The Story of Cholesterol: The Next Generation (Our Children)

The pharmaceutical industry has its eye on what could be one of the most lucrative demographics that can be tapped into: our children. With obesity rates among young people on a steady rise it was only a matter time before higher cholesterol rates were observed with an eagerness to address it with statin drugs.

Other than the elderly our children are the most vulnerable of us all. That is why special care must be undertaken to ensure a healthy and prosperous start to life. Could statin drug use in our children be the start they need?

The Effects

No one knows for sure the long term effects of statin drugs on children. The reason for this is that no long term studies have been conducted to show efficacy (benefit or harm). What is known is how it affects adults in a relatively short span of time and most often the news is not good.

Also we must consider the fact that statins lower cholesterol by inhibiting the production of hormones especially sex hormones (e.g. testosterone and estrogen). In children this could be potentially devastating altering how their bodies develop forever by interfering with puberty and proper growth. It is known that statin drugs communicate with the pituitary gland blocking or discontinuing certain hormonal functions stunting biological processes.

Children, eating habits, and exercise

According to the Centers for Disease Control childhood obesity rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. In 2010 it was estimated that nearly 1/3 of all children were overweight or obese. With these statistics there are some doctors and pharmaceutical reps chomping at the bit to get statins into the mouths of children but it doesn't have to be so.

Children tend to eat the way their parents eat. In fact, it is highly likely that if the parents are sedentary, fast food junkies so to will the children likely be. It is estimated that 1/3 of all adults in the U.S. are obese so the estimate for children makes sense. After all the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. We live in a world where we seek the path of least resistance which means we sometimes take short cuts with our health and the health of our children by doing the least possible by way of exercise and activity. We should encourage children to be more active by word and by deed. Children must be told and shown how and why to be active because their very lives depend on it. The same goes for eating habits. A healthy meal plan for the entire family is a great way to get kids involved in healthful and nourishing eating habits that will last their lifetimes.

Medications have their place but long term habitual use in our children will only lead to devastating consequences during or before early adulthood. After all, when you really get down to it, do we really expect an 11 year old child to take statins for 40-60 years without consequences when we know what it does to fully grown adults? Can you imagine the potential profit base for pharmaceutical companies over the same period of time? The average annual per patient cost for a statin is $800 X 60 (years) X 14,000,000 (number of children between the age of 6 and 17 years old that are considered obese or overweight as of 2012) = $672 billion (yes, billion with a B). This number does not take into account the portion of money covered by insurance which is covered by those who pay premiums. It also does not take into account the money that will be spent on other health issues as a result of statin drug use. What is very sad is that the figure above may be overstated because the assumption is a child of 11 would survive until their 70th birthday while taking a statin drug which is unlikely.

More fruits and vegetables, less processed and fast food and a little more movement will allow our children to grow healthy and strong while allowing parents and premium payers alike to keep our money and sanity.

Multivitamin Use Absurd and Dangerous? I Think Not Part II

Another major flaw in the studies cited is what really gives me the greatest concern. With the exception of the chelation study the participants were allowed to use any type of multivitamin they wanted. It mattered not to the researchers if those participating in the studies used natural or synthetic vitamins. The quality of the vitamin nor amount consumed did not matter much either. Participants were not guided on vitamin intake except for the request that the upper limits of vitamin consumption as described by the US Food and Nutrition Board were not exceeded. Even the chelation study failed to control for the quality of the supplements used by the researchers.

A word about "natural" vs. synthetic" vitamins

Since the participants could walk into any store or go online and purchase whatever they wanted there was surely a hodgepodge of vitamins and minerals used. Most people succumb to mainstream advertisements as a major source of supplement information and end up purchasing cheap, synthetic versions of the vitamin they want. The old adage "you get what you pay for" rings very true in this case. Most synthetic vitamins are not bio-available (a fancy word that means your body cannot absorb it) while others are ill absorbed and therefore are just plain trash. How is it possible to receive a meaning outcome in a study where you can shout to the world that multivitamins are useless if you fail to control for (or consider in the case of a meta-analysis) what the participants use? Furthermore, an upper limit of how much to take was established but not a lower limit. What if several of the participants decided to take half doses or less? What reasonable conclusions could one make of a study or analysis that does not account for this? 

