Is the World “Dirtier” Than We Thought?

What Is Our Relationship With “Dirt”?

Big surprise (or not)! Dirt is everywhere! We assume that we in the West are living “clean” lives but if you look at the air on a sunny day in New York — where I am — you will see an extremely dense cloud of dust!

Seeing that, if we then got motivated enough to analyze what is going into our lungs as we go about our day “on the town,” we’d probably faint. What are those dust particles made of? Bits from garbage dumps? Car tires and wall paint? Other pedestrians’ hair and skin? Microplastics from masks? Geoengineering sprays?

Whatever the composition, we are breathing it all in — and amazingly, we just keep walking like Energizer bunnies. Personally, I consider it a major compliment to how resilient and beautiful our bodies are!

By the way, just in case, let me make it clear: the dramatic description of dust was not an advertisement for smart masks, lol — although I imagine that soon enough the WEF crowd will use the fact of tremendous air pollution as a “reason” to try and dress us all up in smart cattlewear. And why wouldn’t they? They quite love cattlewear on peasants, so …

Back to dust. It turns out that dust has some pretty “interesting” stuff in it. According to a 2009 report by NPR, to this day, some dust contains DDT, despite the chemical being banned decades ago. And according to this 2021 Conversation article, some dust is natural, coming from rocks, soils and even space. At the same time, the DustSafe program in Australia, for example, revealed that house dust could contain substances like these:

Trace metals
Radioactive elements
Antibiotic resistant genes (genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics)
Microplastics and
Perfluorinated chemicals (PFAS) found in fire-fighting foams, stain and water protection for fabrics and carpets, some packaging and other sources

As they say, sometimes, innocence is bliss …

Smartdust

While we are on the topic of dust, here is another kind to keep on our radars — smartdust. “Smartdust” refers to microscopic sensors distributed in the environment for the monitoring of different “assets” (that seemingly includes us, too). Formal definition: “millimeter-sized, low-power devices that are used for sensing, computing, and wireless communication.” And here is a “happy” review of smartdust from Nanowerk:

“Imagine a cloud of sensors, each the size of a grain of sand or even smaller, blown aloft by hurricane winds and relaying data on the storm to weather stations below. Picture an invisible sensor network embedded into a smart city’s roads to monitor traffic, road surface damage and identify available parking spaces — all in real time.

Or billions of nanosensors distributed over forests and other areas with fire hazards to detect a fire at its very beginning. [Didn’t they already try that with DDT?] Or envision programmable smart dust that triggers an alarm signal when invisible microcracks are detected in a turbine blade.”

So many great ideas. Mommy, where do I hide from them, where?!!

Historical Perspective

When it comes to traditional dirt, we as a species are not new to it at all. We’ve been living around dirt for countless generations, perhaps for millions of years. The problem is though, the kind of dirt that we lived around before the industrial revolution was very different from the dirt we are dealing with today.

In general, we are equipped with tools needed to deal with natural dirt. Assuming the absence of environmental toxins that unnecessarily burden our bodies (a condition that probably doesn’t exist today even inside Jeff Bezos’ house), interaction with natural dirt is supposed to help us maintain a healthy microbiome, build up our immunity, etc.

After all, for the longest time in human history, we drank from lakes and rivers and bathed in them, touched the soil and the trees without fear, went to the bathroom under the bush, didn’t use soap — and somehow made it to this day! If dealing with natural dirt were lethal to human beings, I wouldn’t be around to type this story, and you wouldn’t be around to read it.

So the good news is that we can handle dirt. The bad news is that when our bodies are overburdened with toxins, fighting off hostile microbes and parasites is a harder job.

So in a way, we are looking at two rather different conditions: in one scenario, a generally healthy person is fighting off parasites and microbes in an unpoisoned world using natural means (even animals seek out antimicrobial and antiparasitic herbs!), and in the other, a person who is being poisoned from birth, is fighting off not just the regular pathogens but also GMO bugs, artifacts of synthetic biology, and God knows what.

Spices and Herbs: An Optimistic Interlude

The state of the world is somewhat bleak as far as poisoning goes but here is some positive news: spices and herbs! When I think about common spices that so many of us use every day, I can’t help but feel gratitude and awe.

Modern Hygiene: The Greatest Invention or a Trap?

Let me be clear about my views on hygiene. I think that for modern people in the modern world, good hygiene — without going overboard — is a very useful thing. Again, we live in a poisoned world, our microbiome may not be as rich and protective as what our ancestors enjoyed, and reasonable precaution makes sense. And personally, raised in Moscow in a medical family, I imbibed good hygiene habits with mother’s milk!

Ironically, I forgot all about it within days when hiking in Tibet, and to this day, I am laughing at how “being in the wilderness,” hanging around nomads, and having no access to running water for days changed my “civilized” habits with such ease.

Speaking of the environment and behavioral change in the context of hygiene, here is a case of behavioral science combined with a quest for “cleanliness.” I wrote about it in the article about the fear of contagion last year but it is interesting to revisit in the light of “dirt.”

