America and China have become strategic rivals. Their trading relationship will be fraught for years to come
Over the past two years investors and executives watching the trade tensions between America and China have veered between panic and nonchalance. Hopes for a cathartic deal that would settle the countries' differences have helped global stock-markets rise by a bumper 13% this year. But on May 5th that confidence was detonated by a renewed threat by President Donald Trump to impose more tariffs on Chinese imports. As The Economist went to press negotiations rumbled on, but no one should be under any illusions. Even if a provisional agreement is eventually struck, the deep differences in the two countries' economic models mean their trading relations will be unstable for years to come.
Some trade spats are settled by landmark agreements. In the 1980s tensions between Japan and America were resolved by the Plaza Accord. In September Mr Trump agreed to replace NAFTA, which governs America's trade with Canada and Mexico, with a renamed but otherwise rather similar accord (although the new treaty has yet to be ratified by Congress). Even by those standards the China talks have been an epic undertaking involving armies of negotiators shuttling between Beijing and Washington, dc, for months on end. Yet they have never looked capable of producing the decisive change in China's economic model that many in Washington crave.
There is some common ground. China is happy to buy more American goods, including soyabeans and shale gas, in an effort to cut the bilateral trade deficit, a goal which is economically pointless but close to Mr Trump's heart. It is willing to relax rules that prevent American firms from controlling their operations in China and to crack down on Chinese firms' rampant theft of intellectual property. Any deal will also include promises to limit the government's role in the economy.
The trouble is that it is unlikely—whatever the Oval Office claims—that a signed piece of paper will do much to shift China's model away from state capitalism. Its vast subsidies for producers will survive. Promises that state-owned companies will be curbed should be taken with a pinch of salt. In any case the government will continue to allocate capital through a state-run banking system with $38trn of assets. Attempts to bind China by requiring it to enact market-friendly legislation are unlikely to work given that the Communist Party is above the law. Almost all companies, including the privately owned tech stars, will continue to have party cells that wield back-room influence. And as China Inc becomes even more technologically sophisticated and expands abroad, tensions over its motives will intensify.
This fundamental clash of economic systems has been made more combustible by politics. In an atmosphere of mistrust, both sides have sidelined the World Trade Organisation, the global framework for handling trade disputes, opting instead for a transactional approach to the talks replete with gimmicks and threats. Meanwhile the mood at home has changed. Strikingly, many Democrats now accuse Mr Trump of being too soft on China. Earning less than 5% of their combined profits in China, and enjoying a boom in their home market, America's big firms support a tough line, too. In Beijing, meanwhile, the call for economic self-reliance is gaining steam.
At some point this year Mr Trump and Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, could well proclaim a new era in superpower relations from the White House lawn. If so, don't believe what you hear. The lesson of the past decade is that stable trade relations between countries require them to have much in common—including a shared sense of how commerce should work and a commitment to enforcing rules.
The world now features two superpowers with opposing economic visions, growing geopolitical rivalry and deep mutual suspicion. Regardless of whether today's trade war is settled, that is not about to change. ■
YES FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS TO COME WE SHALL SEE THE PRESENT TWO ECONOMIC SUPER POWERS, WRESTLING FOR WORLD DOMINANCE — Keith Hunt
A new report confirms that life on Earth is in trouble
A million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. Three-quarters of the world's land and two-thirds of its marine environments have been "significantly altered" by human action. Urban areas have doubled in size in just the past 30 years. More than 85% of wetlands have been lost. More than 90% of ocean fish stocks are being harvested at or above sustainable levels. These are among claims made in a report published on May 6th by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a big international quango.
The report, based 15.000 research papers, makes grim reading. More than 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction, as are a third of marine mammals, a third of sharks and a third of corals (a novel idea for the protection of which is described in the next story). Even 10% of the world's insects are on the brink.
A cynic might suggest that 1m is a suspiciously headline-grabbing figure. It is, indeed, only a little short of the number of animal and plant species (around 950,000 and 200,000 respectively) currently recognised and described by science. And its accuracy depends on many assumptions. But it is probably not a bad guess.
A consensus is emerging of there being some 8m species of animals and plants (the report ignores bacteria, fungi and unicellular creatures like Amoeba). Using figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which publishes an annual Red List of Threatened Species, the report's authors looked at the proportion of threatened species in well-studied groups of organisms and extrapolated.
In those groups, the IUCN reckons around a quarter of species are at risk of extinction. Many of the best-studied groups, however, are vertebrate animals, while most animals are invertebrates. Extrapolating from vertebrates to invertebrates is risky. The authors therefore made an exception for insects, the most speciose group (5.5m of the 8m purported species). For these they suggest 10% might be threatened with extinction—a figure in line with one derived by combining data on habitat degradation with the known relationship between habitat area and species numbers. This suggests 9% of terrestrial animals (most of which are insects) are threatened with extinction. Add the figures up and a bit over 1m is what you get. Depressing. ■
Please do not bleach
An idea to save coral reefs from from climate change takes a step forward
Bleaching is bad for coral. It happens when heat-stressed polyps, the sessile animals that construct coral reefs, eject the photosynthetic algae which usually reside within them. These algae are symbionts, providing nutrients to their hosts in return for shelter, so losing them is harmful to polyps and often results in their death. The higher temperatures brought about by global warming have therefore led to worries that more frequent episodes of bleaching might result in the loss of entire reefs.