It is estimated that a fair majority of all vitamins and minerals on the market today are synthetic with some estimates going as high as 90%! With marketers of all stripes and colors jockeying for our supplemental dollars the truth about the efficacy of their products gets more and more fuzzy. Labels like "all natural" or "food source" can be highly legalistic in definition and therefore deceiving. In order to make sure you are consuming natural vitamins that are high in quality you have to know and trust the manufacturer which can be difficult for sure. Until trust in a product is sure I can give you this one tidbit to take with you on you next supplement shopping trip. Be sure to read the labels and know that any vitamin that begins with "dl" is a synthetic. For example, one of the most widely consumed vitamins in the U.S. is dl-alpha-tocopherol which is a cheap and synthetic form of vitamin E. Notice the "dl" at the head of the name. Also, some manufacturers mix the natural version of a vitamin with the synthetic version. This is how some supplements can be labeled "natural" while containing synthetic product so make sure to read the ingredients if a natural vitamin is what you are looking for.

A holistic approach to health often overlooked

Sadly, many people would like to pigeon hole our health into tidy little compartments mostly to our detriment. Some mean well enough while others are more intentional. Either way we are left in a terrible mess when we or researchers fail to consider the big picture to our health. The interesting point to make here is that multivitamin and mineral use is only one part of the kaleidoscope that makes for great health. If you want to prevent or reverse cardiovascular issues several things must be done. Limiting oxidative stress and inflammation in conjunction with a healthy eating plan, exercise and mental stress mitigation are all keys to better cardiovascular health. I find it extremely disingenuous to conduct any such study of vitamin and mineral use without considering these additional avenues of approach. No one should believe that just taking a multivitamin is going to be helpful while remaining sedentary, over stressed and filled to the gills with fast food especially if the vitamin is synthetic and crappy! But that is just what the researchers want us to believe and what's sad is some of us will.

The Story of Cholesterol: Our Immune Systems

On a daily basis our immune systems are constantly under pressure to perform a symphony of life saving duties. Multiple levels of specialized cells and chemicals orchestrate tasks like carry messages, serve as lookouts and summon killer cells. Pathogens, inflammation, even poorly digested food make demands for the attention of our often overburdened immune systems but the indignity does not stop there for some of us. Cholesterol lowering has been the "go to" treatment for many people with the unfortunate side effect of a suppressed immune system for many.

How suppression happens

It was mentioned in a previous article that one of the few benefits of statin drugs is that it reduces inflammation in the body and indeed it does. The problem is how it goes about achieving this "accomplishment". Your immune systems is a complex work of art. A significant part of the artwork involves being able to point out infection causing pathogens to the rest of the immune system. This is accomplished by creating inflammation with a chemical known as NF-kB. We must remember that inflammation, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. Without it our bodies would suffer greatly from a lack of an alarm system (inflammation) when burglarized by infection causing materials. Problems with inflammation arises when it becomes rampant and chronic due to what we do to ourselves through certain foods, drugs or environmental exposures.

Statin drugs inhibits our bodies from making NF-kB, the chief burglar alarm of the body, by the same process in which it inhibits production of CoQ10. At first thought it would seem like a good idea to lower inflammation and by most natural standards it is. It becomes problematic when it is done with a drug that ultimately makes the immune system weaker and less responsive.

Why is NF-kB suppression a big deal?

Would it surprise you to know that some pathogens like E. Coli and Salmonella actually proliferate by suppressing the body's ability to produce NF-kB? With no alarm they can terrorize the body. There are viruses that can do the same thing or can even increase the alarm rate which causes an over response and overwhelms the system. The point is that manipulating the process to produce NF-kB generally leads to adverse or undesired results.

It is also important to point out that low cholesterol levels put people at increased risk of acquiring and dying from infections. Cholesterol itself (specifically LDL the so-called "bad cholesterol") is noted for being able to disarm 90% of toxic bacterial pathogens. Infections can take hold of the body whether cholesterol levels fall too low or through suppression of NF-kB production. In 1992 a review of 19 studies of more than 68,000 deaths found that those with low cholesterol died from respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in higher numbers than those with what is generally considered normal to high cholesterol. In addition, a study that began in 1977 called MRFIT found that men with cholesterol levels at or below 160 were four times as likely to die from AIDS as men whose levels were above 260.

The bottom line

Manipulating the immune system to prevent it from doing all or part of it's job usually leads to disastrous outcomes. Medical science has done it for years whether it be intentionally (think organ transplants) or unintentionally you can never be sure of the results. One thing is sure and that is wherever a compromised immune system exist there will be a pathogen waiting to exploit it. At that point the question becomes one of survival.