Val Curtis was a British scientist, a passionate hygiene proponent and the Director of the Environmental Health Group at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In 2020, continuing her public health mission, as a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours and a contributor to SAGE, she advised the UK government on how to “encourage people to adhere to recommendations.” Unfortunately, she passed away in October 2020, may she rest in peace.

It seems like in her social engineering efforts (that I find lamentable), she sincerely believed that the indigenous villagers in Africa were in dire need of her input and parental care in the form of changing their lifestyle habits to what she considered “correct.” Missionary activities! It’s always the same! Later on, she transferred the missionary approach that she had used on Africans to COVID behavioral modification in the UK. All very sad!

Here is a video of her talking about the effort to convince indigenous people to use the toilet. The ironic part is that, while the toilet is a great convenience and an absolute necessity in the context of urban living, for example, it simultaneously breaks the natural cycle as there is a point to “returning” waste back to earth in natural way, replenishing the soil, etc.

So, effectively, when she tried to “convert” indigenous people to modern ways, “for their own good,” she was perhaps making a mistake that the scientists will “discover” some decades from now (and will write fancy books about, no doubt — assuming we are all still around)!

Polio Paradox

Here is a paradox that has to do with polio and untreated water. Before we go there, I’d like to say that I am personally subscribed to the theory linking polio to arsenic and DDT (I wrote about it here). There is also a theory that the polio virus does not exist. It is very good to consider all theories and make up our own minds!

But for the sake of this intellectual exercise, let’s consider the paradox described on HistoryOfVaccines.org: as an illustration of how “modern scientists” assume things, and their assumptions backfire.

“Polio reached epidemic proportions in the early 1900s in countries with relatively high standards of living, at a time when other diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid, and tuberculosis were declining. Indeed, many scientists think that advances in hygiene paradoxically led to an increased incidence of polio.

The theory is that in the past, infants were exposed to polio, mainly through contaminated water supplies, at a very young age. Infants’ immune systems, aided by maternal antibodies still circulating in their blood, could quickly defeat poliovirus and then develop lasting immunity to it.

However, better sanitary conditions meant that exposure to polio was delayed until later in life, on average, when a child had lost maternal protection and was also more vulnerable to the most severe form of the disease.”

My personal takeaway: regardless of what caused the polio epidemic, when people try to “improve nature” based on greed or just hubris, they often fall flat on their faces after some time because they proceed with the plans based on a very limited understanding of the world — and, after some time passes, it becomes clear that they have not thought things through.

Unsanitary Practices in the Industries We Used to Trust

Now that we’ve established that dirt is all around us and there is no way to hide, let’s look at how to plays out in real life “industry practices” in the western world. On my end, coming from Moscow, up until a few years ago, I had very romantic ideas about American “sanitary standards.” I thought that everything was sparkling clean, and that at least in terms of hygiene, I could trust restaurants, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and so on. I was wrong!

Dirty ceiling water dripping into food? Whole Foods warned by the FDA for “unsanitary conditions” at a kitchen in MA (2016)

AP: “The Food and Drug Administration has sent Whole Foods Market a letter over “serious violations” at a Massachusetts kitchen, warning the grocer that food prepared there “may have been contaminated with filth [emphasis mine].”

The FDA’s Public Health Service describes multiple inspections conducted during February at the North Atlantic kitchen in Everett, which had condensate from ceiling joints dripping onto work surfaces below.

Another incident involved an employee spraying sanitizer on work surfaces near a coworker preparing food, resulting in the “sanitizer being sprayed onto an open colander of salad leafy greens.” Other violations included employees not washing hands or changing gloves in between tasks, for example.”

Here is a more detailed description of the incident by Investors.com:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking Whole Foods Market (WFM) to resolve unsanitary conditions at a plant in Massachusetts, where the agency found listeria and other serious food-safety violations during a series of inspections in February.

The FDA said in a warning letter that it observed an employee spraying ammonium sanitizer near an open colander of salad, and that another worker’s “upper sleeves were frequently touching” leafy greens as they were packaged.

The agency also said it saw ready-to-eat pesto pasta and mushrooms quesadillas being prepared in a room where ceiling joints were dripping and observed an employee assembling cartons and packing quinoa cakes without washing hands or changing gloves [emphasis mine].“

Contaminated eye drops (2023)

CBS News: “The Food and Drug Administration recently announced recalls of several eye drop brands linked to an outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria responsible for four deaths and multiple cases of people going blind.

Fourteen people also have lost their vision and four have had their eyeballs removed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of May 15, 81 patients across 18 states were found to have contracted the bacteria, known as Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

EzriCare and Delsam Pharma “Artificial Tears Lubricant Eye Drops.” Global Pharma Healthcare on February 2 recalled all lots of its EzriCare and Delsam Pharma brands of “Artificial Tears Lubricant Eye Drops,” which it said could be contaminated with bacteria.”

You can find more information about the recalls here.

