Zenconomics

The Financial Regulatory System

excerpt from High Alert: How the Internet Reformation is causing a financial hurricane – and how to profit from it:

The elaborate financial regulatory structure surrounding the West’s securities and commodities markets are barriers to entry rather than guarantors of fair play. In the United States, anyway, they could hardly be anything else. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the now split-in-two NASD are monstrous morphs of unconstitutional creations. In the United States, anyone aspiring to own a broker-dealer is obliged to “join” the NASD — a government imposition that travels well beyond the borders of restraint-of-trade. And that’s just the beginning. FBI background checks, NASD tests, inspections, expenses, taxes, fees and sundry considerations — all must be confronted before the harassed businessperson brokers or “deals” a single stock.

Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the NASD regulatory commission have so many rules and regulations on their books that either group can fine or suspend a business into oblivion should they choose to do so. This is an enormous power, but it is aimed at the “little guy” —the supplicant attempting to do business in the world’s most populous and boisterous securities arena. It is increasingly difficult. Worse still, as the US regulatory structure is exported around the world, other markets become more difficult to do business in. Only the world’s largest firms will have the resources and power to “capture” the regulators, hire the lawyers and generally provide a level of legal responsiveness that the 21st
century’s financial environment will demand.

Antibiotics and Ear Infections

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC – ICPA.org:

In cases where the immune response lags behind a bacterial infection that is dangerously decimating the body, the 1950s advent of antibiotic medications saved the lives of millions of people who would have otherwise succumbed. However, the overzealous use of these wonder drugs has now created a new realm of powerful diseases we are unable to fight with existing antibiotics.

Once a resistant bacteria has been created in response to antibiotic therapy, it has the power to transfer its resistance to other microbes, developing new resistant strains. This has been an especially significant issue for the young, who have been chief targets for antibiotic misuse because they are more susceptible to infections and infections are more worrisome in them. Powerful, antibiotic-resistant strains spread easily around day care centers.

Tuberculosis and pneumonia were once conquered with antibiotics, but we are now threatened again by TB epidemics and increased pneumonia deaths. The excitement over antibiotics has also led to reduced hygiene in hospitals. Hospital sanitation peaked decades ago, when its importance was first widely recognized. Now 10 percent of the patients in hospitals acquire infections, a large portion of which are resistant to antibiotics due to their expansive use in hospitals. Three percent of these patients die from their infections.

Antibiotics have many possible side effects, including diarrhea, malabsorption, cramping, yeast infections, agitation, rashes and blood disorders. By wiping out much of the normal flora throughout the body, antibiotics leave patients, especially children, far more vulnerable to other infections, such as thrush (oral yeast), and dangerous intestinal microbes that cause diarrheal illness. Infectious diarrhea follows antibiotic use at rates ranging from 5 to 39 percent, depending on the drug. The most common intestinal infection caused by antibiotics is colitis from clostridium infection, which has a 3.5 percent mortality rate.

Significantly, antibiotics are generally inappropriate for treating ear infections. They have no effect on viruses and are certainly inappropriate for colds and flus, where they can lead to secondary infection. Yet the majority of children visiting physicians with these complaints will receive antibiotic prescriptions. This is unfortunate. Most of the time, children are better off left to fight illness with their own immune systems, while their parents and physician provide careful monitoring.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Individual Solutions: Building Home Resiliency

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Individual Solutions: Building Home Resiliency

February 13, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,089 today. Gold is checking in at $1,229 per ounce. Oil is floating around $53 per barrel. Bitcoin is priced at $237 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.01% today.

Yesterday we examined the massive credit expansion that has been ongoing for four decades now and we noted that Austrian Economics tells us this won’t end well. We discussed building financial resiliency via a logical asset allocation model as an individual solution to the economic problems we face. But there is more to life than just personal finance.

Home resiliency is about building a self-reliant homestead, no matter the size. This entails having secure shelter with back-up energy sources and access to a reasonable supply of food, water, and basic necessities. The greater your home resiliency, the less you have to worry about external factors; be they natural disasters, financial disruptions, or simple power outages.