Sources include:

The Great Cholesterol Myth (Bowden and Sinatra)

Green Tea, Pharmaceuticals and Your Hypertension

Recently an article was published on various online news outlets about green tea and its effects on a certain medication for hypertension. This same study is slated to be published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics which will lend it much credibility in the eyes of many in the medical establishment. The study says, in part, that if a person is being treated for hypertension with a drug called nadolol (market name Corgard) they should not drink green tea. After careful consideration of the study findings I believe some of the issues associated with the study itself and the effects of green tea should be discussed.

"The Study"

Let us begin with the fact that this study was conducted with ten (10) people. Yes, you read that correctly and it is not a typo. Only ten people were used for this "study" and they were consuming the drug nadolol for only for two weeks. In addition, the ten individuals used in the study were between the ages of 20 and 30 with no known health issues including hypertension. None of them had high blood pressure so the effect of the green tea's interaction with the drug and its supposed effect on preventing the treatment of hypertension could not be established since it was not (and could not be) studied.

Also, no evidence of a cause and effect relationship between the drug nadolol and green tea was established. The researchers do not know why or how green tea is affecting the absorption of the drug or if it is affecting it at all. The scientist involved in the study "believe" that the antioxidant ECGC found in the tea is the culprit. As far I as can tell belief is a matter of faith and faith belongs firmly within the realm of religion and spirituality not science. If scientist wish to tell people that green tea is hazardous to their health they should diligently provide proof using the very scientific method we were all taught in grade school.

To add insult to injury the "test" subjects drank 3-4 cups of green tea per day. This represents an amount of tea that is double the average amount of green tea consumed by average tea drinking Americans. This fact makes the study dubious and misleading on its own.

Benefits of Green Tea

The sad irony of this study is that one of the many benefits of green tea is its ability to lower blood pressure. Angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) contributes to high blood pressure under certain situations and green tea helps to inhibit its production. Many people are on blood pressure lowering medications known as ACE inhibitors that have harmful side effects. Green tea is a natural ACE inhibitor with no known side effects. It should be noted the nadolol is not an ACE inhibitor but a beta blocker, however, the point of this message is the blood pressure relieving powers of green tea. 

Also, green tea helps to do many things like stimulate brain activity for increased clarity, reduce the chances of bacterial food poisoning by preventing the growth of E. coli and other harmful pathogens and helps to maintain proper blood glucose levels for those wishing to prevent or control diabetes. 

There are many more benefits offered by consuming green tea that are therapeutic and pleasing to the body without harmful side effects. It should, in no way, be demonized especially by such a crudely crafted study.

Conclusion

The unfortunate truth these days is that we live in a sound bite world where most people get their news from headlines. Even television news stories have taken on the cloak of superficiality and seldom report the details of anything. Not only is this practice costly but potentially devastating especially to our health. It is important more and more that we move beyond the headlines and peek behind the veil for the full story especially when it pertains to our health!

The Story of Cholesterol: The Statin Drug Nightmare Part I

We have steadily climbed to the point of discussing a class of drugs known as statins. These very powerful and costly medications has reached the height of pharmaceutical popularity. Essentially a sub-industry within an industry statin drugs account for $31 billion of annual sales alone. It is estimated from sales that a staggering 15 million Americans are currently on these cholesterol lowering drugs. All the while the majority of them are suffering from side effects that range from slightly annoying to absolutely debilitating. These side effects include impaired cognitive function, sexual dysfunction, increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, lethargy and low vitamin D levels (with its associated adverse health effects when vitamin D deficiencies occur).

The history of mankind has been filled with many medical oddities that now look completely absurd to us. As far back as 1500 BC mercury was used for whatever ailed you. During the 19^th century the chief ingredient in cough syrup was heroin. And who can forget bloodletting used by the Greeks and the rest of the world right up to the 19^th century. While all of this might elicit a chuckle or two as we think of how silly “those people” were for believing in that stuff history will chuckle at us when statin drug use is reviewed for the amusement of our more enlightened descendants.

