Shells that appear to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explode
over a road leading to Chamaa village, as it is seen from Tyre city,
south Lebanon, Friday, March 27, 2026 (AP)
Lebanon has formally referred two Israeli violations to the UN Security
Council: the spraying of glyphosate herbicide over southern border
villages and the targeting of a Lebanese Army vehicle on June 6.
Lebanon's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
has sent two separate letters to the UN Security Council and
Secretary-General António Guterres documenting recent Israeli
violations, one addressing the spraying of the herbicide
glyphosate over southern border villages and the other condemning the
targeting of a Lebanese Army vehicle that led to the martyrdom of three
servicemen.
In the first letter, dated June 10,
2026, the Ministry lodged a formal complaint based on a report prepared
by the National Council for Scientific Research against the occupation army's spraying of glyphosate
over several southern Lebanese border villages on February 1, 2026,
noting that the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of
herbicides as a method of warfare.
Laboratory tests and chemical analyses conducted on soil samples
from Ayta al-Shaab, Ras al-Naqoura, and al-Dhayrah confirmed the
presence of glyphosate at concentrations reaching up to 22,750
micrograms per gram, levels far exceeding those typically recorded in
agricultural soil following direct use by farmers.
Attacks on the Lebanese Army
A second letter, sent on June 11, detailed the IOF's deliberate targeting of a Lebanese Army military vehicle
on June 6, on the Kfar Tebnit–al-Khardali road. The attack led to the
martyrdom of two officers, a brigadier general and a captain, and one
soldier, while they were carrying out their national duty in southern
Lebanon.
The Ministry called on the United
Nations to condemn the attack and take immediate measures to halt
repeated Israeli violations, urging full compliance with the UN Charter
and relevant international resolutions, including Resolution 1701
(2006).
'Undermining the diplomatic track'
The Foreign Ministry noted that the attacks are occurring against the backdrop of ongoing talks
between Lebanese authorities and the Israeli regime in Washington under
US sponsorship, "aimed at consolidating a cessation of hostilities and
laying the groundwork for a peaceful and sustainable solution."
The fifth round of negotiations between Lebanese and Israeli officials will begin in Washington on June 22, a Lebanese official source told Al Mayadeen,
describing the upcoming discussions as "particularly significant" for
resolving outstanding issues related to Israeli withdrawal from southern
Lebanon.
I am a fan of Unbekoming Substack, and recommend that you subscribe and follow this author. I have provided a written interview for their publication
in the past. I would like to draw your attention to the recent book
published by the author - “The Genetic Deception”. The book is kindly
made available by the author to my subscribers as a free download:
Below
is the introduction to the book and the Map of Work post which you can
follow to learn about their other books and research articles.
Introduction to The Genetic Deception (2026)
The Genetic Deception
is a book about the fifth and most formidable wall of modern medical
extraction. The first four walls — vaccination, allopathic medicine,
bacteriology, and virology — have all been seen through by some readers,
some of the time. The genetics wall captures even those who have seen
through the rest, because the genetics wall is the wall that wears your
face. To question a genetic diagnosis can feel like questioning your own
existence.
The book documents what the genetic framework conceals.
It
examines what the Human Genome Project actually delivered after thirty
years and billions of dollars: more than seven hundred genome-wide
association studies across approximately eighty diseases, all converging
on the same finding — the genetic contribution to common disease is at
most five to ten percent of risk. The architects of the field have
themselves abandoned the predictive ambitions that justified the
original investment. Francis Collins, who led the Project, scanned his
own genome and found his risk estimates for almost every disease were
within population averages. The architect of the field looked at his own
results and found them clinically useless.
It examines the
foundations of the molecule itself. The iconic image of the double helix
has never been directly observed. The 2001 announcement that the human
genome had been “sequenced” was made on the basis of computer-assembled
composites with eight to ten percent gaps. The first truly complete
human genome was not published until 2023. Standard DNA extraction
protocols applied to protein powder produce the same precipitate the
protocols produce when applied to actual cells.
It examines
forensic DNA testing. When NIST was finally forced to conduct a blinded
study, only six percent of one hundred and eight accredited forensic
laboratories reached the correct conclusion on a three-person mixture.