Some of these symbiotic arrangements between alga and animal are, however, more heat-sensitive than others. It might therefore be possible to save reefs by seeding them with heat-resistant symbioses. As temperatures rose, these biological partnerships would spread and the reef they had been transplanted to would survive. Two researchers studying this idea are Megan Morikawa and Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University, in California. And they have just published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which suggests that it might work.
Dr Morikawa and Dr Palumbi started by collecting 20 representatives of each of four types of coral from a lagoon off the coast of American Samoa. They picked the lagoon in question because it was small and shallow, and thus had limited water circulation. This meant it often experienced temperature spikes, so any corals living within it would be expected to be adapted to endure such spikes. Laboratory tests proved those expectations correct.
The researchers then picked a second reef, 3km from the original lagoon, which had similar mean temperatures over the year but experienced lower daily temperature fluctuations. They seeded this with 400 fragments derived from their collected samples and a further 400 that were not heat-resistant, to act as controls. The original plan had been to let these transplanted corals grow for a while in their new environment and then bring them back to base for testing. Nature, however, intervened. Eight months after the seeding, soaring temperatures caused extensive bleaching on the reef.
Their hands thus forced, Dr Morikawa and Dr Palumbi put on their scuba gear and went diving to see how their transplants had fared. They found that those from resistant colonies were between a half and a third as likely to have become bleached as were the controls. Moreover, when they returned to the parent corals in the shallow lagoon and looked at the health of these after the bleaching event, they found that the experience of the parents tended to match that of their offspring. The eight months of acclimatization and growth the transplants had undergone had not, in other words, eliminated the heat tolerance they inherited from their parent colonies.
Though eight months is not that long, this result is encouraging. Dr Morikawa and Dr Palumbi now plan an extended study in Palau. If that proves successful, then the idea of saving reefs by seeding them with heat-resistant strains will have received a significant boost.
Sacred Liberty:America's Long, Bloody and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom.
By Steven Waldman. HarperOne; 405 pages.
A benign paradox lies at the heart of America's approach to religion. It is far more devout than other wealthy Western countries. While 6% of British adults report praying every day, over half of Americans say they do. Yet, observant but diverse in their beliefs, Americans are remarkably accepting of other faiths.
Steven Waldman, the author of a fine history of the religious views of the Founding Fathers, has now written a powerful account of American religion since the colonial period. As he recounts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison ardently supported the separation of government and religion. The First Amendment duly provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The pair were in the minority, however.
Before the revolution, Quakers in Puritan Massachusetts were whipped and hanged. Baptists in Virginia were jailed. The constitution's religious strictures were not fully enforced until the first world war.
"Sacred Liberty" chronicles a general trend towards toleration—punctuated by outrages. In 1838 the governor of Missouri ordered the extermination of Mormons; a massacre ensued. In the 1920s and 1930s the anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish Ku Klux Klan gained power in several states. Twenty thousand people attended a Nazi rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1939.
The second world war shifted attitudes decisively.
The draft mixed men of all faiths as comrades-in-arms. The entertainment industry chimed in. "Religion doesn't make any real difference," Frank Sinatra says in a short film of 1945, "except to a Nazi or a dope." To be anti-Semitic was to be Hitler's ally; the concept of a Judaeo-Christian heritage took hold. For his part, Franklin Roosevelt advocated the "freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world". Later, describing the struggle against atheistic communism, Harry Truman declared that there had never been a cause greater than defending "the right to worship God—each as he sees fit". The Supreme Court began vigorously to protect religious freedom.
In those days a Supreme Court without a Protestant majority was unthinkable.
In 2010 the advent of a bench composed of six Catholic justices, three Jews and no Protestants was barely noticed.
Jews are now the country's best liked religious group—but the warm attitudes transcend philo-Semitism. By 2010 around half of all Americans had a spouse of a different religious tradition. Neighbourhoods, workplaces and friendships have become more religiously diverse. As Robert Putnam and David Campbell put it in "American Grace" (2010), a magisterial study that Mr Waldman cites: "It is difficult to demonise the religion, or lack of religion, of people you know and, especially, those you love." Messrs Putnam and Campbell found that, within the big faiths, overwhelming majorities of Americans believe that good people of other creeds can go to heaven.
Meanwhile, zealous as America may seem to outsiders, religion, particularly the organized kind, is becoming far less important.
When pollsters queried religious preferences in the 1950s, some 95% of Americans gave a specific denomination or tradition. In recent surveys, the share who say they have no particular religion is roughly the same as those who identify as Protestant. The "nones" now comprise 40% or more of 18- to 44-year-olds.
"Sacred Liberty" concludes with an analysis of the present. These days, Mr Waldman points out, the divisive religious cases before the Supreme Court sometimes involve what, by historical standards, are comparatively trivial issues, such as a baker's reluctance to make a cake for a gay wedding. Even America's most demonized religious group mostly feel secure. According to a survey by Pew in 2017—after the vitriol of Donald Trump's campaign—over half of Muslims regarded other Americans as generally favourable to them. Only 14% saw their compatriots as unfavourable.