We are not talking about doomsday bunkers or expensive power generators; we are talking about simple and reasonable emergency back-up preparations. This is considered weird and looked down upon in modern society today but that is a recent phenomenon. The spirit of self-reliance and rugged individualism permeated American culture from the colonial days on up to the turn of the 20th century.

We see home resiliency simply as a matter of getting back to our individualist roots but it is especially important given current macroeconomic trends as we discussed yesterday. The eventual mass liquidation of debt and malinvestment resulting from four decades of fiat-fueled credit expansion will inevitably lead to disruptions within the financial system. Who knows what other dislocations this will cause in daily life? It would be far better to weather such a storm from within the comforts of your own home with adequate food, water, and energy than to risk being dependent upon external factors for these necessities.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Water Resiliency

Store as much bottled water as you can. The rule of thumb is that households require one gallon of water per day for each member of the family.

Exposure to sunlight will cause problems for water over time so either store water in opaque containers or away from sunlight if possible.

It is advisable to employ a ‘rotating’ system whereby you drink your stored water and replace it constantly as you go while maintaining adequate storage.

Consider a gravity water filter. These systems fit on your kitchen counter and are capable of filtering water from any source into clean drinking water. We recommend Doulton’s Big Berkey system with ceramic filters, but there are other quality systems available also.

Consider setting up a system to catch rain water. Rain water can be used to bathe, water plants, or to filter through your gravity water filter system for drinking.

Food Resiliency

Maintain a deep pantry. Analyze what you are currently eating and keep two or three times as much in the pantry and freezer. Replace meals consistently so your pantry does not diminish.

Supplement your pantry with items possessing a long shelf life like canned goods, beans and rice.

Consider investing in pre-packaged food specifically designed for storage. Many of these foods have a shelf life of up to 25 years and are surprisingly appetizing. Some long-term storage items are even certified organic and certified GMO free.

Consider planting a small vegetable garden, fruit trees, and/or nut trees depending on your location. Supplementing meals with home grown food is a great way to cut expenses and maintain health.

If you do plant vegetables or fruit trees it may be worthwhile to take up canning to store your own food for future consumption.

Consider investing in alternative cooking/water boiling sources. Propane grills are a popular option – just be sure to keep an extra propane tank or two on hand.

Consider investing in a solar compatible power source. These systems consist of batteries and solar panels. The batteries can be charged via a standard wall outlet or by the solar panels. Any household item can be powered for a period of time by simply plugging it into an inverter which is powered by the batteries. This is a great way to run your refrigerator during a power outage. A portable generator large enough to run the refrigerator/freezer, a few lights and a power strip to charge phones and laptop computers might also be a good option to consider.

Seek out local food vendors in your area – butchers, meat markets, farmer’s markets, etc. These are places where you can buy local food that is not as dependent upon the corporate ‘just in time’ process. Not only will this food not be as affected by macro disruptions, but it is also more nutritious as it has not gone through intensive corporate processing.

Basic Necessities

Make sure you have several alternate heating sources – wood-burning fireplace/stove, propane heater, kerosene heater, etc.

Stock up on candles for lighting the home during power outages and consider purchasing a few LED lanterns or oil lamps for lighting as well.

Keep a generous supply of lighters and matches on hand.

Keep several flashlights handy and maintain a supply of batteries.

Store several first aid kits and any medicines your family relies on.

Store extra paper towels, toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, dental floss, hand sanitizer, saline, contacts, and any other household item you use frequently.

Taking these simple actions will increase your home resiliency immensely. Once these action items are implemented you will:

Have drinking water stored for a reasonable period of time.

Have the ability to purify water from external sources.

Have a deep pantry and the ability to run your fridge/freezer for periods of time during power outages.

Have long term food stored away for use if your deep pantry were to be exhausted.

Have access to home grown vegetables, fruits, and/or nuts to supplement food storage.

Have access to several modern cooking sources in the event of a power outage.

Have alternate heating and lighting sources for use in the event of a power outage.

Have sufficient household items and cosmetics stored for use if needed.