Seventy percent incorrectly indicated that the test suspect “might be in
the mix.” The technology has been used in courtrooms claiming 99.8
percent accuracy for decades and has put people in prison.
It
examines specific conditions. Familial hypercholesterolemia, presented
as a genetic death sentence requiring lifelong statin compliance, has
been tracked across two centuries of Dutch mortality data showing no
significant elevation in all-cause mortality compared with the general
population. BRCA1, the foundation of an entire industry of preventive
mastectomies, was launched on a 1994 paper that itself documented every
studied family containing at least one woman with the “cancer-causing
mutation” who lived to age 80 without cancer. Between thirty-five and
fifty-five percent of those who test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2
sequence differences never develop the disease. Down syndrome was linked
in 1964 to parental radiation exposure — to excess X-rays given to
pregnant women and to fathers working near radar — research that the
establishment has chosen not to integrate into present screening
protocols.
It examines the institutional lineage. Francis Galton published Hereditary Genius
in 1869, the same year Friedrich Miescher scraped pus from surgical
bandages and called the precipitate “nuclein.” The Rockefeller
Foundation funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes through the 1920s and
1930s, the institutions whose researchers wrote the Nazi sterilisation
laws. After the Second World War, “eugenics” became a dirty word; the
institutions did not disappear but renamed themselves. The Eugenics
Quarterly became Social Biology. The British Eugenics Society became the
Galton Institute, then the Adelphi Genetics Forum. The American
Eugenics Society moved its headquarters into the New York offices of
John D. Rockefeller III’s Population Council. The personnel and the
project continued under the new names. What has reached your doctor’s
office is the descendant of this lineage.
The book follows
the evidence across all of this and arrives at the same picture from
every direction. The genetic framework, as currently constituted and
applied, does not deserve the authority it has claimed.
The Appendices | Reference Material the Reader Returns To
The book closes with six appendices that function as reference material for paid subscribers.
The Vocabulary of Genetic Deception decodes the eighteen terms that perform the framework’s argumentative work in every medical conversation. Variant, mutation, carrier, predisposition, heritability, penetrance, de novo, polygenic.
Each entry shows what the term sounds like, what conclusion it smuggles
in before the argument begins, and what plain-language equivalent
describes the same observation without preloading the verdict.
What to Say When the Doctor Says “It’s Genetic”
is a plain-language script for the consultations the framework is not
designed to accommodate. Eight common doctor statements — You have the BRCA mutation, Your child has a genetic disorder, This runs in families, There’s nothing we can do — it’s genetic
— each paired with the questions that move the conversation toward the
evidence the doctor’s framework rules out. Including, in each case, the
documented data the patient is entitled to and rarely receives.
The Four Real Causes
is a diagnostic checklist for any condition labelled genetic. The four
categories of insult — toxic exposure, nutritional deficiency,
electromagnetic radiation, chronic stress — broken into specific lines
of inquiry. Pharmaceutical history, dental amalgams, water source,
wireless density, sleep architecture, occupational exposures. What can
be removed, what can be restored. The investigation the diagnosis
forecloses.
The Conditions Currently Labelled “Genetic”
is a field guide to seventeen conditions — cystic fibrosis, sickle
cell, Huntington’s, BRCA, familial hypercholesterolemia, Down syndrome,
Dravet, Alzheimer’s, autism, schizophrenia, type 1 diabetes, MS, lupus,
type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alpha-1, hereditary cancers,
birth defects. For each: the genetic story, what the evidence shows,
what is ignored.
The Eugenics Continuity
traces the institutional lineage from Galton (1869) through Cold Spring
Harbor (1904), Buck v. Bell (1927), the Rockefeller funding of the
German programmes (1920s-1930s), Watson and Crick (1953), the post-war
rebranding, the Human Genome Project (1990), and the present-day
“personalised medicine” apparatus.
The Curated Resource Library
is an annotated guide to the primary sources — Jonathan Latham and
Allison Wilson, Dr. Marizelle, Jamie Andrews, Tom Cowan, Toby Rogers,
Malcolm Kendrick, Lester and Parker, the Baileys, and the wider terrain
medicine tradition. Where to begin with each, what to read first, and
what each source is best for.