This insightful study is grounds for guarded optimism. It shows that the advance of decency has been steady, heartening—and fragile. ■
YES IT IS NICE TO KNOW THAT “DECENCY” HAS BEEN ON THE INCREASE.
BUT ALL OF THIS SHOWS ALSO, THERE IS A DROP, A DECLINE, OF THE FAITH ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS; IT SHOWS FEW HAVE A HUNGER AND THIRST FOR TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS; FEW ARE READING AND STUDYING THE BIBLE, TO BE TAUGHT, CORRECTED, TO GROW IN GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE.
FEW INDEED ARE WILLING TO LIVE BY EVERY WORD OF GOD, AS JESUS INSTRUCTED [MATTHEW 4:4].
Marc Sorenson, who has a doctorate in education, and who is the founder of the Sunlight Institute,1has written an excellent book, “Embrace the Sun,” in which he reveals why sunlight is foundational for optimal health and longevity.2 While vitamin D supplements clearly have their place, you cannot obtain all the benefits you get from the sun when you swallow it.
For example, many of the benefits of sunlight, such as a decreased risk of heart disease, have to do with its ability to increase nitric oxide (NO) production in your body.3 Ultraviolet A (UVA) and the near-infrared light spectrum both increase NO, so you’re getting that benefit from both ends of the light spectrum. Fifty percent of sunlight is near-infrared.4
Near-infrared also increases cytochrome c oxidase (COO),5 the fourth cytochrome in the mitochondria, and neither of these benefits can be had from swallowing a pill. It’s really important to realize that your body is designed to benefit from sun exposure, and if you’re diabetic or have heart disease, it may well be one of the missing factors. As noted by Sorenson:
“When we get out in the sun, the research is incredible. The risk of heart disease and the risk of myocardial infarction drop dramatically in the summertime, and go up dramatically in the wintertime.
Meaning, there’s something there that has to be beyond vitamin D, because the vitamin D supplement studies with heart disease haven’t worked out well. What we know now is the main mover to prevent heart disease is probably NO, which is a potent vasodilator. It opens them up.
Blood pressure can go down dramatically with regular sun exposure, which it does. Among people who are getting sunlight on a regular basis, the risk of dropping dead of a heart attack goes down rather dramatically ...
You can produce 20,000 international units (IU) in 20 minutes of ideal unobstructed sun exposure on both sides of the body … ”
How the Sun Avoidance Conspiracy Was Born
Importantly, for every death caused by diseases related to excessive sun exposure — such as common skin cancers (basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas) as well as some other uncommon diseases — there are 328 deaths caused by diseases related to sunlight deprivation,6 according to Sorenson’s data.
According to a 2013 study,7 for every skin cancer death in northern Europe, between 60 and 100 people die from stroke or heart disease related to hypertension alone. Knowing your risk of dying from heart disease or stroke is 80 times greater on average than from skin cancer should really put things into perspective.8 Clearly, sun avoidance is hardly the lifesaving strategy dermatologists make it out to be.
I’d always wondered why there was such an avid aversion of sun exposure within the dermatology community. It just doesn’t make any sense — until I read Sorensen’s book, in which he dissects the motivation behind this illogical stance. He explains:
“The powers of darkness, as I call them, are very highly invested in the sunscreen industry. About 70 percent of the funding comes from the sunscreen industry. Of course, with a dermatological society, they back those who produce sunscreens.
We’ve got a vast conspiracy with the sunscreen industry. That’s one of the main things. Besides … medicine in general is not that interested in keeping people well, because if they do get people well — and sunlight will do that to a great extent — they’re out of business. There is a conspiracy out there. I’ve written a very large chapter about that and how they used their anti-sun [propaganda] to keep people sick.”
On Skin Cancer
There are two basic types of skin cancer: melanoma and nonmelanoma. Importantly, 75 percent of all melanoma occurs on areas of the body that never see the sun, Sorenson notes, and indoor workers have double the rate of lethal melanoma skin cancer than outdoor workers.9 A primary risk factor for melanoma appears to be intermittent sun exposure and sunburn, especially when you’re young.
According to data presented in his book, in 1935 about 1 in 1,500 people contracted melanoma. As of 2002/2003, that rate was 1 in 50. Between 2006 and 2015, melanoma rates increased 3 percent per year,10 so rates just keep going up.
“The more we use sunscreen, the more melanoma we get. Australia’s proven that for many, many years,” Sorenson says. “They use more sunscreen than any people on Earth, yet they have the highest prevalence of melanoma …
Melanoma increased by 3,000 percent between 1935 and, let’s say, 2002 to 2003. That’s a tremendous increase. Sun exposure during that time, by my government figures, has gone down by over 90 percent. We have a 90-percent decrease in sun exposure and a 3,000-percent increase in melanoma.
How does that add up for their theory? It doesn’t add up at all. They’re now beginning to realize that, I think, little by little. But still, they’re in that hip pocket of the medical schools that promote sunscreens and such.”
As noted by Sorenson, the sun actually protects you from melanoma. It does not protect again the more common skin cancers, though. However, protection from those can be had from a diet high in antioxidants.
Sun Avoidance Kills Far More People Than Sun-Related Diseases
Nonmelanoma skin cancers are primarily divided into basal cell and squamous cell cancer, and sun exposure does increase your risk of those cancers. The thing to remember is that these are typically nonlethal. The relative safety of skin cancer is craftily hidden, however, by combining statistics for nonfatal and fatal skin cancers.