Taking simple steps to build home resiliency does not require a change in lifestyle, and it does not require a tremendous financial commitment. Recent history shows that the majority of people in a given population are nearly 0% self-sufficient and thus experience unfortunate anxiety and discomfort when a major disaster occurs. History also shows that major disasters do occur periodically no matter where you live. It is far better to prepare ahead of time than to be one of the unsuspecting victims who find themselves completely incapable of coping with a disaster in a self-sufficient manner.

Home resiliency is another individual solution that can help mitigate collective problems. Pair home resiliency with a resilient financial portfolio as we discussed yesterday and you will be more self-reliant than 99% of the population. Then you will be free from worry to focus on those things in life that truly matter.

More to come,

Joe Withrow
Wayward Philosopher

For more of Joe’s thoughts on the “Great Reset” and the paradigm shift underway please read “The Individual is Rising” which is available at http://www.theindividualisrising.com/. The book is also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.

Fed-speak

submitted by jwithrow.

The following is a brief retrospective of the Fed’s promises about how long the fed funds rate would stay near zero, otherwise known as fed-speak.

Starting six years ago, the Fed promised rates would remain “exceptionally low”…

• … first “for some time” (December 2008)
• … then “for an extended period” (March 2009)
• … which morphed into a target date of “at least through mid-2013” (August 2011)
• … stretching to “at least through mid-2015” (September 2012).

Only three months after that last revision, the Fed threw out the chronological playbook and opted for numerical targets…

• … “as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5%” (December 2012)
• … “well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5%” (December 2013).

When Janet Yellen took over from Ben Bernanke, the targets became based on the anticipated wind-down of quantitative easing (QE)…

• … “for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends” (March 2014)
• … “for a considerable time following the end of its asset purchase program this month” (October 2014).

What’s going on here?

Whose Prescription Is It, Anyway?

by Author Howard Markel, MD, PhD – ICPA.org:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Ritalin

The boy is 14 years old and has one of the most severe cases of attention deficit disorder (ADD) that I have seen as a pediatrician. He fidgets; there are nonstop hand gestures, leg swinging and tapping. More troubling, he simply will not pay attention to any adult attempting to engage him in conversation, placing him in great jeopardy of flunking out of school.

During his first office visit, the boy explained his predicament to me: “It’s like I’m in a room with 20 big screen HDTVs blaring away in surround-sound. And on them are all the newest videos from MTV. The problem is that I can’t decide which one to watch, so I try to watch them all.”

His mother is less focused on her son’s perpetual motion than on his angry outbursts and what she sees as his refusal to listen to her. The day we met, she had already decided what she wanted to do. I was being told to write a prescription for Ritalin.

As every pediatrician knows, stimulant drugs like methylphenidate (Ritalin) cause most people to speed up their actions and thoughts. But for those with ADD (with or without hyperactivity), these drugs can slow them down, reduce overactivity, increase attention span, and can even improve relationships between a child and parents or other family members. There are, however, some nagging problems: none of us is exactly certain how these drugs work or what their long-term benefits and risks might be. Sometimes, they cause intolerable side effects such as tics and sleep disturbances.

The young man was clearly unhappy with his mother’s decision and let it be known with a slew of scowls and outcries of “Shut up!!” I asked him why he would prefer not being able to pay attention to his schoolwork, to which he replied: “You just don’t get it. I’m a lot more fun when I don’t take Ritalin. I crack great jokes in class and my friends think I am really cool. But when I take that stuff, I’m zoned out. I’m like a log. Ritalin ruins my life.”

This description went a long way in explaining why many teachers (and not a few parents) of kids with ADD prefer their charges to be medicated and why many children resist such attempts. Left untreated, however, many of these kids create problems with disruptive behaviors and can destroy the normal dynamics of a classroom and at home.

Here was my dilemma: The boy’s mother, and not the young man, wanted the prescription. The law defines a 14-year-old as a minor, but given that his condition was hardly fatal and essentially a behavioral issue, to whom should I have listened? The mother, who wants a more controllable child, or the boy, who simply wants to be what he perceives to be his true self? After all, the essence of adolescence is finding out who you are and figuring out who you want to be. As a pediatrician, I am supposed to be assisting youngsters in this difficult process.