Palestinian
infant Adam al-Ustaz receives treatment at Al-Rantisi Children’s
Hospital in Gaza City after being bitten by a rat inside a displacement
tent, 28 March 2026. (Moiz Salhi/APAimages)
Around two months ago, my family and I
returned home to our apartment on Tal al-Hawa street in Gaza City after a
day of visiting relatives. The apartment was lit only by a small
battery-powered lamp that cast a dim glow over the space.
Later that night, when I went to the
bathroom to wash up, I opened the door and a large rat, about 5 inches
long, was staring back at me from behind the sink.
I shut the door immediately behind me and killed it with a small bucket.
There was blood on the floor. I put the
body in a plastic bag and cleaned the tiles with diluted bleach, the
only disinfectant we had. A few meters away, our two-month-old son,
Amjad, was sleeping. He came to us after nearly 16 years of waiting.
That night, the sounds began. Scratching
behind the walls, rustling movement in the ceiling. Something alive,
something in there. My wife and I did not sleep that night, and on
subsequent nights would take turns staying awake to keep an eye out
for rodents.
The next morning I went to al-Zawiya
market in central Gaza to find poison. The market is 5 kilometers from
our home, and I walked half the way because it is so difficult to find transportation.
The market I remember, though, is now gone.
Most of the original shops and narrow
covered alleys have been severely damaged or reduced to rubble. Sewage
runs through the streets, and flies hover over stagnant water.
Makeshift stalls of crates and plastic
sheets have replaced the shops; instead of organized rows, the market
now comprises scattered clusters of vendors. Some of the stalls are set
up beside or even inside tents where displaced families live.
A vendor, who asked to be identified by his initials only, M. H., sold me a 10-gram bag of poison for about $7.
He said that the most effective poisons are blocked from entry by Israel.
“What we’re selling now came from damaged warehouses,” he said.
Once that stock is gone, there will be no alternative.
“Families are buying what is available at four times the previous price,” he said.
I took the poison home, mixed it with a tin of sardines and placed it near the openings in our walls.
For two days, the rats disappeared.
Then they came back.
Purchasing some rubble
In Arabic, there is a saying: Many causes, one death.
In Gaza, we are witness to these many causes of death: airstrikes, hunger and contaminated water, to name a few.
And now, we see prospective death in the rats that move through the dark toward sleeping children.
They come out when the battery dies on the lamp and the apartment goes dark.
They come out when we are not around.
That is when they feel safe.
Our apartment building on Tal al-Hawa
street was bombed just one week before the so-called ceasefire, in
October 2025. Israel bombed the top three floors of the building, and
the remaining three lower floors sustained partial damage.
We are on the third floor, and our
apartment is missing some walls, the entire kitchen, all the windows and
doors and most of the furniture.
Giant piles of rubble surround us on every side, and this is where the rats live.
Protecting our apartment from rats would be a monumental task.
With the poison not doing the job, I
sought out construction materials myself, along with the help of
friends, to repair and seal any openings in our house.
Yet, given the Israeli blockade on materials needed to repair or insulate homes – cement, timber and other “dual-use” items – this would not be an easy task.
All supplies have to be found through
unofficial channels, so neighbors smuggle and sell cement and cinder
blocks to each other, ripping what they can from collapsed walls and
bombed-out homes.
My friend Islam Bakr, 55, helped me search for materials for days.
His own seven-story building, home to 30
apartments, in Gaza City’s al-Daraj neighborhood, had suffered damage
from Israeli strikes as well. The stairwell is cracked, and parts of the
upper floors remain exposed after nearby strikes.
As we searched for construction materials,
he told me how the rats had invaded his family’s food stockpiles:
flour, rice, cheese, yeast and dried legumes. This is food the family
had obtained from aid trucks and markets and then stored because Gaza’s
food supplies are scarce and unstable.
The rats nibbled away at their stockpile, contaminating the food. He found droppings in nearly every bag.
He recalled how a four-year-old child in a
nearby tent was bitten; the family got treatment and the child
recovered. But Islam said that it seems like most families do not seek
medical attention unless injuries are severe, because getting to a
hospital is its own ordeal.
Later that day, we found a group of people
selling cement blocks and bricks that had been salvaged from destroyed
homes. The blocks were displayed right in the middle of the street, amid
piles of rubble.