Most of the deaths attributed to nonmelanoma skin cancers (basal and squamous cell), which number around 4,420 per year, according to cancer.net,11 are in those who have severely compromised immune systems. Melanoma, meanwhile, kills an estimated 7,230 people per year in the U.S.12,13 It’s also important to realize that common skin cancer does not turn into the deadlier melanoma.
When you consider the statistics, it seems clear that sun avoidance is actually increasing your risk of deadly skin cancer, and that by exposing your skin to the sun, you will decrease your risk of melanoma.
What’s more, sun avoidance will also raise your risk of internal cancers, along with a long list of chronic diseases, the mortality rates of which are far more alarming than melanoma. As mentioned earlier, for every sun-related death there are 328 deaths from sun-deficiency-related diseases.
Sorenson’s book also cites Iranian research showing women who cover themselves completely have a 10-times higher risk of breast cancer compared to women who don’t cover themselves completely. That’s a 1,000-percent greater risk of breast cancer. Yet women are being told to avoid sun exposure at all costs to protect their health.
You Can Benefit From Sun Exposure Year-Round
During wintertime at latitudes above 22 degrees you’re not going to be able to get enough ultraviolet B (UVB) exposure on your skin to significantly raise your vitamin D level, unless you are at high altitudes in the mountains.
However, you’re still getting other photoproducts such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), NO and others. They will be produced even in the winter when the sunlight is too weak to trigger vitamin D production.
“I tan every day in St. George, Utah,” Sorenson says. “It may be 40 degrees F. outside; I step into the garage, so I’m protected from the breezes. I get out in the sun every day. It’s not doing me a bit of good for vitamin D, but I do have my own tanning bed. I can go into that tanning bed and it produces a dramatic amount of vitamin D.
So will a good vitamin D sunlamp … Sometimes I fudge and take a vitamin D pill, but I would rather [use my tanning bed] because it’s a lot more natural than taking a vitamin D pill, in my opinion. That’s the way that I do it …
Of course, tanning beds have been much maligned, [yet it] dramatically increases bone strength. It dramatically increases vitamin D levels. It reduces the risk of psoriasis and eczema. It does many other things that they never give any credit for …
I was just thinking about the new study on Parkinson’s disease, [which] showed people who are out in the bright sun daily, regularly have 1/50th the risk of ever getting Parkinson’s. That’s fairly new research. I was stunned by that research.”
Avoid Sunburn at All Costs
Naturally, regardless of the season, you want to make sure you do not get sunburn. Once your skin turns the lightest shade of pink, move into the shade or put on clothing and a hat to cover up your skin. Beyond that point, there’s no benefit, only the risk of skin damage. As noted by Sorenson:
“Your body shuts it down at that point. In fact, your body will shut down your vitamin D production, along with anything else, that it doesn’t want. There is a very interesting piece of research … that shows people who use sunscreen have anywhere from three to six times the risk of sunburn.
Another one was a big meta-analysis, which showed there was no benefit whatsoever in using sunscreens. None at all. In fact, there was a slight increase in the risk of all skin cancers together.”
Sun Exposure Decreases Risk of Autoimmune Disease
Aside from lowering your risk for a variety of cancers, including melanoma, sun exposure also radically decreases your risk of autoimmune diseases. (Diseases in which your body identifies proteins and other structures made by the body as foreign and destroys them.) Two classic examples are multiple sclerosis (MS) and Type 1 diabetes.
Sorenson cites research from Finland showing vitamin D supplementation decreased the risk of Type 1 diabetes by five- to sixfold. When compared to Venezuelan children, who get ample sun exposure, Finnish children had 400 times the risk of Type 1 diabetes.
Researchers have also found an inverse risk between vitamin D status and MS risk,14 and studies have confirmed MS is far less prevalent in areas near the equator, such as Ecuador, where prevalence ranges from a low of 0.75 per 100,000 inhabitants in the South, to a high of 5.05 per 100,000 in the capital city of Quito.15
What’s a Healthy Vitamin D Level?
Science has shown 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L), which is typically considered the cutoff for vitamin D sufficiency, is still grossly inadequate and dangerous to health. For optimal disease protection, you need a vitamin D blood level between 60 and 80 ng/mL16 (150 to 200 nmol/L).
Once you get above 60 ng/mL, the risk for cancer and other chronic illness declines dramatically — in the case of breast cancer by more than 80 percent.17
There appears to be variations in the ideal level, however, depending on the condition in question. Sorenson cites research showing that athletic performance, and the risk of injury due to falling among nonathletes, improved until they reached a level of about 63 ng/mL (158 nmol/L), at which point performance and risk of falling started to slightly decline again.
On the other hand, in the case of breast cancer, which is a major concern for women, levels upward of 80 ng/mL (200 nmol/L) appear to be the most protective. When aiming for those higher levels, though, I believe getting your vitamin D from sunlight becomes all the more important, especially if you’re seeking protection from diseases such as heart disease.
Because, remember, swallowing a vitamin D pill will not trigger NO production like sun exposure does, and increasing NO appears to be a significant way by which sun exposure lowers your heart disease risk. Sunlight also boosts your serotonin level, a neurotransmitter thought to play an important role in depression.