That day, I listened to the parent and wrote the standard prescription for 40 mg of Ritalin a day. Like millions of youngsters with ADD, he takes 20 mg before going to school in the morning and another 20 mg at lunch.

Every month, I see the boy to renew his prescription for Ritalin and to make sure that there are no serious side effects. At each visit, he greets me with a deep-rooted but quiet anger. His fidgeting and outbursts seem to have diminished, but there has been little improvement in his schoolwork. Last year, he barely passed the eighth grade and his mother admitted that 2 of his teachers simply elected to pass him to avoid a repeat year with him. Nevertheless, she is delighted with the results.

When the boy is on vacation from school, I have noticed a definite change in his demeanor. Typically, when school is out, pediatricians give children with ADD a “drug holiday.” When he does not take his medication, his fidgeting and inattention are back in full force but he beams with joy, at least when I see him, and tells me that without Ritalin he can again enjoy cutting up in front of his friends.

But in his mother’s defense, I don’t live with him and have no real idea how disruptive his ADD behaviors can be at home. In cases like these, I have to listen to the parent that does live with him. I remain terribly conflicted about pharmacologically altering this young man against his will. Using potent pills to treat a disorder we do not completely understand flies in the face of prudent medical practice, and yet we pediatricians do this all the time with our ADD patients. More than a century ago, the great physician Sir William Osler observed that “the desire to take medicine is one feature which distinguishes man, the animal, from the rest of his fellow creatures.” In the practice of pediatrics, we are often compelled to include the parent’s desire in that rubric.

But still, I wonder, am I doing the right thing?

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Individual Solutions: Building Financial Resiliency

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Individual Solutions: Building Financial Resiliency

February 12, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P opened at $2,071 today. Gold is down to $1,226 per ounce. Oil is floating around $49 per barrel. Bitcoin is hanging around $221 per BTC, and the 10-year Treasury rate opened at 2.03% today.

Ten central banks have cut interest rates so far in 2015. The list includes: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, India, Egypt, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, and Turkey. Additionally, both the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are actively buying sovereign debt… with counterfeited currency created from thin air. The Federal Reserve is taking a break from this exercise after nearly six years of creating currency to shop at the U.S. Treasury and go yard-saling on Wall Street. Of course the $4.5 trillion worth of sovereign debt and mortgage-backed securities still sits on the Fed’s balance sheet in the interim.

All of this economic intervention is a concerted effort to stave off a major credit contraction. The central bankers talk about hitting certain GDP and unemployment rate metrics but that is all part of their dog and pony show. If creating currency out of thin air could actually grow an economy and create jobs then we would already live in a utopian paradise. But that’s just not how the world works.

Try as they may to avoid it, the coming credit contraction is inevitable. You see, the global monetary system has been fraudulent for a little more than four decades now. Gold officially anchored the global monetary system for two centuries prior to 1971. Then, in 1971, President Nixon’s administration acted to break away from two hundred years of tradition and the U.S. ended direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. Of course the “Great Society” welfare programs and the Vietnam War had a lot to do with this decision.

“Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today,” Nixon proclaimed on television with a straight face. “The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.”

Of course the exact opposite happened: the U.S. dollar fell off a cliff. Anyone living during the 70’s can attest to this. What was the price of a new home back then? A new car? A hamburger? The difference between what those items cost in 1971 and what they cost today represents how far the U.S. dollar has fallen in purchasing power.

How did this happen?

Well, with all ties to gold removed governments and central banks discovered they could conjure currency into existence to pay for anything they wanted. Tanks, fighter jets, food stamps, Medicare part D, $800 trash cans… no problem! So they embarked upon this historic credit expansion armed with a magical monetary system that provided them with money for nothing.

But governments weren’t the only beneficiaries. The companies making the tanks and the bombs made out like bandits. So did all of the bureaucrats who were hired as government expanded. And the people receiving welfare benefits found the system quite palatable as well. Pretty soon smart people learned that the best business in the world was to sell something to the U.S. government because it had unlimited money to spend. So they descended upon K Street like buzzards on road-kill and pretty soon the suburbs surrounding D.C. claimed home to six of the wealthiest ten counties in the U.S.