The sellers had cleaned the blocks of any
cement residue (typically, a clean brick fetches a higher price than a
damaged, unclean brick). The seller would not negotiate on price, and he
tacked on an extra fifty cents to cover transport costs.
I bought the used concrete blocks for about $2.50 each.
The ideal conditions for rats
The rodent infestation in Gaza is not a story of one statistic or figure, but of several of them combined: the 57.5 million tons of rubble that fill the streets; the approximate 3,000 cubic meters of solid waste that accumulate each day; and the inaccessible landfills and destroyed sewage treatment infrastructure.
In Gaza City, this collapse is visible
along every street, especially in the piles of waste that are heaped
along the street. At night, the smell intensifies, and it gets worse
when residents burn garbage.
Rubble, waste and standing water have created ideal conditions for rodents.
Then, at night, they move into homes and shelters.
My friend Alaa Abu Sharkh, 45, lives in
Beach Camp, a few kilometers from my home. His family had sought shelter
in a house with an asbestos roof. When Israel bombed a nearby mosque,
stones were blown outward and then fell through the roof, creating holes
large enough for rats to simply walk through, into the house.
They framed the holes with wood and laid plastic sheeting over top, taping and then double-taping until the plastic held.
So far, this has worked to keep the rats out. But the problem remains outside.
During the night, Alaa sees clusters of
rats moving through the rubble and waste piled along the road,
scattering and then regrouping in the dark.
“This is not something individuals can solve,” said Alaa. “It requires [municipal] bodies with real resources.”
When we discuss the rodent crisis, it can
at times feel absurd; we have survived the bombs of this war only to be
living in the disaster that the bombs created.
Rat bite in the night
Over 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged by Israel’s bombardment over two-and-a-half years.
Even if Israel did not ban so-called
dual-use items (like construction materials) that would enable us to
repair our homes and protect them from rodents, nearly all of
Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced, and many of them live
in tents with no walls to patch up or cracks to seal.
Inside the tents, rodents are a part of daily life. For rats, every shelter is accessible.
I spoke with Yousef al-Ustaz on the phone after seeing a video on social media of his newborn son Adam, who had been bitten by a rat.
The family lives in a tent in the
al-Maqousi area west of Gaza City, and at around 1 am, al-Ustaz woke to
his son crying – not unusual for a newborn.
“As I got closer, I saw blood covering my
baby’s face, and a rat running out of the tent,” al-Ustaz told The
Electronic Intifada. “At that moment, I was thinking of nothing but
saving his life.”
Adam was rushed to Al-Rantisi Children’s
Hospital, where doctors treated the wound and monitored him for
infection. He is now recovering from the bite.
I asked my nephew Omar al-Safadi, who is a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, whether he was seeing more rat-related admissions.
He said that medical centers in Gaza are
receiving about one or two cases of bites or scratches each day, mostly
involving children. Some develop infections requiring antibiotics.
“Around ten percent of cases develop
infections that need close monitoring,” Omar said. “Most of what we’ve
seen has been managed with disinfection and antibiotics. But the
irregular availability of medicines is a major obstacle.”
What next?
When I got home, I began to fill in the cracks and holes where the rats were entering the apartment.
Instead of using the expensive and
poor-quality cement available, I used a mixture of lime and sand,
working by hand to fill any gaps in the walls with the used blocks
I purchased.
It was crude, but it worked.
For now, the rats have stopped getting in.
Yet my wife and I sleep in the living room together with Amjad, surrounding him on all sides, in case they return.
Every night I go to sleep thinking about
how I cannot make sure my son is safe. We survived the bombs, the
displacement, the hunger, and now I am losing sleep over rats.
As if Gaza’s people had not already been asked to endure enough.
Four Palestine Action activists have been sentenced to a combined
total of more than 25 years in prison, after a judge ruled that they
could be treated as terrorists.
Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani
were convicted of criminal damage last month in relation to a raid
against an Israeli arms factory in Bristol in 2024.
At their sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court today, Judge
Johnson agreed to apply a “terrorism connection” to the case under the
Sentencing Act.
Head and Kamio were given six years, Rajwani received five years and
eight months, and Corner was sentenced to eight years and eight months.