In his book, Sorenson cites research showing that spending the entire day in bright sunlight increases your serotonin level by 800 percent. A precursor to serotonin — melatonin — is also crucial for sleep and cancer prevention.
Sunlight and Visual Acuity
Myopia, with people needing glasses at an early age, and presbyopia, which is when you need reading glasses, are also on the rise, and this too may be a side effect of insufficient sun exposure. Sorenson explains:
“One of the studies was done comparing people in Singapore to people who grew up in Australia. They had the same ethnic background, basically Oriental-Asian background. Those who were playing in the sun in Australia had about one-sixth the risk of getting myopia.
It is so important. If we don’t get out and we don’t focus [our eyes] in the sun, [if] we don’t look into the distance — that may be one of the reasons we don’t get enough vitamin D, we don’t get enough serotonin, NO and any of the other photoproducts produced by the sun.
There is a pandemic of myopia. We’re seeing it here in the United States with the Asian kids. In many cases, as they get older, it will lead to blindness. Of course, they always talk about macular degeneration and so forth, but there’s a dichotomy here, because if you have macular degeneration, they tell you to totally stay out of the sun.
It does tend to relate to sun exposure. At the same time, vitamin D levels that are high tend to reduce the risk. So, what do you do? Stop getting your sun and take a vitamin D pill? I don’t think so. I think if we’re in the sun the way we ought to be and eat the polyphenols and so forth … that’s probably the way to prevent most of the older-age diseases.
Now, as far as presbyopia … I’ve had it since I was about 40. I just take some reading glasses and I can get along with reading my fine print. I wasn’t able to escape it. It runs in my family. I think there must be some genetic component there, because I was out in the sun and I never had any myopia.”
As for age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), which is the leading cause of blindness among the elderly, research by Dr. Chris Knobbe, an ophthalmologist who wrote a book on the risk factors of ARMD, whom I’ll be interviewing on this topic, has compiled massive amounts of data showing that ARMD did not exist before 1930 and this appears largely due to the consumption of processed foods, especially processed vegetable oils.
Sugar, of course, does not help either. That combination causes massive degeneration of your vision, which is very difficult to reverse in its advanced stages. But if you catch it at an early stage, you can reverse it using dietary changes.
For presbyopia, I recommend not wearing sunglasses and avoiding reading glasses. As you age, there’s a tendency to want to make that font bigger to see text better, but I recommend resisting that temptation, as it’s only going to make matters worse.
Also, avoid squinting and simply blink instead. Blink multiple times until the text becomes clear, then relax your eyes to refocus. Brighter light may also help you read without increasing the font size on your tablet or computer, or using reading glasses.
Sunlight for Bone Health
Sorenson also recounts some of the historical data supporting the idea that sun exposure benefits health in important ways and boosts athletic performance. Aside from breast health, research shows sun exposure also helps prevent osteoporosis, which is yet another significant concern for women in particular. Sorenson says:
“In Spain, women who were sun seekers, those who were always outside, trying to tan … as much as possible, those women had 1/11th the risk of ever having a hip fracture as women who were avoiding the sun. That one point alone should get every woman out in the sun, because all women are afraid not only of breast cancer but also of osteoporosis.
Women need sunlight to prevent it. Whether vitamin D pills will work, I am not convinced. They don’t give them enough vitamin D so they can’t really tell in the research. But we know that sunlight works to prevent hip fractures. Boy, that’s a big one to me …
[Higher] vitamin D levels also dramatically help your brain … People think better … You are 3.5 times more likely to end up in a rest home [assisted care facility] if you do not have a good vitamin D level … [If] you’ve got a mom, dad, uncle or whoever is in danger of going there, I think it can be prevented … They can stay at home, maybe with a son or daughter, and they wouldn’t need to worry about them injuring themselves every other second.”
More Information
To learn more, I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Sorenson’s book, “Embrace the Sun.” Strongly emphasized in the book is the importance of sunlight for the prevention of cardiovascular disease — again, by way of boosting NO, which lowers your blood pressure and increases blood flow, more so than raising your vitamin D.
Sorenson believes erectile dysfunction (ED), for men, may be a related problem that could be addressed through improved sun exposure, as one of the major reasons for ED is lack of NO. Cialis or Viagra is not the answer. Sunlight is.
“I think … we have to have holistic sun [exposure] again,” Sorenson says. “We need to have every single photoproduct produced. I have written down about five more photoproducts I haven’t even had the time to study. We don’t know what they do yet.
But why would you go for a vitamin D pill when you could get out in the sun and get all of the available [photoproducts] that we don’t even know [the benefits of] yet? For optimal human health, we need to be in the sunlight.”
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THE FIRST FAMOUS BODY BUILDER AND STRONG MAN CHARLES ATLAS WITH HIS "HEALTH AND STRENGTH" COURSE [STILL AVAILABLE] WAS A GREAT EXPONENT OF GETTING LOTS OF SUN. NOW AS THE OZONE UP THERE IS GOOD ONCE MORE, IT'S TIME TO GET OUT AND GET THAT VIBRANT SUN TAN; OF COURSE FAIR-SKINNED PEOPLE SHOULD GET IT SLOWLY; BEING OF DARK HAIR AND BROWN EYES, IT GET A SUN-TAN REALLY QUICKLY WITH NO BURNING. Keith Hunt
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 329,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, although some data suggest it may actually be over 444,000.1 While exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, what is known is that the prevalence is rising.