The champagne has been flowing up on the Hill and in the lobbyist offices on K Street for four decades now thanks mostly to the fraudulent fiat monetary system in place since 1971. The establishment hails their elastic currency system as a major success but theirs is a self-serving and short term view. Credit has been constantly expanding since 1971 but do we really think this can go on forever? Can we continue to run up debt, print money to pay interest on that debt, and then buy all of the fighter jets, disability checks, politicians, and cheap junk from China without ever having to think twice about it? If not, what happens when the credit contracts and we can no longer afford all of these expenditures?

The Austrian School of Economics tells us what the result of this madness will be: a “crack-up boom” followed by a monstrous bust as all of the bad debt and malinvestments are finally liquidated.

The crack-up boom occurs as the prices of assets and real goods are driven up to the moon by enormous amounts of excess currency conjured into existence in an attempt to perpetuate the credit expansion. After all, that new currency has to go somewhere. This scheme will work to stave off the credit contraction… until it doesn’t. Then cometh the bust.

While Austrian Economics can make the diagnosis, the timing of the bust cannot be predicted. There are too many interconnected factors at play. What’s important is that there is still time to build financial resiliency in advance. The cornerstone of financial resiliency is knowledge and understanding. Understand fiat money is an illusion. Understand the difference between money and wealth. Study Austrian Economics to get a feel for what’s really going on in the economy.

Once you understand how the monetary system actually works you can formulate a customized asset allocation model based upon your personal circumstances.

A resilient asset allocation model will consist of cash (20-30%), precious metals (10-30%), real estate (30-60%), and strategic equities (10-15%).

At minimum you should carry enough cash to cover at least 6-12 months of expenses. Distressed assets will go on sale when then bust hits so any cash in excess of your reserve fund can be used to acquire these distressed assets (real estate, stocks, businesses, etc.) when they are cheap.

Your precious metals allocation should consist of physical gold and silver bullion stored at home or in a legal segregated account overseas. Never store precious metals in a domestic bank vault – Americans learned this the hard way back in the 30’s when the banks closed and FDR raided the vaults to confiscate gold. Remember, precious metals are insurance not speculation. The price of gold (and silver) will skyrocket in terms of fiat currency, but its purchasing power will remain relatively constant just as it has for thousands of years. Those who save in fiat currency will see their wealth evaporate as the credit contraction unfolds while those who hold precious metals will weather the storm. J.P Morgan testified before Congress in 1912: “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” Don’t be fooled.

Real estate presents a unique opportunity currently as we are living during a period of historically low interest rates and lenders are willing to offer long term mortgages at these low rates. This provides a tremendous opportunity to lock in these low rates on real estate for thirty years during which time interest rates will inevitably rise significantly.

We firmly believe stocks should make up the smallest percentage of a resilient portfolio under current economic conditions. Stockholders have been the primary beneficiaries of the massive credit expansion and all of the easy-money chicanery over the past several years. Financial institutions have poured new money into the equities markets and publicly-traded companies have used a ton of excess cash to buy back shares of their own stock. As a result current stock valuations do not reflect the underlying health of the economy. Though stocks will run for a bit longer, we are closer to the end than the beginning of the bull cycle. We think the exception is in the resource and commodity sector, however. The stocks of well-managed companies in this sector could do extremely well over the next few years as the global financial system continues to falter.

Nobody can control macroeconomic conditions but we can each control our individual response to them. Building financial resiliency by constructing a diversified portfolio across several asset classes is an individual solution to a collective problem. Financial resiliency is just half of the picture, however. Tomorrow we will look at what we call home resiliency.

Until the morrow,

Joe Withrow

Wayward Philosopher

Common Core and Virtual Education

by William A. Estrada, Esq., Director of Federal Relations – HSLDA: $common core\$

The Common Core’s impact on public schools is well known. Forty states are now in the process of aligning their public school curriculum with these nationalized standards. Meanwhile, many parents and teachers are concerned that the Common Core is resulting in a dumbed-down, politicized education being pushed upon America’s school kids using unproven teaching methods.