One of the many issues that surrounds the use of statin drugs is the yet unproven hypothesis that blood cholesterol is a key contributor to heart disease. You read that correctly: Cholesterol being the chief contributor to heart disease is a yet unproven hypothesis. In fact almost all studies concerning the relationship between heart disease and cholesterol either points to another culprit (e.g. inflammation), exonerates cholesterol or both. During the late ‘80’s a Dr. Russell Smith wrote a two volume review of literature associated with heart disease and diet called Diet, Blood Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review of the Literature. It took over 600 pages of research for him to state that in the vast majority of studies reviewed there was no difference in the number of deaths between people who reduced their cholesterol and those that did not. This point will become more important as we move along.

In 1991 Dr. Smith teamed up with Dr. Edward Pinckney, the editor of four medical journals, to publish a book called The Cholesterol Conspiracy. In the book they summarized studies conducted with cholesterol lowering drugs and concluded that these drug were effective at lowering cholesterol but not deaths. Of the eight randomized and blinded trials that met their standard for study six had participants where the rate of death among the group being treated with cholesterol lowering drugs was the same or higher than the control group. That’s not very promising but it gets worse. They also looked at sixteen studies looking at reducing cholesterol using a drug and diet approach. What they found was that the death rate from all-causes in the treatment group and control was the same. In addition, the rate of death from coronary heart disease was the same or greater among the treatment group in fifteen of the sixteen trials. Yes, you read that correctly. What the good doctors demonstrated, essentially, is that there was zero benefit to lowering cholesterol when it comes to preventing adverse coronary events including death. Outside of a very narrow group of people (white males at least 48 years old who have already had one heart attack) statins have proven to have no benefit but they have proven to be extremely toxic. Part II of the statin nightmare will address specific issues that statins cause in the body.

Sources include:

The Great Cholesterol Myth

The Cholesterol Conspiracy

The Story of Cholesterol: Inflammation is the villain that got away

Let us, for the sake of illustration, imagine a crime scene. At this crime scene is a victim who is alive but unconscious and thus unable to speak. The paramedics are working tirelessly to tend to the fallen soul as a crowd of witnesses and on -lookers gather. When the police finally arrive they begin arresting the paramedics, witnesses and the on-lookers just for being at the scene. In the meantime the true culprit goes unnoticed and is allowed to continue to victimize others. If you are anything like me a sense of injustice swept over you as you pondered this scenario as it should but this is how we treat cholesterol. Cholesterol is often (but not always...we'll get to that) the unwitting witness or even the paramedic that gets blamed for doing something it had no part in while the true villain, inflammation, gets away Scot-free to continue its reign of terror. By the way, in the illustration the silent victim is our cardiovascular system.

Inflammation our friend, Inflammation our foe

Let's be fair about inflammation before we go much further. Inflammation is a natural and necessary bodily function. It serves as a marker so the immune system can know where the bad guys are. Without inflammation pathogens in the body could wonder freely and do massive damage. While acute inflammation is a natural and necessary process chronic inflammation is a killer. What causes chronic inflammation? A whole host of things actually like highly processed foods, simple carbs, too much protein (especially from animal sources), environmental toxins, medications, alcohol, etc., etc. Chronic inflammation is extremely damaging to the cardiovascular system and cholesterol has shouldered most of the blame for the last 40-50 years. And why not? If you were responsible for generating $31 billion a year in sales you would be the fall guy forever! In addition, chronic inflammation is a silent, painless killer much like hypertension and no amount of cholesterol lowering drugs can save you from it (this point will be further illustrated when the true nature of statin drugs are discussed).

Oxidative Stress and Free Radicals

Free radical is probably a term you are now familiar with but just in case you're not a brief description follows. When it comes to free radicals it helps to think of them as a pack of teenage boys at the mall roaming around just waiting to hit on receptive looking female that approaches. The whole while they are generally annoying not only the girls but anyone in the vicinity who may be watching. This pack of boys begin to upset the whole mall experience with anyone they come into contact with. That is a nuts and bolts metaphor for free radicals. They create massive amounts of inflammation and just mess up everything.

In the end chronic inflammation is of much more concern than cholesterol ever was generally. There is one scenario where cholesterol can be a bad actor but that occasion is almost exclusively dependent on free radicals and oxidative stress (imagine that). We will continue to move forward through the true story of cholesterol and cover statin drugs in particular and what they do us!