Since Lyme disease became a nationally notifiable condition in 1991,2 the number of U.S. counties considered at high risk for Lyme disease has increased by more than 300%.3 The disease is also expanding rapidly all over the world,4 as new research presented in April 2019 shows that the outbreaks are creeping steadily into northern countries with less temperate climates.
Likewise, by the end of 2018 eight northern U.S. states had more Lyme disease cases than southern states like Florida or those with moderate climates like West Virginia and North Carolina.5 In fact, Pennsylvania was leading the pack with 119,000 cases, according to the CDC.
Today, Lyme disease is becoming more widely recognized as an actual disease, but sufferers still meet plenty of resistance from the medical community and insurers. In years past, Lyme sufferers were often told their problem was psychiatric; in essence, the symptoms were "all in their head."
Under Our Skin
"Under Our Skin 2: Emergence" is a sequel to the award-winning and Academy Award semifinalist documentary "Under Our Skin,"6 which exposed the hidden story of "medical and scientific malfeasance and neglect," as thousands of people with Lyme disease go undiagnosed, or get misdiagnosed each year.
"Under Our Skin" had a tremendous impact raising awareness among patients, doctors and health authorities alike. Since the film's release in 2014, the CDC has raised its estimated prevalence of Lyme more than 10 times, making it more prevalent than HIV and breast cancer combined in the U.S.
Even more importantly, scientific hypotheses presented in the film — such as the theory that Lyme organisms may thrive in biofilms, which helps explain why treatment is so difficult and recurrence so common — have now become widely accepted.
However, despite progress, Lyme patients still face an uphill battle. "Emergence" examines the deepening crisis, as prevalence is rising far faster than the evolution of diagnosis and treatment.
This article was originally published in 2016, and it's been updated in 2019 in preparation for Lyme Disease Awareness Month in May in the United States. I believe this is the perfect time to share this important film once again, in case you haven't seen it.
Around the world, controversy around Lyme disease continues to brew, and the film reveals medical collusion and conflicts of interest that keep Lyme patients suffering. The film ends on a hopeful note, however, by showing how patients in the original film have managed to improve their health and reclaim their lives.
The History of Lyme Disease
Lyme disease was named after the East Coast town of Lyme, Connecticut, where the disease was first identified in 1975.7 By 1977, the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis, also known as the deer tick) was linked to transmission of the disease.
In November 1981, Willy Burgdorfer, Ph.D., discovered the bacterium responsible for the infection: Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi),8 a relative to the spirochete bacterium that causes syphilis.9 The bacteria are released into your blood from the infected tick.
We now know there are about two dozen species of B. burgdorferi with hundreds of strains worldwide,10 many of which show resistance to antibiotics, with the disease recurring when antibiotics are stopped. New research11 shows that one reason for this may be that B. burgdorferi form protective biofilms around themselves, enhancing antibiotic resistance.
While not all the species are human pathogens, part of what makes B. burgdorferi such a formidable foe is its ability to take different forms in your body, depending on the conditions. This clever maneuvering helps it to hide and survive and ultimately to form these biofilms.
Its corkscrew-shaped form also allows it to burrow into and hide in a variety of your body's tissues, which is why it causes such wide-ranging multisystem involvement.
Increasing the complexity further, some symptoms may also be due to coinfections triggered by other disease-causing organisms that like to travel with the B. burgdorferi bacterium. Many Lyme patients have one or more of these coinfections, which may or may not respond to any given treatment for B. burgdorferi.
To learn more about the symptoms and prevention of Lyme disease, make sure to check out the award-winning films "Under Our Skin" and "Under Our Skin 2: Emergence."
Urban Sprawl Has Contributed to Rising Lyme Prevalence
Since the late 1970s, the spread of Lyme disease has primarily been blamed on deer. However, more recent evidence suggests rodents like mice and rats are a far more serious threat12,13 and the rise in Lyme disease has been traced back to the elimination of natural predators.
Ticks are not born with the Lyme spirochetes. They pick up the bacteria when feeding on an infected host.14 Research indicates that white-footed mice infect 75 to 95 percent of larval ticks that feed on them, while deer only infect about 1 percent.
According to a 1996 study,15 rats are even more infectious than mice, noting that "the capacity of rats to serve as reservoir hosts for the Lyme disease spirochete, therefore, increases risk of infection among visitors to ... urban parks."
Another study 16 published the following year also found that Norway rats and black rats were exceptionally effective hosts, infecting nearly all ticks that fed on them.
The main predators of small rodents like mice and rats are foxes, birds of prey, skunks and snakes.17Agricultural and urban sprawl have decimated the habitats of these natural predators of mice and rats, allowing disease-carrying rodent populations to rise unabated.
Moreover, while snakes and birds of prey like hawks, falcons and owls are losing their natural habitats, the coyote population not only is thriving18 in most states, but is also killing off the only predators of rodents left, namely foxes and cats.