In the growing backlash to the Common Core, some parents—fed up with increasing centralization and loss of parental control over education in the public schools—are choosing to homeschool their children. Private and home education remain outside the reach of the Common Core (although HSLDA has written about the Common Core’s potential to encroach on homeschool freedom).

But there is one particular area of education where families may not realize they are being affected by the Common Core: online public education, which includes virtual charter schools and any other online programs offered through the local public schools.

New Alignment

These programs use the same curriculum, testing, data storage, and privacy policies as the local public school. If your state has adopted the Common Core, every course offered through these virtual public school programs is either already aligned with the Common Core, or very soon will be.

There is no escaping it. Any end-of-year tests offered through these programs will be aligned with the Common Core. And all of the information that the school district collects or requires parents to submit as part of these programs will be stored in the public school’s database.

HSLDA has long been concerned that these programs, marketed to homeschool parents as a way to receive a free computer and other support from the local public schools, carry a risk to homeschool freedom. Nothing from the government is actually free, and these virtual public school programs can open the door to public school officials looking over the shoulder of families who use them.

Because these online courses are actually public school programs, HSLDA is unable to provide legal representation to our member families in connection with any children enrolled full-time in them.

We understand that homeschooling is not always easy or affordable. That is why we partner with the Home School Foundation to offer support, funding, and even free curriculum to homeschool families who are struggling. Due to the generosity of our members, there are other alternatives besides using online public school programs.

Article originally posted at HSLDA.org.

Nutritional Considerations for ADHD

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Early Use of ADHD Drug Alters Brain

Ritalin use in preteen children may lead to depression later in life. Ritalin and cocaine have different effects on humans. But their effects on the brain are very similar. When given to preteen rats, both drugs cause long-term changes in behavior.

One of the changes seems good. Early exposure to Ritalin makes rats less responsive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. But that’s not all good. It might mean that the drug short-circuits the brain’s reward system. That would make it difficult to experience pleasure—a “hallmark symptom of depression,” Carlezon and colleagues note.

The other change seems all bad. Early exposure to Ritalin increases rats’ depressive-like responses in a stress test. “These experiments suggest that preadolescent exposure to [Ritalin] in rats causes numerous complex behavioral adaptations, each of which endures into adulthood,” Carlezon and colleagues conclude. “This work highlights the importance of a more thorough understanding of the enduring neurobiological effects of juvenile exposure to psychotropic drugs.”

my.webmd.com/content/article/78/95700.htm?lastselectedguid={5FE84E90 -BC77-4056-A91C-9531713CA348}

Consider Fish Oil Over Ritalin

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have problems paying attention, listening to instructions, and completing tasks; they also fidget and squirm, are hyperactive, blurt out answers, and interrupt others.

It is conservatively estimated that 3-5% of the schoolage population has ADHD. Although drugs, such as Ritalin, are frequently used to treat ADHD, they are fraught with complications. Disadvantages include possible side effects, including decreased appetite and growth, insomnia, increased irritability, and rebound hyperactivity when the drug wears off.

One would not expect to find that a single cause or even a handful of factors could explain why ADHD appears to be so rampant in our society. Because it is accepted that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in ADHD, many other factors—both intrinsic and extrinsic— could influence an individual’s fatty acid status.

Inefficient Conversion of ALA (Flax Oil) To EPA And DHA

A possible cause for the low fish oil status of the ADHD children may be impaired conversion of the fatty acid precursors LA and ALA to their longer and more highly unsaturated products, such as EPA and DHA (fish oil fats).

It appears that children with ADHD just are not able to chemically convert the plant omega-3, ALA to fish oil very well. The problem is further worsened when omega-6 fats are consumed and the ideal omega-6:3 ratio of 1:1, progresses to the typical standard American ratio of 15:1. Many of these children have ratios which are even worse and can be as high as 50:1.

This study provides the research evidence supporting the use of the omega-3 fats found in fish oils to effectively address the underlying deficiency that is present in most of these children and appears to be contributing to the ADHD.

