a gram permanently in his or her body fat. “Unfortunately, the human body has had no previous experience with these chemicals and there is no natural machinery in the body to break them down, much less eliminate them,” observed Dr. Gard.

Dr. Gard, a pioneer in the science of clinical toxicology, is convinced that the only way for people diagnosed as “toxic” to rid themselves of the poisons stored in their fat is to undergo an intensive detox regimen supervised by a qualified health professional.

The meticulously footnoted report which references 19 peer-reviewed reports and includes supportive results from three independent studies from 1979, 1986 and 1988, and five detoxification case studies, makes the logical suggestion that “the increase in mass murders is also due to this gradual increase of chemicals in our environment. For this reason it would be wise for all those who are involved in acts of terror, mass murders, etc., to undergo full psychological, immunological and toxicological evaluations.”

Toxins and sociopathic behavior

For the last 15 years Dr. Gard has been carefully recording the results of his experiences in detoxifying people. He has learned that detoxification is the only treatment that improves scores on the fourth scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -- the section of the universally accepted personality test which identifies sociopathic tendencies.

It has been reported by the major networks that at least one of the boys had been taking state-prescribed “psychological” (addictive, psychotropic) drugs. What if an autopsy were performed and it turns out that the boys were loaded with the pesticides, preservatives and other chemicals that most Americans are loaded with? What if it were determined that state-prescribed and FDA-approved doses of psychotropic drugs were the toxic exposures that turned them into murderous psychopaths?

What if government-approved toxins and state-prescribed psychotropic drugs are the common denominators in all of the homicidal schoolyard rampages that have been occurring with increasing frequency over the last three years?

One has to wonder if it would not be a more prudent public policy to ban the use of toxins and drugs rather than use such incidents to convince the American people to disarm themselves.

What happens if the American people learn that government-approved toxins and state-prescribed drugs are causing people to be angry and vicious towards one another after the government has taken our guns away?