A study19 that looked at these factors found that increases in Lyme disease in the Northeast and Midwest U.S. in the past three decades consistently correlated to declines in red fox. It also found that as fox populations decrease and rodents increase, coyotes do not help control small rodent populations because they prefer much larger prey.
Other Contributing Factors
Besides mice and rats, and to a lesser degree deer, Lyme can also be spread by other insects20,21besides ticks, including mosquitoes, lice, fleas and mites.
Complicating matters further, there's yet another tick-borne disease on the loose. Researchers have identified a tick-borne illness that is very similar to Lyme, caused by Borrelia miyamotoi (B. miyamotoi). The CDC22 describes B. miyamotoi as a distant relative to B. burgdorferi, being more closely related to bacteria that cause tick-borne relapsing fever. This disease is characterized by recurring episodes of fever, headache, nausea and muscle or joint aches.
This bacterium was first identified in Japanese ticks in 1995. Since then, it's been found in several rodent species (and the ticks that feed on them) in the U.S., as well as in ticks feeding on European red deer, domestic ruminants and white-tailed deer. According to the CDC:15
"Given that B. miyamotoi uses the same vector ticks as B. burgdorferi and that the range of I. scapularis ticks continues to expand, it seems inevitable that the human population will be increasingly exposed to B. miyamotoi."
What Makes Lyme Disease Such a Challenging Disease?
Symptoms of Lyme disease typically start out with an expanding rash, which may be followed by fever, fatigue, chills, headaches and achy muscles or joints. According to the American Lyme Disease Foundation, these symptoms can be easy to overlook, so if you notice the rash, you should see your doctor right away.23
The disease may then progress to muscle spasms, loss of motor coordination and even intermittent paralysis, meningitis or heart problems. For more information on identifying a Lyme disease rash, please see the ALDF website.24
On an interesting side note, a 2014 paper25,26 published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology argues that ticks should be reclassified as venomous, as their salivary proteins are similar to those found in scorpion, spider, snake and bee venoms. An estimated 8% of tick species are in fact capable of causing paralysis with a single bite.
The simplest presentation of Lyme disease is in the orthopedic forms, which tend to affect the larger joints. When the microbes and the associated immune reactions are situated in the connective tissue, the infection presents as a "vague, dispersed pain," which is easily misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia.
A major challenge with Lyme disease is that its symptoms imitate so many other disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and even Alzheimer's disease, making proper identification difficult and time consuming27 What's worse, many Lyme sufferers outwardly look quite healthy and their blood work often raises no cause for concern, which is why Lyme disease has also been called "the invisible illness."
Better Diagnostics for Lyme Are Sorely Needed
A big problem facing Lyme patients and their treating doctors is the difficulty of reaching a proper diagnosis.28 Conventional lab tests are unreliable, and one reason for this is because the spirochete has the ability to infect your white blood cells.29 Lab tests rely on the normal function of white blood cells to produce the antibodies they measure. If your white cells are infected, they don't respond to infection appropriately.
In order for blood tests to be truly useful, you need to be treated first. Once your immune system begins to respond normally, only then will the antibodies show up. This is called the "Lyme Paradox." You have to be treated before a proper diagnosis can be made.
That said, I recommend the specialized lab called IGeneX because they offer highly sensitive tests for more outer surface proteins (bands), and can often detect Lyme while standard blood tests cannot. IGeneX also tests for a few strains of coinfections such as Babesia and Ehrlichia.
Patients and Doctors Fight for Recognition of Chronic Lyme
As if the difficulties of getting a proper diagnosis and treatment were not enough, Lyme sufferers face additional hurdles when they don't fully recuperate after the initial treatment. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), which publishes guidelines for a number of infectious diseases, declared in 2012 that:30
"We sympathize with these patients' suffering, but remain concerned that a diagnosis of so-called 'chronic Lyme disease,' suggesting that active infection is ongoing, is not supported by scientific evidence and, more alarmingly, the treatment of long-term antibiotic therapy will do patients more harm than good."
As of April 24, 2019, this statement remained on IDSA's official Lyme disease website.31 IDSA's 2006 clinical practice guidelines32 for Lyme disease claim that Lyme is easily cured with with 10 to 28 days of antibiotics. However, the references they base this on reflect a clear bias. Of the 400 references they cite, half are based on articles written by their own people.
After then-Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal opened an ethics investigation on them,33 an antitrust investigation into IDSA's panel members revealed rampant conflicts of interest. But, unfortunately, such discoveries did not result in positive change, as the IDSA followed up with its own "independent" panel review, which concluded that the IDSA's guidelines were "medically and scientifically" justified34 and that the authors "did not fail to consider or cite any relevant data."
As a result, chronic Lyme patients continue having to fight for their right to treatment, as IDSA's guidelines have sweeping impacts on Lyme disease medical care. Insurance companies frequently restrict coverage for long-term treatment based on IDSA's guidelines. Physicians' treatment decisions are also guided by its recommendations.
Opposing IDSA is the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, the members of which argue that many patients suffer long-term consequences and require far longer treatment than recommended by IDSA.
Acknowledging that the two entities' guidelines conflict,35 the Institute of Medicine noted that "conflicting guidelines most often arise when evidence is weak, organizations use different assessment schemes or when guideline developers place different values on the benefits and harms of interventions."