Hospital infections and harm — In early 2021, this was reported by multiple sources and then scrubbed off the internet — but not entirely so. The story was about a drug-resistant and potentially lethal species of Candida that people can get during hospital stay and specifically, about its presence in a 2020 COVID ward: Mysterious, Killer Fungus Spread Rampantly At US Hospital Covid Ward: Study.

And here are some alarming numbers from the Journal of Patient Safety (2013): “Using a weighted average of the 4 studies, a lower limit of 210,000 deaths per year was associated with preventable harm in hospitals.

Given limitations in the search capability of the Global Trigger Tool and the incompleteness of medical records on which the Tool depends, the true number of premature deaths associated with preventable harm to patients was estimated at more than 400,000 per year. Serious harm seems to be 10- to 20-fold more common than lethal harm.”

And of course, there is also recent reporting on bacterial pneumonia being a major factor in “COVID deaths.”

100 million doses of J&J COVID “vaccines” recalled due to unsanitary conditions at the plant (2021)

NYT: “The chief executive of Emergent BioSolutions, whose Baltimore plant ruined millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, disclosed … that more than 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine are now on hold as regulators check them for possible contamination.

In more than three hours of testimony before a House subcommittee, the chief executive, Robert G. Kramer, calmly acknowledged unsanitary conditions, including mold and peeling paint [emphasis mine], at the Baltimore plant.

He conceded that Johnson & Johnson — not Emergent — had discovered contaminated doses, and he fended off aggressive questions from Democrats about his stock sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses for top company executives.

Emergent’s Bayview Baltimore plant was forced to halt operations a month ago after contamination spoiled the equivalent of 15 million doses, but Mr. Kramer told lawmakers that he expected the facility to resume production “in a matter of days.” He said he took “very seriously” a report by federal regulators that revealed manufacturing deficiencies and accepted “full responsibility.” […]

Hours before the hearing began, committee staff members released confidential audits, previously reported by The Times, that cited repeated violations of manufacturing standards. A top federal manufacturing expert echoed those concerns in a June 2020 report, warning that Emergent lacked trained staff and adequate quality control.”

Allegedly, since 2020, 400 million doses total by that manufacturer were thrown out. And like I said in my earlier Substack article on the topic, “every other problem of these ‘vaccines’ aside, how many blatantly contaminated ones — mold and all — were injected into arms? Given that we are in a free fall as far as standards go, how do we even know?”

“Fears of contaminated vaccine batch after people across Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana contract infections” (2018)

Daily Mail: “Vaccinations are causing infections in three states, prompting fears a batch was contaminated.

‘Multiple people’ have developed rashes, pain, redness, swelling and hard lumps in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. It transpires all of them received vaccines produced by Kentucky-based provider Location Vaccination since September 2018.”

Remdesivir recall — To read the original source please go to the FDA page for recalls and type in the company name (Gilead in this case). All in all, it’s a “fun” page to explore!

The metal contamination of Moderna “vaccines” in Japan

A “foreign body in a vial” in Spain

Toxoplasma in foods — Given the potential significance of this parasite (please see my article from last year), the 2022 paper from Spain titled, “Toxoplasma gondii in Foods: Prevalence, Control, and Safety,” leaves us with a bit of an underwhelming feeling about the “safety” of our common foods (and that’s before we start pondering about fancier subjects like mRNA). Here is just the bit about produce:

“In Poland, vegetables from shops and home gardens presented a contamination rate by T. gondii of 9.7%. In China, the prevalence of DNA protozoan was detected in 3.6% in vegetable analyses, whereas in Morocco these data increases to 21.2%. In Italy, other studies did not found T. gondii in fresh produce or it was at a low prevalence (0.8%).

The prevalence in packaged ready-to-eat mixed salads was investigated by microscopic examination and detection by PCR, and the results revealed that 0.8% of the ready-to-eat salads were positive for T. gondii, where a high oocyst burden was found (from 62 to 554 per gram of vegetable). Also with molecular and microscopic methods, a mean of oocyst concentration in salad has been detected of approximately 23.5 oocysts per gram.”

Dr. Garth Nicolson on mycoplasmas in some “traditional” vaccines — This talk by Dr. Garth Nicolson is extremely interesting because straight out contamination of medical products is a topic that I think is too much under the radar and needs a lot more spotlight.

Conclusion

I think that no matter the situation, we greatly benefit from having a realistic idea about what we are dealing with in terms of unsanitary industry practices and our hygiene. I also think it is very good to master the art of walking the thin and almost Confucian line of awareness, on the one side of which is acting careless due to ignorance, and on the other side of which is sanitizer-spraying paranoia with zero joy.

The world around is definitely not the Disney paradise of imaginary standards of cleanliness that we have been led to believe. But it is still a beautiful place, and life and free will are beautiful gifts for us, and our bodies are wondrous — and so we can choose to treat ourselves with love, stand up for ourselves, protect ourselves as much as we can, learn about herbs — and pray for the best. I think it could be the best plan under the circumstance.

About the Author

To find more of Tessa Lena’s work, be sure to check out her bio, Tessa Fights Robots.

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