Gasps could be heard from the public gallery as the sentences were
delivered, as some family members cried. They pounded the windows of the
gallery as the defendants were led out.
Hundreds of protesters were also gathered outside, and could be heard chanting throughout the day from inside the courthouse.
During the hearing, defence lawyers accused the prosecution of submitting key evidence “at the 59th minute of the 11th hour”.
That evidence related to how the defendants allegedly smashed 40
military assets including over a dozen drones, causing over £1.2m worth
of damage.
Defence counsel said the submission allowed no time to review the
report and admitting it as evidence would amount to “a gross affront to
the integrity of the criminal justice system”.
What the court heard
That evidence – a witness statement from a consultant who assessed
what Elbit’s insurance company was required to pay after the raid – was
submitted to the court just eight days before the hearing.
It
marked the first time that an assessment of the damage at the factory
was submitted from a witness that was not anonymous and was, therefore,
potentially admissible.
Defence counsel Tom Wainwright explained that the report had been
submitted so late that he had not even had the opportunity to discuss it
with his client, Samuel Corner.
“It would be wholly wrong and unfair for my Lord to allow the
prosecution to rely on this highly contentious evidence for sentencing
purposes and admit it for the purposes of determining the value of the
damage caused”, said lead defence counsel Rajiv Menon.
Judge Johnson nonetheless accepted the evidence as admissible but
said he would only use it to form a narrow view of the damage incurred
at the factory.
The latter half of the hearing focussed on how the word “serious” is
properly defined with reference to the “serious damage to property”
clause of the Terrorism Act.
Defence lawyers argued that the term “serious” was intended by
parliament to imply something “sinister” such as causing “excessive
fear” or “harm” towards persons.
Menon also raised concerns that there is a pattern of courts finding
“terrorism connection” in cases involving minorities or those supporting
them, but not white supremacists.
Neither Thomas Mair, the neo-Nazi murderer of British MP Jo Cox, nor
Thomas McKenna, who was procuring firearms to provoke a “race war” were
given criminal convictions with a “terrorism connection”, he noted.
“So apparently, stockpiling weapons in preparation for a race war
against Muslims and immigrants does not amount to an act of terrorism”,
Menon declared to the court.
Verdict
Judge Johnson’s ruling was made with reference to the statutory definitions of terrorism in the Terrorism Act.
They include causing “serious damage to property” for political
reasons with the aim of influencing a government, international
organisation, or sector of the public.
He found that “serious damage to property” was caused to Elbit’s factory in Bristol.
This damage extended to “very many individual items of advanced
technological equipment as well as to the fabric of the building”,
Johnson said, adding that the evidence provided late to the court shows
“more than £1m paid out by insurers”.
It was unnecessary to determine “precise economic value of damage” as he was “sure it amounted to serious damage”, he continued.
Johnson further ruled that the protest action was not designed to influence the Israeli government.
However, he said it was intended to influence the UK government as
well as a sector of the public defined as employees of and companies
linked to Elbit Systems.
There was a “strategy of carrying out actions against Elbit and
businesses linked to it in order to intimidate it into ceasing
operations or cause the government to prevent it from operating”,
Johnson said.
He was also “sure” that the action was for the purpose of “advancing a
political or ideological cause” in line with the defendants’ beliefs
surrounding Israel and Palestine.
In concluding his verdict, Johnson said: “I am sure each of the
defendants’ offences involved serious damage to property, was designed
to influence the UK government and to intimidate a section of the
public, and was for the purpose of advancing a political cause”.
Major concerns
The ruling comes amid major concerns surrounding the weaponisation of terrorism laws against pro-Palestine activists.
One of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers, Michael Mansfield KC, said before the hearing that sentencing protesters as terrorists would be a “constitutional threat”.
Mansfield was among a group of 50 lawyers and legal experts to write
an open letter which stated: “It’s particularly insidious for the
obvious reason that they weren’t allowed to explain their motivation to a
jury – that was denied them.
“And yet the state says ‘we’re actually going to elevate what the
offences are’ when a jury might well not have convicted had they known
they were going to be treated as terrorists”.
The letter continued: “The fundamental principle is you should not be
convicted on any statutory offence for which you have not been
charged”.
Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell also signed a letter
condemning this “unjust” and “cruel” use of terrorism laws in advance of
the hearing.
Defence lawyers are expected to appeal this decision.
Well, well, well… look who’s quietly closing the doors on their shiny new mRNA empire.
Remember
when Singapore was going to be the gleaming hub of the “mRNA
revolution” in Asia? Yeah, that dream just got quietly euthanised.
BioNTech,
the same German outfit that partnered with Pfizer to push the
experimental genetic shots we were all forced to take, has announced it
is shutting down its flagship Singapore vaccine production plant by early 2027.
This was their biggest mRNA manufacturing bet in Asia.
Acquired in 2022 from Novartis in Tuas Biomedical Park, it was supposed
to be their Asia-Pacific regional headquarters. Fully built-out,
state-of-the-art, ready to churn out several hundred million doses of mRNA vaccines per year.
The plant is being closed. The workers are being shown the door. The reason? Massive, catastrophic collapse in COVID-19 vaccine sales.
No
more boosters. No more demand. Lots of damaged heart. 300% increase in
ALS Drug sales on a post vaccinated population. The public finally got
the message that the “Safe and Effective™” miracle was nothing but a
snake oil scam.
And just in case you thought this was some isolated Singapore problem… think again.
This week, Pfizer and BioNTech quietly halted a massive U.S. clinical trial
for their updated COVID-19 vaccine targeting healthy adults aged 50 to
64. The study, which aimed to recruit 25,000 to 30,000 participants, was
shut down because they simply couldn’t get enough people to sign up.
Recruitment
struggles? That’s putting it mildly. Over 80% of people who showed even
slight interest failed pre-screening. The companies admitted they
couldn’t generate the “relevant post-marketing data” they needed. No
safety issues, they claim, just nobody showing up for another round of
the jab even if you’re paying them.
This
isn’t some small side study. It was meant to support approval and
recommendations for a huge chunk of the adult population. Now? No data
for the upcoming FDA advisory meeting. No clear path forward for this
age group. The mRNA machine is literally running out of willing guinea
pigs.
Just like the ALS drug sales spiking 300% and the stroke drug sales jumping 200% that I showed you in Part1 and Part 2,
the data from Singapore never lies. High vax rates, excellent tracking,
perfect little petri dish for spotting what the jab is really doing
long-term.
And now even BioNTech itself is admitting, in the coldest possible way, that the party is over, both in the factory and in the clinic.
The
mRNA cash cow that made them tens of billions during the pandemic has
dried up. The “excess capacity” they built in Singapore is now… well…
excess. Because nobody in their right mind wants another shot of
whatever that DNA Contaminated stuff actually was.
Singapore,
the same country that ranked #1 in the world for excess deaths while
boasting 92%+ vaccination rates, now watches another pillar of the mRNA
fantasy quietly fold.
The jab that keeps on giving… just keeps on taking.
Taking lives. Taking jobs. Taking manufacturing plants. Taking the last scraps of credibility from the entire “this is the future of medicine” narrative.
DIETARY PRACTICES AND ANTHROPOMETRY OF CHILDREN FROM AN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY IN A VILLAGE IN MUNDGOD, UTTARA KARNATAKA, INDIA
Dr. Weston A. Price’s landmark 1939 book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,
provided powerful evidence that modern diets of refined flour, sugar
and vegetable oils were causing nutritional deficiencies that manifested
as dental caries and other health issues, including facial deformities,
abnormal dental arches and increased susceptibility to acute and
chronic disease. On the other hand, Price found that indigenous diets
based on seafood, livestock (including organ meats), dairy and fermented
foods, with or without plant-based foods, were protective.
Loyola Vikasa Kendra (LVK) is a nongovernmental social action
organization operating two centers that run programs in eighty villages.
In the spirit of Dr. Price’s research, LVK decided to conduct a study
to document the dietary practices of three- to six-year-old children in
an indigenous village in the South Indian state of Karnataka, with the
aim of correlating children’s diet with their oral and general health.
In addition to focus group discussions and key informant interviews, the
researchers (with parental consent) collected anthropometric data and
conducted oral and physical exams on forty-nine village children. This
article summarizes some of the findings.