Signs of Slow but Steady Progress
There are signs of progress though:
• In 2015, a new Lyme research center attached to the rheumatology division at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center was created. Led by Lyme researcher Dr. John Aucott, the research center focuses on biologic disease mechanisms of Lyme and on improving the accuracy of diagnostic tests for it.36
• In February 2016, lymedisease.org reported that the National Guidelines Clearinghouse, "a federal database that provides treatment information to health care professionals and insurance companies," had removed IDSA's treatment guidelines from its website, leaving only ILADS guidelines.37
The IDSA guidelines are also due for revision, although major changes are probably unlikely. On the upside, IDSA reluctantly agreed to include a Lyme patient on its guideline's panel, after being pressured by Lyme disease advocate groups, patients and U.S. Congressmen. As of April 2019, the IDSA reports having three patients with confirmed Lyme disease and one parent of a child with confirmed Lyme disease on its panel.38
However, until the IDSA guidelines are updated — for which there is no known deadline as of yet even though the agency sought public comments for it in 2015 — ILADS treatment guidelines are the only ones listed by National Guidelines Clearinghouse. Instead, the IDSA is choosing a wait-and-see position as they study the concerns brought up in the public commentaries.39
• At the end of June 2016, the Delaware Senate and House passed HB 291, which created an oversight board to educate health care professionals about Lyme disease.40 In April 2019, the Global Lyme Alliance joined Delaware's Lyme Disease Education Oversight Board to partner in launching an only Lyme disease course for physicians and other health care professionals.41
• On July 31, 2016, the Massachusetts Senate passed the Lyme disease insurance bill (H4491), joining the state's House in overriding their governor's veto of the bill. The new law took effect immediately, calling for mandatory insurance coverage for the long-term treatment of chronic Lyme, setting a precedent for other states to follow.42
• In August 2018 scientists announced that they'd found that two antibiotics, ceftriaxone and vancomycin, cleared the B. burgdorferi infection when the standard antibiotic, doxycycline, did not.43
Take Prevention Seriously
Considering the difficulty of diagnosing and treating Lyme disease, taking preventive measures should be at the top of your list:
Avoid tick-infested areas, such as leaf piles around trees. Walk in the middle of trails and avoid brushing against long grasses path edgings. Don't sit on logs or wooden stumps.
Considering the high infection rate of rats, you'd be wise to take precautions if you're in an area where rats have been sighted.
Wear light-colored long pants and long sleeves, to make it easier to see the ticks.
Tuck your pants into socks, and wear closed shoes and a hat, especially if venturing out into wooded areas. Also tuck your shirt into your pants.
Ticks are very tiny. You want to find and remove them before they bite, so do a thorough tick check upon returning inside, and keep checking for several days following exposure. Also check your bedding for several days following exposure.
As for using chemical repellents, I do not recommend using them directly on your skin as this will introduce toxins directly into your body. If you use them, spray them on the outside of your clothes and avoid inhaling the spray fumes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a list44 indicating the hourly protection limits for various repellents.
If you find that a tick has latched onto you, it's very important to remove it properly. For detailed instructions, please see lymedisease.org's tick removal page.45 Once removed, make sure you save the tick so that it can be tested for presence of pathogenic organisms.
About the Director
I believe in bringing quality to my readers, which is why I wanted to share some information about the director, Andy Abrahams Wilson, from "Under Our Skin 2: Emergence." We sat down with Andy to learn a little more about what goes in to making these films. Thank you to Mr. Wilson for sharing with us.
What was your inspiration for making this film?
Lyme disease is a canary in the coal mine and case study for what's poisonous in both our environment and our science. At the epicenter a tiny microbe looms, providing a powerful symbol for an issue that is hidden and lurking — so small yet immense, so real but unrecognized. What has gotten under our skin is not just a microorganism, but a lethal system which has abandoned some of the most needy and threatens us all.
Our own human skin is a microcosm of the earth, and the extent to which the Earth's body is out of balance, so is our own. With "Under Our Skin" and its sequel "Emergence," it is my mission to show the horror of an illness and an ill system that too long has been ignored. But I also want to show the human and natural beauty right next to it. Sometimes indistinguishable, the beauty and horror are intertwined.
If the films merely perpetuate the idea that the natural world is perilous, or that human nature is corrupt, we miss out on the beauty that surrounds us. On the other hand, if we are lulled by convention and don't look beneath the surface, we risk infection by the equally dangerous maladies of ignorance and indifference.
What was your favorite part of making this film?
As the director, my favorite part of the film was being a witness to the hundreds of Lyme sufferers interviewed through the four years of production. This witnessing can be incredibly healing, especially for people whose voices have not been heard or validated. Of course, once the film was completed, the personal stories about how the film changed — or even saved — people's lives was the icing on the cake. To create art that helps heal is the best reward possible.
Where do the proceeds to your film go?
Open Eye Pictures, the production and distribution company behind the film, is a nonprofit specializing in films that educate and activate. All proceeds from the film go back into the mission of the company to bring awareness and impact change through film. We have an ongoing Lyme outreach and community engagement program which is supported solely by proceeds from film sales.
Together with your help we can continue to spread the word about this harmful disease so that we can take control of our health and the health of our children. We are offering a combo deal of Under Our Skin Parts 1 and 2 for a discounted price so be sure to take advantage of this great deal.