The Story of Cholesterol: The Beginning

One of my chief goals is to help others achieve radiant health by exposing erroneous, and often times intentionally misleading, information. There are many areas of our lives where these errors adversely impact our health and one of them is cholesterol. I must admit that prior to becoming a certified holistic health practitioner (holistic health coach) I would see the commercials for cholesterol lowering medications and agree wholeheartedly with its use. After all, one of the main ways to prevent heart disease and heart attacks was to ensure cholesterol levels were kept in check by lowering the amount in the bloodstream, right? I was convinced of this "fact" and all it took was a series of 30 second commercials to convince me and millions of others. Now the alarms are being sounded as more and more evidence would suggest that cholesterol is not what we think it is.

The Story of Cholesterol: The Beginning is the first article in what will be a continuing series on the cholesterol story and how it affects each and everyone of us. Whether you are taking a cholesterol lowering medication now or you pay insurance premiums to help cover the cost of those who do we are all paying a hefty price only to decrease what we hope to increase: our health.

The history of cholesterol as the boogie man!

Like most pharmaceutical success stories ours starts in the lab with a guy in a white coat who promises to save your life if you buy what they are selling. Enter Ansel Keys, Ph.D. He was one of the first to begin making the extraordinary and revolutionary claim that cholesterol was at the heart of cardiovascular disease (also known as the lipid hypothesis) and lowering it would reduce heart attacks and other adverse cardiovascular events. And so the myth was born and from that point in the 1950's until this very day many millions continue to believe this unsubstantiated myth (more on this in another article). The commercials haven't stopped and the myth is continuously perpetuated because statins and other cholesterol lowering drugs are a $31 billion a year industry all by itself!

What is cholesterol?

Have you ever wondered what cholesterol is and why we have it. I know personally I never stopped to consider it. The truth about cholesterol and what it does for our bodies is astounding. Here are a few things about cholesterol that you may not know:

• The brain is approximately 60% cholesterol (one of the listed side effects of statin drugs is reduced cognitive function!)
• Cholesterol is so important that it is manufactured in almost every cell in the body
• Cholesterol is an important structural molecule that is the basis of how many other molecules get built
• Cholesterol is the body's natural inflammation fighter
• Cholesterol helps to synthesize Vitamin D
• Without cholesterol we would be unable to produce bile affecting our ability to digest dietary fats
• Without cholesterol sex hormones like testosterone, estrogen and progesterone cannot be made (one of the listed side effects of statin drugs is reduced testicular and ovary size!)
• If we were able to remove all the cholesterol from our bodies we would die very quickly

As you can see cholesterol plays an important part in our health and well being. So the question becomes: How and why has cholesterol been so vilified and who profits from our media/doctor induced manic hatred for such an essential element in our lives? There is more to come shortly. Stay tuned!

The Problem with Sandy Hook

The problem with Sandy Hook is more pervasive than the considerations of most people. The problem with Sandy Hook is insidious and dark. The problem with Sandy Hook resides quite unexpectedly in the collective hearts and minds of our 'great' society. The word great appears in quotations because we as a society no longer do things that 'great societies' do. Our fast food, reality T.V., drone assassinating mentality numbs our minds to the point of non-questioning compliance. So much so our hearts have become hardened against the cries for help from within our borders and callous toward the cries of those beyond. Numb minds can no longer register and contend with the constant assault against, and erosion of, our 'inalienable rights' or manufacture and distribute the one thing that could actually help us - love for one another. As we analyze the problem that is Sandy Hook we are forced to analyze the problem with ourselves.

Guns, Gun Control and Politicians

Politics, and by extension politicians, does not and cannot solve social ills. The best we can expect politically is a re-action to a problem instead of pro-action which is usually reserved for self-serving political ventures and not for social upliftment. Legislation does not solve social issues and more legislation will only fool us into thinking we are better off socially. Can more gun control legislation change a depraved heart or a demented mind? What more can words on paper do for the wounded and fractured psyches roaming our streets and terrorizing our playgrounds, schools, shopping malls, and churches? 

The reason why more laws appeal to us so much is that the problem is relegated to the politicians so they can 'do something' while we excuse and exonerate ourselves from any responsibility. After all it is easier to medicate and ignore the people who annoy us as opposed to taking time to speak sincerely with them. It's easier to cast aside and denigrate the 'freaks' and others that do not look like us or conform to our norms instead of embracing our differences and try to learn from one another. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook Elementary and all the mass killings in between we still fail to collectively connect the dots.

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What's Missing?