STUDY CONTEXT
The study took place in a gowli village of one hundred fifty households. The gowli are
a predominantly pastoral group grazing cattle in forest areas in Uttara
Kannada, the fifth largest district in Karnataka. (The word gowli, which means “milkmen” or “herdsmen,” derives from gai or gao—the
word for “cow.”) With a tradition of herding cattle and selling milk,
the community migrated to Karnataka seventy-five years ago following a
severe drought in their original state of Maharashtra.
Their dairy livestock include native buffalo breeds from Maharashtra
and Karnataka— breeds considered hardier and more resistant to disease.
Although some families have replaced the indigenous breeds with Jersey
cows, study participants described the Jerseys as less resilient and not
well suited to forest grazing, making them more expensive to maintain
because they require supplemental feed such as rice and groundnut
husks. Reportedly, children think that the milk from the indigenous
animals tastes better.
Villagers described the indigenous animals as their “connection with
the forest,” explaining that the manure “enriches the soil and makes the
plants and trees and grass grow better.” The government’s forestry
department has been imposing increasing restrictions on forest grazing,
alleging destructive impacts, but focus group participants reported
that where grazing is not allowed, the forest areas are “dying.”
DIETARY PRACTICES
Not surprisingly, the gowli community relies heavily on dairy, with a fermented milk-based gruel called amblee forming
a staple part of the diet. Many children consume milk, both raw and
cooked, three to five times a day, often with added turmeric, and adults
drink milk in the morning rather than coffee or tea. One study
participant stated, “We depend a lot on milk, curd and ghee. We also
consume butter. We have amblee quite often. . . . We are all healthy because of milk. We also make majige saaru [buttermilk curry].”
In addition to dairy foods, the villagers eat fish, chicken, lamb and
goat, including offal and blood, as well as some game when available—
but they do not eat beef. The diet also includes a variety of seasonal
fruits and vegetables, as well as rice, lentils and millet flatbread.
Seasonally available ghee, groundnut oil and refined palm oil are the
predominant cooking fats. With the restrictions on forest grazing,
villagers reported that they are losing access to forest-foraged foods
such as tubers, wild honey, herbs and certain leafy greens.
A dry dish called sooka made from blood is given to women
five days after delivery. Postpartum women also eat a gruel prepared
with dry coconut, ghee or coconut oil, pepper and “broken wheat.”
Infants breastfeed anywhere from four months to five years, depending on
whether the mother works outside the home. When they begin drinking
milk, they start with cow’s milk and do not consume buffalo milk,
perceived as “thicker,” until at least six months of age. One villager
wisely commented, “Doctors ask us to give powdered milk to the children.
We say okay but we don’t listen to them.”
An interview with a six-foot-tall farmer who towered over the other
villagers provided insights into recent dietary trends. Recalling how he
drank warm milk straight from the cow as a child, he noted that junk
food has started appearing in children’s diets and suggested that the
increased intake of processed foods was causing heights to come down in
his community. Some villagers have complained about the “rancid” and
“unappetizing” prepackaged foods and powdered milk served to children at
the local preschool. The long-standing demand of “right-to-nutrition”
groups has been that school food be prepared by dalit women from the local community using local ingredients. (Dalit women
belong to the lowest category in the caste structure of India, often
labelled as “untouchable” and not allowed to handle food but rather work
related to sanitation.)
PHYSICAL AND DENTAL HEALTH
The gowli children had better indicators for expected
heights and weights for age compared to the national and state averages.
Roughly three out of four children assessed (73 percent) had expected
height for age, and 88 percent had expected weight for age. Table 1
compares children in India, Karnataka and the study village on
indicators of stunting and underweight.
On general physical examination, nearly all (98 percent) had clear
eyes and skin, and good cardiovascular and respiratory health. A few
children had signs of healed skin conditions.
The majority of village children had sound dentition and good facial structure, as shown in Table 2.
When the study team compared the dietary practices of the children
with and without dental caries (cavities), they found that among the
children with no dental decay, 74 percent consumed milk three to five
times a day, “undiluted” but not necessarily raw; only four of the
children had consumed raw milk in the week of the survey. Regular milk
consumption among children with one or more cavities was lower (48
percent), with some of those families reporting economic hardships that
made it necessary to give the children milk only “as and when possible.”
