The Center for Disease Prevention (CDC) is raising national alarms about salmonella in backyard flocks of chickens. It advises a washing hands every time you touch your chickens, and not keeping them in your house or around food. The CDC goes beyond reasonable with some of its other recommendations, suggesting the bureaucrats who wrote the guidelines know nothing about keeping live chickens. Salmonellosis is generally a self-limited case of diarrhea that lasts from four to seven days without complications, except in special cases. Pig ears that are used as dog chew toys are also suspected.
This flies all over me, because the CDC meanwhile is advertising measles vaccines for children, within the same Yahoo article. The CDC website at https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/backyardpoultry-05-19/index.html gives the CDC’s version of the salmonella story.
I know something about chickens, having kept them for over 11 years, and I know something about salmonella, having gone to medical school, where I learned it is rampant in the environment. My medical texts say there are over 1000 strains of salmonella. It says “salmonellosis” is caused by inadequately cooked food, especially meat, poultry, and eggs. Fruits and vegetables which are fertilized with animal manure are also implicated. What the medical texts say that the government agencies don’t tell you, is that processed food is also a source, because the bacteria survives drying. Incidentally, a dried taco seasoning distributed by Walmart and others has recently been recalled because it is suspected of containing salmonella-contaminated cumin, a spice.
I’ve also been tracking the FDA and its food scares since the E. coli in the spinach scare in 2006. E. coli usually is considered “normal flora,” in the human gut and aids in digestion. It only becomes pathological when natural barriers break down. Antibiotic therapy, which is widely used, not only in human but in animal diseases and as a preventative, wipes out bacteria indiscriminately, but it never completely eliminates the pathogens, giving rise to antibiotic-resistant strains that then proliferate, with nothing able to curb them. That’s why hospital germs are the most dangerous of all. Methacillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus (MRSA) is a universally recognized strain of Staph aureus that requires extreme measures to control, and it can be fatal.
Meanwhile, the CDC is busy promoting the measles vaccine, as a new “epidemic” of measles is sweeping he world, with pockets of outbreaks, we are told, among un-vaccinated children. The controversy over vaccines comes in tandem with the explosion of patented, prescription vaccines for everything from flu to Zika virus, but the controversy is political, not medical or scientific. While the medical or scientific institutions take pro-or-con stands, there is little in the news or from “educated” sources giving both pros and cons, and few (maybe none) who understand or want to understand the larger picture. Or, it may be too early to tell what the ramifications are.
We are all caught in context, and predictions abound, but the past gives more information because we have a sense of the outcomes. The bubonic plague, which wiped out a third of Europe in the 1340s and 1350s, was blamed on God’s wrath and witchcraft back then, but was later discovered to be carried by fleas on the rats that infested the cities and ships. We still have rats and fleas, but we don’t hear much about bubonic plague anymore, partly because sanitation and nutrition have improved and partly because centuries if exposure have produced varying degrees of resistance. Even HIV, which was identified in 1983, has evolved from carrying a quick death sentence to becoming more of a chronic disease. While the advances of modern medicine have contributed to the long-term survival of HIV and AIDS patients, it’s also possible that the disease itself goes through cycles of infectivity and potency.
The media publishes federal agency press releases as though they are news stories, without question, investigation, or suspicion that they are anything less than gospel. But federal agencies like the CDC and FDA are increasingly guilty of “boundary creep” by taking on more and greater advocacy roles for patented vaccines and other drugs, or alternatively, against small, independent food producers. In the years I’ve been monitoring the FDA, it has initiated food scares over spinach, peanuts, eggs, cantaloupes, poultry, and pet foods, to name a few, yet while the scares make national news, precipitate food recalls, and have forced some companies into bankruptcy, the scares generally are hyped-up bluster over limited illness and almost no mortality.
About this salmonella outbreak that has killed two people and hospitalized over 122 in multiple states so far, any discriminating reader, especially one with a medical background, might naturally question how the CDC arrived at this reported chain of events. How did they know the salmonella outbreak was “caused” by chickens or pig ears? How do they know the hospitalized cases are even the result of salmonella toxicity? The processes involved to isolate a pathogen are time, labor, and financially intensive. Most cases of infectious disease are treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics. Salmonella is so widespread in the environment that anyone with low resistance—as from poor nutrition, bad sanitation, antibiotic use (which reduces normal, protective flora), or pre-existing illness–might be susceptible.
