Disease germs, bacteria and viruses have built up an amazing resistance to many antibiotics by adapting and mutating when attacked by modern drugs. Bacteria have individual characteristics, just as human beings do. In the presence of an antibiotic, the weaker bacteria will be killed, but the strong may survive. When the surviving bacteria regenerate and occasionally mutate, they have a greater resistance to the antibiotic than before.
While bacteria are getting stronger, our bodies are becoming more vulnerable. One of the side effects of overusing antibiotics is that beneficial flora in the human intestine are destroyed. These “good” bacteria form a barrier against infective organisms and are vital to the body’s defense mechanism. The more we depend on antibiotics to cure disease, the more we compromise our bodies’ ability to fight the invaders.
We also have genetically modified food to be concerned with. This is food that contains genetically modified (gm) organisms, including plants that have animal genes! A full 85 percent of soybeans and 45 percent of corn now planted by farmers in the United States are genetically modified. Some estimate that 70 percent of all foodstuffs in U.S. grocery stores include gm products! The long-term effects of tampering with creation by mixing genes among different species are completely unknown. Because many gm foods have antibiotic-resistant genes in them, this too could hamper our bodies’ ability to fight infection.
In addition to these threats, our bodies are more degenerate than ever. The necessities of good health—clean air and water, wholesome food—have all been polluted or poisoned. Millions breathe dirty air and drink contaminated water. And man is infamous for depleting and ruining the soil out of which his food must grow, resulting in foods that are leeched of minerals and laden with pesticides—and insecticides, rodenticides, fumicides, herbicides, flavor enhancers and artificial preservatives. This bombardment of dangerous chemicals has measurably weakened our bodies.
The overall trend is stronger viruses and weaker bodies. Add to the mix burgeoning population centers—rural folks moving to the urban sprawls, where the jobs are. Huge concentrations of population are ready-made tinderboxes of potential disease: Crowding means a pandemic can spread from person to person like wildfire.