Two books worth having for your lending libraries:

Smart Fats: How Dietary Fats and Oils Affect Mental, Physical and Emotional Intelligence
by Michael A. Schmidt

Omega 3 Connection
by Dr. Stoll

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Vaccine Controversy Shows Why We Need Markets, Not Mandates

by Ron Paul – Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity:

If I were still a practicing ob-gyn and one of my patients said she was not going to vaccinate her child, I might try to persuade her to change her mind. But, if I were unsuccessful, I would respect her decision. I certainly would not lobby the government to pass a law mandating that children be vaccinated even if the children’s parents object. Sadly, the recent panic over the outbreak of measles has led many Americans, including some self-styled libertarians, to call for giving government new powers to force all children to be vaccinated.

Those who are willing to make an “exception” to the principle that parents should make health care decisions for their children should ask themselves when in history has a “limited” infringement on individual liberty stayed limited. By ceding the principle that individuals have the right to make their own health care decisions, supporters of mandatory vaccines are opening the door for future infringements on health freedom.

If government can mandate that children receive vaccines, then why shouldn’t the government mandate that adults receive certain types of vaccines? And if it is the law that individuals must be vaccinated, then why shouldn’t police officers be empowered to physically force resisters to receive a vaccine? If the fear of infections from the unvaccinated justifies mandatory vaccine laws, then why shouldn’t police offices fine or arrest people who don’t wash their hands or cover their noses or mouths when they cough or sneeze in public? Why not force people to eat right and take vitamins in order to lower their risk of contracting an infectious disease? These proposals may seem outlandish, but they are no different in principle from the proposal that government force children to be vaccinated.

By giving vaccine companies a captive market, mandates encourage these companies to use their political influence to expand the amount of vaccine mandates. An example of how vaccine mandates may have led politics to override sound science is from my home state of Texas. In 2007, the then-Texas governor signed an executive order forcing eleven and twelve year old girls to receive the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, even though most young girls are not at risk of HPV. The Texas legislature passed legislation undoing the order following a massive public outcry, fueled by revelations that the governor’s former chief of staff was a top lobbyist for the company that manufactured the HPV vaccine.

The same principles that protect the right to refuse vaccines also protect the right of individuals to refuse to associate with the unvaccinated. Private property owners have the right to forbid those who reject vaccines from entering their property. This right extends to private businesses concerned that unvaccinated individuals could pose a risk to their employees and customers. Consistent application of the principles of private property, freedom of association, and individual responsibility is the best way to address concerns that those who refuse vaccines could infect others with disease.

Giving the government the power to override parental decisions regarding vaccines will inevitably lead to further restrictions on liberties. After all, if government can override parental or personal health care decisions, then what area of our lives is off-limits to government interference? Concerns about infection from the unvaccinated can be addressed by consistent application of the principles of private property and freedom of association. Instead of justifying new government intrusion into our lives, the vaccine debate provides more evidence of the need to restore respect for private property and individual liberty.

Article originally posted at The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

ADHD and Non-Medical Care

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Parents seeking treatment for their child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) often pursue alternative treatments to those offered by conventional medicine. A study conducted in Australia investigated how many parents with ADHD children did seek some form of alternative to stimulant medication. This study published in the January 2005 issue of the Journal of Paediatric Child Health revealed that over two-thirds of families with an ADHD child sought alternative care. Families of 50 children out of 75 respondents attending the Royal Children’s Hospital in Victoria reported using at least one form of alternative treatment for ADHD.

Diet modification was the most common form of alternative treatment pursued by these parents (66 percent of those who tried alternatives). Other treatments that parents had tried included vitamins and minerals (32 percent), aromatherapy (24 percent), dietary supplements (24 percent), chiropractic (20 percent), naturopathic therapy (16 percent), herbal therapy (14 percent), and neurofeedback and behavioral optometry (10 percent each).

Parents were also asked their goals in seeking alternative treatment, and 89 percent wanted to minimize their child’s symptoms. Avoiding side effects of prescribed medications was rated as important by 67 percent of families.

Most importantly, nearly 60 percent of families rated at least one type of alternative treatment helpful for their child.

This study shows the frustration and general dissatisfaction among parents with the pharmaceutical approach to children’s attention problems. Parents are seeking a holistic approach to these children’s problems, and this study shows the perceived benefit that parents experience from these holistic methods of treatment.