If the CDC is truly interested in public health, it might do more to educate the public about the broader aspects of health, instead of pushing the panic button over speculative claims and unverified reports.
In my eleven years of hugging and kissing my chickens—they are very affectionate—I have developed some health problems, but salmonella has never been one of them. I have minor scars on both arms from being scratched, but the worst is the deformed left wrist, which I broke when I fell chasing the fox that was chasing my Squire.
When I picked Squire up with my dangling left wrist, it was the sweetest, most healing hug I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t stop to clean the mud off my arm, and neither the “health care professional” who wrapped it, nor the one who set it in a cast, bothered to clean it , either.
This is the institutionalized version of “health care” today.
katharineotto 
Every US government agency, of necessity, is in the pockets of the same people who lobby politicians. The CDC belongs to Big Pharma, pure and simple. As to commercial media, it is in every pocket of every corporation that has a few million tax-deductible dollars to spend on advertising. How could the system work in any other way? CDC managers go in Big Pharma’s mouth and come out its anus properly digested and ready for their promised ride through the great capitalist toilet whirlpool.
Sha’Tara,
Right-o. And said so succinctly, too. That implicates a lot of federal agencies, justifiably so. The agencies create a lot of government jobs, with government benefits and pension plans, so they are a large lobby group in itself. That may be a reason nobody dares question or criticize the CDC or FDA.
It surprises me that with all the groups suing Purdue Pharma for the opioid epidemic, nobody has implicated the FDA for approving ever stronger opioids, even when their own panels recommended against them.
When outright corruption rules – and is accepted as ‘It’s how we do business’ then there can no longer be any surprises about any of it.
What surprises me is that people are so willing to put up with it, even to defend it, or to close their eyes to it.
From my reading of history and personal experience, people have always been this way. Used to be public floggings, torture and executions were considered great entertainment (which devolved into sports like football and hockey!). The problem is that “progressives” have been under the politically correct delusion that mankind had suddenly and miraculously evolved in the last 200 years or less. Mankind does not evolve, neither physically, mentally nor spiritually. Some individuals break free of the Muggles programing but that’s it. We can go back to the old empires and easily conclude that nothing has changed. Man, as a species, as Homo Sapiens, has either refused to evolve, or is unable to. As I said, some individuals can break out of the herd and choose a personal life of awareness, compassion, empathy, but always, and only, as individuals.
Sha’Tara,
Yes, and these out-of-the-box individuals can serve as inspiration to others. It’s still too early to give up on humanity.
There’s always been those who served as inspiration for others, problem being that such inspiration doesn’t use Velcro and doesn’t stick for long. As for giving up on humanity, that I will never do. I will give up on Earthians though, if they don’t soon smarten up. They aren’t human, just considered as pseudo-human and likely failed. The key to recognizing humans: they don’t kill. Food for thought in today’s exponentially increasing violence on the planet.
Sha’Tara,
I must not be human, then, because I kill mosquitoes whenever I can, and I have a special vendetta against ants. Four sizes of ants have invaded my house, and fire ants are especially vicious. When they bite, they cause little pus-filled pimples to rise up a few days later. And I drowned a rat a week or two ago. Caught him by the tail when he was drinking out of the chicken’s water.
Maybe the varmints cast a spell over my well?
However, I don’t use poison and kill my victims one at a time.
From that basis, I’m not human either… Mosquitoes, ants, wasps and definitely rats are not welcome here. I use bleach to discourage ants and moles. Rats I kill, no choice. I trap them and drown them in ice-cold water to minimize the suffering which I can feel so it’s a very unpleasant experience. I learned not to feed the wildlife as it attracts all sorts of rodents and I re-designed my composting system with cement and wire to prevent access by rats and crows. What the Teachers were saying was more in line with the killing of others as in war or revenge or for personal entertainment or profit. I did become vegetarian as a result of their teaching on the matter. From my current perspective, this is not a good world, even discounting man’s influence on it. It’s modus operandi is predation and I do not accept that as a natural occurrence but as an imposition.
Sha’Tara,
Do you believe other worlds are exempt from life feeding on life? The life-and-death cycle is so crucial to the world we know–even disregarding man’s influence–that it seems an important part of the balance.
I tolerate wasps, because they are pollinators.