The Apostle Paul wrote in a letter to Timothy that there would come a time when people would love themselves and money more than anything else. He also said that people would be without natural affection and self-control all the while being fiercely mean and unappeasable. Whether you believe in the bible or not no one can reasonably deny that people excessively loving themselves and being willing to hurt others in the process is on the increase. How can you tell? Pay attention to those around you who think very highly of themselves even when you both know they are doing something dead wrong on a continuous basis. Add a little dash of arrogance and voila! you have a lover of self. We can find copious examples of 'lovers of self' on reality television shows where, generally speaking, any type of behavior is excusable and acceptable. This extends into the world of finance and corporations where you don't need to look very hard for examples of money hungry scoundrels. Some people (e.g. Bernie Madoff) and some corporations (e.g. Enron, Goldman Sachs) typify what it means to love money even if it means hurting people in the process of taking it. Both points deals with affection, or the lack thereof, meanness and the inability to appease people. It has become increasingly noticeable that some people are easily moved to anger with little to no ability for anyone or anything to assuage their anger. There is much video evidence of angry, bitter people behaving poorly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-z0_YH2UGw).

Remaining in the vein of poor behavior what ever happened to self-analysis? Awareness of one’s shortcomings and adjusting accordingly in a positive way is both helpful to individuals and society as a whole. The days where we took a good look at ourselves and blushed or cowered with embarrassment over poor decisions seem to have almost disappeared from the face of the earth. There is a complete lack of conscience. The unfortunate fact is without conscience we cannot see the wrong in the actions of ourselves or others who are behaving in the same manner we are. Blinded by our own lack of self-awareness of negative actions and any culpability we should feel we are also blind to the causes of the high levels of irrational violence that is plaguing our communities. Do we as a nation wink at violence? No doubt! Preemptive wars against people who haven't harmed us doesn't seem to bother the average person even after it has been acknowledged that we were 'mislead'. No protest in the streets to hold those accountable for the senseless deaths of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians who did nothing more than live in the wrong country at the wrong time. So desensitized to violence are we that the killing of over 80 people by drones in a month and a half (Dec 2012-mid Jan 2013) hardly rates as news. But who cares about them; they're terrorist, right? We no longer care about kidnappings, secret prisons, the suspension of habeas corpus or the mass killing of others abroad. 

I'm sure there are some who are reading this article that believe in the complete infallibility of America and its policies but most assuredly America is led by people and people do make mistakes. And a mistake even with good intentions is still a mistake. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, essentially, in his sermon "The Drum Major Instinct" that America's pride and arrogance has caused it to do unnatural things in the world. These unnatural tendencies have led to some of the most tragic examples of man's inhumanity to man. Pride and arrogance can be haunting and has a way of showing up in unexpected places. That is because what we send out into the world is what we tend get back.

Despicable acts and violence doesn't bother us anymore partly because our music, television, and video games along with a healthy dose of apathy has thoroughly desensitized us. The University of Michigan Health System notes that the average American child will observe 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18 with most of these acts going unpunished and is often accompanied or associated with humor. A full 2/3 of all TV programming has at least one violent act. Violence with humor in the absence of any perceived punishment equals at best desensitization and at worst fuel for broken minds and broken spirits to do whatever they will to be done.

What does all of this have to do with Sandy Hook or any other mass shooting you ask? Great question. What we are getting back from the energies we send out are people with broken minds who have a predilection towards violence and destruction. They desire greatly to harm as many people as possible before surrendering to the only way out that they can see through suicide. These are people who have been ignored and isolated from the rest of society. These are people who are medicated instead of ministered to. It has become very easy and familiar to get people to pop a pill rather than to engage them in some meaningful way. It takes a great deal of pride and arrogance to think that some pharmaceutical chemical cocktail can ultimately replace human interaction. It takes a great deal of apathy to be so unconcerned with our children, friends, and neighbors that we routinely ignore them instead of nurture them out of love and respect. In addition, comfort and complacency allows us to ignore our inhumane actions abroad and this same complacency allows us to be apathetic in our actions at home. When moral degradation, technological distractions and pharmaceuticals replace wisdom, support and love we can expect the Columbines and Sandy Hooks to continue. 

Guns have always been tools that can either be used as a means of protection or destruction. As a tool it can also be used as a means of distraction to take our collective eye off of the real problem. Ultimately it is the people who would do us harm we need to be concerned about and no amount of legislation will ever erase the darkness that lurks in the hearts and minds of man. Only through our capacity to love and exercise wisdom can we hope to eradicate a plague that threatens to consume us.

In the final analysis the problem with Sandy Hook is us and the solution lies within us. 

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