Three out of four children (74 percent) in the no-cavity group had
consumed organ meats (intestine, liver, blood) in the previous month,
versus 46 percent of the group with one or more cavities. About the same
number of children in each group had eaten some kind of junk food in
the week of the survey.
CONCLUSION
Although the study provided a glimpse into the encroachment of the
“displacing foods of modern commerce” into the diet of rural Indian
children, including junk foods and powdered or heated milk, overall, the
research team found that village children from groups with a strong
tradition of dairy consumption—including fermented and raw dairy—appear
to drink more milk than their urban counterparts. Comparable survey
results from urban preschools would help confirm this. A small number of
parents commented that their children did not like the taste of organ
meats, but in general, the regular consumption of offal such as liver
and blood also still seems to be supporting the dental and physical
health of many of these village children.
With acknowledgements to Dr. Svarooparani Patel, Jerald D’souza
(director, St. Joseph’s College of Law), Loyola Vikasa Kendra, Mundgod.
The
village dairy livestock include native buffalo breeds from Maharashtra
and Karnataka—breeds considered hardier and more resistant to disease.
An elevated sheep pen, to protect the sheep from snakes.
A
six-foot-tall farmer who towers over the other villagers recalls how he
drank warm milk straight from the cow as a child. He believes that the
increased intake of processed foods is causing heights to come down in
his community.
A
handsome village woman with her two well-formed children. But note the
cell phone in her left hand—one of the modernities that come in with
processed food.
The
majority of village children had sound dentition and good facial
structure; only 8 percent had misaligned teeth. The basis of the village
diet is milk and milk products, meat and organ meats.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2025
On Monday, two protesters were shot and killed in Nanyuki, Kenya, during demonstrations against the creation of a quarantine center at a US air base under the pretext of the Ebola epidemic. The center will only accommodate American “sick” people (real or alleged) because viruses primarily look at passports.
This morning, the first US first responders landed at Laikipia Air Base, where the US military is constructing a 50-bed unit.
Last week, Marco Rubio said, “We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States.” Only those Americans requiring higher levels of medical care will be flown to as-yet-unidentified hospitals in Europe.
The White House did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether the facility would be accessible to Kenyans.
Kenyans have opposed the facility after Washington announced last week that no American "sick" with Ebola would be allowed to return to the United States, but would instead be quarantined in Kenya.
Kenyan President William Ruto defended the creation of the quarantine center, even though the Supreme Court on Friday suspended construction of the facility and the arrival of the "sick" individuals.
In a typical act of colonial subservience, he said Kenya had a long-standing partnership with the United States on health matters and that the quarantine center at Laikipia Air Base was one of 24 that had been designed to "fight" the Ebola outbreak in the country.
"When President Trump asked the Kenyan government to support them by having a center at Laikipia Air Base, I gave it the go-ahead because it was an agreement and a partnership with friends who have worked with Kenya for 30 or 40 years," Ruto said.
Ruto is facing a barrage of protests for various reasons and, at the same time, is under pressure to declare a state of emergency.
During the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, several healthcare workers treating patients were evacuated to hospital facilities within the United States, without subsequent transmission. Trump opposed this, saying that returning volunteers should face the consequences and should not be allowed to enter the United States.
FW Comment:
'Ebola'-affected areas principally overlap with mining zones (e.g. gold, diamonds,
iron ore) and 'Ebola' symptoms overlap substantially with those of arsenic and mercury poisoning. Virtually all African countries with
local 'Ebola' transmission have active mining activity, whether industrial or small-scale and artisanal. And as with other "viruses", the purported Ebola virus serves as the ideal cover story to conceal the actual causes of illness, whether these be industrial pollution, agricultural pesticides, GMO food, ionising or non-ionising radiation.
As biochemist David Rasnick has stated: “I have examined in detail the literature on isolation and [electron microscope pictures] of both Ebola and Marburg viruses. I have
not found any convincing evidence that Ebola virus (and for that matter
Marburg) has been isolated from humans. There is certainly no
confirmatory evidence of human isolation.”
.png){kind=tracking}
.png){kind=tracking}