Thanks for the question, Katharine. First though, I hear you on the wasps – I’ll see if I can make some changes though they are so prolific here and dangerous when swarming. Anyway, to the question: “Do you believe other worlds are exempt from life feeding on life? The life-and-death cycle is so crucial to the world we know–even disregarding man’s influence–that it seems an important part of the balance.”
To respond to that adequately would need for me to write an extended essay on the subject of predation. Ever since I encountered “the Teachers” I have known that predation is NOT A NATURAL PROCESS, but a process of control once death was introduced into this universe. Predation is very much part of the power held by the Patriarchy and is endemic to all parts of this universe that were conquered by the Time Lords. I cannot explain everything here but most of it can be found on my blog somewhere. For example, who are the “Time Lords” I refer to so often? Another very long story but suffice to say that when you see/encounter/hear about psychopathic powerful entities or elites, you are touching the realm of the Time Lords and their imposed, death dealing Patriarchy.
The only worlds I know of who do not have a predationary system of control exist outside the realms of the Time Lords, i.e., outside this universe. Example, Altaria, a world I am familiar with has having spent past and future lives on, exists in a non-space called the Nexus. Thus it is considered to be a “No-World” and it cannot be found by any entity or force looking for it. You could pass right through it and remain totally unaware you did so. Altaria is a world “ruled” by its life, whatever and whomever that might be. It has no central type of government. Everything and everyone is part of all other(s). There is no death on Altaria. I have often told this story as an example and comparison to Earth: (This is hypothetical as such a thing could not happen on Altaria.)
Imagine that something unthinkable happens: a child dies, or is killed. Altarians are empaths and telepaths. Instantly, every ISSA being on Altaria is aware of this terrible event having taken place. The entire world’s activities stop for the death of a child is the most horrible thing that could happen. Individual minds, linked to the One Mind of the world focus on this event to discover how and why it happened and to further fine tune Altarian life to prevent such a thing every happening again. Here the focus of an entire world is on the accidental death of one child. Now compare this to the “reality” of Earth, a world very much in the grips of Time Lord Patriarchy, filled with sickness, famine, war, rape, pillage, extortion, slavery, genocides. A world whose very God, or gods, exude the same murderous, predatory mindset. Tens of thousands of children and their mothers die of preventable causes daily… and what’s formost in the news? Those who make this happen. And is that news condemnatory? No, it is by far laudatory. Now then, can anyone tell me Earth isn’t a sick place? Can any ISSA defend this state of affairs?
Your question was about predation: yes, I know of worlds where life rules, therefore there is no predation for it is a rule that life does not kill, take, or destroy life. Predation was instituted to perpetuate the mill of pain and suffering that feeds the Time Lords… and you can also call their system the Matrix.
Sha’Tara,
Thanks for your extended reply, but it only tempts me to ask more questions, such as whether Altarians eat, and if so, what do they eat? Another question is if there is no death, does the place get crowded, or is it an expansive place that grows in some other kind of space? For starters.
Thank you for commenting, and for your questions. What can I say about Altaria, or Altarians? First, admittedly it is not a common, or “normal” world where people are born, live and die to re-incarnate somewhere at sometime. Altaria is a school, a training place. Only a very few people who by our standards are very ancient, reside permanently here. Those of us who are granted access to Altaria must come equipped with a “purpose” that requires additional information and training in that particular “art”, in my case, how to function in non-empaths worlds from the basis of self empowerment guided by compassion. Think of it as a training centre. We learn the art of changing physical forms as we go on training exercises on specific worlds usually accompanied by a mentor or Teacher or Watcher. So, as in the case of an academic institution, there is no population problem as people constantly come and go.
Humans or ISSA beings who come and go on Altaria take many different physical (and often non-physical) forms. The bipedal types with Earthian type bodies are a minority here. Regarding food intake, what is ingested depends a great deal on the type of body an entity has. As an Altarian, for the duration of my stay, I use a winged body, reminiscent to that of a fairy, with translucent wings not used for flying but to “display” one’s pedigree and life’s history in symbols any adept can translate for her/himself. We practice open telepathy and have no secrets from each other. I chose a body that is adapted to “breatharianism” which means obviously no ingestion of solids. I can live off the air of the world, off my own breath as the word implies. Whatever the claims, this can never be successfully achieved on a world such as Earth. Something about the density of the Earthian body simply demands the intake of solids or it fails. This is a degenerative practice that ultimately kills the body often leaving the purposeless mind at loose ends. It is a practice of mental and spiritual deterioration that leads those who ingest solids to accept and even support the concept of predation.
Fascinating. I was thinking today about how plants make their own food from water and CO2, with a few trace minerals from the earth. Might they be more evolved than those who must eat solid food to survive?
I suppose it all depends on what is meant by evolution. Plants are certainly resilient.
As to the well, you said the water was brackish. I suspect that a layer of salted water or moisture attacked the steel casing and ate through it. 300 feet, wow, that’s deep. There are some that deep in the hills around here but most are half that depth. I suspect that will change now that our highest mountains no longer have ice on them year round but only a bit of snow in winter which is bound to seriously affect runoff. Still, nothing being done to protect open streams here, either from dumping of garbage or effluent/runoff from heavily sprayed corn and cash crop fields. Disgraceful hence why I don’t think highly of Earthians. They deserve no breaks.
More salmonella in factory farmed chickens and eggs and hence indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Another report was that living on a farm( old fashioned type I think) was good for helping become resistant to range of diseases and in particular auto immune. A peck of dirt! Delightful stories about your chickens.
Georgina,
My first lot of chickens was from a factory farm, although I didn’t know it at first. They started going lame after six weeks. I later discovered they were bread to become McDonald’s fryers after six weeks, genetically mutated to grow fast for large breasts and short lifespans. They quickly outgrew their cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems. They were so sweet, though, that I wondered how those 13 ended up with me, out of a batch of 25,000 in one building. They all had distinctive personalities.
I fully believe your hypothesis about farm living. Diseases spread quickly in crowded conditions (as in factory farms), so I’m sure antibiotics are used extensively. Also, I think autoimmune diseases are spurred (if not caused) by the immune system’s reaction to a glut of unnatural substances, like vaccines. medicines, or chemical food additives.
Oh, that’s quite shocking but at least they had a good home with you and interesting about their personalities. I am reading a book called The Inner Life of Animals’ Peter Holleben, I think. He kept chickens and observed them closely and puts forward ideas about animal awareness. I’m actually listening to it on Audible. Much less weight and easier on my eyes. How is your novel getting on.? I have had some invaluable advice on my submission chapters from Amabel Siorghas , think she blogs under word artisan and in Vermont where there is a good creative writing MA.
I read your other comment first and am confused. Are these two different guys, or is Peter Wohlleben the same guy as Peter Holleben? I think they probably are. I’d love to read about his experience with chickens.
I have stalled on my novel but need to do something quickly. I have a major problem with my well that may be expensive. Water is turbid and seems salty, maybe a hole in the casing. Just happened Friday. I’m having to borrow drinking water for the chickens and me.
Oh, that sounds bad. We are ok for water,although little rain this year and my friends source from a stream, spring has gone dry. Thankfully she has a back up deep bore hole so there are still good reserves underground. I got the name wrong the first time, sorry so sent the link. I need to recharge my novel and have got some editing, critical help. Seems omniscient narrators are not the thing anymore. No God like, all seeing views accepted any more or it seems easily read by younger readers. Hope all goes well with your water supply.
Thanks, but it appears my well is defunct. For now, my sister (and brother-in-law) next door have affixed a hose from their county water line to my house, but it’s only a temporary fix as we decide what to do.
All the outer world’s ills pale in comparison when problems hit so close to home.
Yes, sounds bad. Water is key. Our worst time was when our pump seized up. Hope this gets resolved asap and you can be back to normal.
Thanks,
I’ve had a pump seize up, a calcium blockage in the casing, a power line that went bad, and a power outage that lasted a week. In other words, I’m over wells and pumps and am considering selling and moving to a rental in some other country.
About being back to normal, I’m not sure what normal is. Nobody else seems to know, either, so I’m not alone..
Whereabouts on the planet is this well problem? I know your well is not well but how deep is your well?
It’s in Savannah, GA, and it’s 300 feet deep, into the Florida aquifer.
Hope you get to a better place then. Agree, there’s nothing much normal about these days, not even access to water. Here, a neighbour recorded our last rain as 24 th April.
Peter Wohlleben is the author of these books…..his 2015 book about natural forests, Das geheime Leben der Bäume:Was sie fühlen, wie sie kommunizieren – die Entdeckung einer verborgenen Welt,[3] (The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World) he takes the perspective of the trees, much as Jacques Cousteau took the perspective of the inhabitants of the oceans.[citation needed] Among other phenomena, this book introduces for a popular audience the “Wood-Wide Web”, through which nutrition and signals are exchanged among trees.
In 2016 he published his book Das Seelenleben der Tiere which was translated into English and published under the title The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion — Surprising Observations of a Hidden World in 2017.[4] His 2012 book Kranichflug und Blumenuhr, was translated as The Weather Detective: Rediscovering Nature’s Secret Signs in 2018. His new book The Secret Wisdom of Nature: Trees, Animals, and the Extraordinary Balance of All Living Things – Stories from Science and Observation is slated for release in 2019.
Georgina,
Fascinating. I’ve never heard of him, but he sounds like my kind of guy. I will check out the books.
Here in NZ, campylobacter is an even bigger issue than salmonella. I’ve had it twice since moving here – both times from factory farmed supermarket chicken (mainly because they spend the whole day in battery cages standing in feces). And the doctors I saw say it’s a myth you can prevent it by making sure chicken is well-cooked.
Stuart,
Interesting. I don’t eat chicken anymore. Please, don’t anybody ever give me a live pig.
A friend of mine has taken to saying “isn’t it something to lose faith you never knew you had.” I find myself questioning, especially now, the protuberance of health scared involving food at the same time facilities are burning, and the marginalized conspiracy folk you mentioned elsewhere. The sorts pointing out how “elites” warn about food shortages.
Of course, I could just be a crank. 🙂 I’ll have been called worse.
It’s strange, isn’t it, that this appears to be a manufactured crisis, but by whom, and to what purpose?
I tend to believe that’s not a one word answer. I’d say globalists for convenience, but everyone has an angle on who they are. Bill Gates is a candidate, Yuuuuge Pharma has its disgusting mitts on everyone’s pie in that I don’t think there’s a lobby they haven’t pocketed. I mean, the list goes on. You consider that the Lobbies sponsor politicians, then you ask questions about “The Government” which makes decisions that outwardly favour foreign governments, exemplified by things like AIPAC which is an interesting group because the fringe benefits very clearly favour one party which is not the American Peoples’. I saw you’d mentioned the Media-Industrial Complex manipulation in another post, which seems to exist only to keep people in a false dichotomous mode that delineates questions… Yeah.
Contentious stuff. You never feel like a tinfoil hatter until you start lining up ducks.
What a reasonable, well thought-out answer, so rare in today’s context. Your moniker, “The Serpent’s Loft”, suggests snake symbolism, one of the most famous and maligned of universal archetypes. Thank you for reading so many of my blog posts, and for commenting.
Do you believe the players in this great control game believe they have the keys to immortality, that they will be safe from their own undoing?
I like snakes, by the way, but I respect them enough not to tread on them, if I can avoid it.
No step on Snek, eh? I like it. What I think is that “they” think they can achieve immortality through various means. It strikes me there is likely some competition among the Learned Elders, as it were, that we don’t see. Electronic? Surgical? Cybernetic? There are a number of vectors I’ve seen discussed in ‘the circles.’ Do I think they will be spared? No. There’s always something to be afraid of. We were born to die. Upload your consciousness, somebody can pull the plug. Do surgery? You’ll run out of organs to grow or harvest. Cybernetics? Require maintenance, so they can fail – like a body.
What I do think is they’ll destroy us all gleefully to meet their probably ill-defined, reactionary goals. I personally view this whole sad and sordid ordeal as a complete severance of man from Nature and Spirituality. Something approaching the final form of Materialism as a state of absolute, irrational terror- a fear of death, obsolescence, and loss of control.
Yes, yes, and yes. I was just looking at your blog, which I am now following. Are you a Scot in Maine then? I’m looking forward to reading more of your perspective, but at the moment, my little Tweety Pie just flew to the head rest of my recliner, my two roosters are serenading each other, and I’m in danger of chicken poop down my neck if I don’t move quickly.
Not Scottish, I’m afraid. Nothing so exotic. Just an Anglo – Yankee, English-American. Jury’s out on what to call me, since I belong to an invisible minority.
Godspeed. I’m very familiar with what you’re going through. My mother sometimes keeps house chickens. Usually the runts that would get the bejesus pecked out of them.
Thanks for the kind words, by the way. I’ll be looking forward to gleaning more from your outlook, as well.