TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @forrestmaready
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Why do we kiss? Is memory contagious? Is instinct transmitted by something other than genetics? Can we dream other people's memories? Other animals’ memories? I researched the answer to these things & what I found changed everything I thought about science & life itself… 🧵👇
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
I’d always wondered what the evolutionary explanation for affection was. It serves no reproductive purpose. We kiss our children. Dogs lick our faces. Even animals who are supposedly enemies “kiss” each other. The question is why?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
There is apparently no evolutionary explanation for affection. In the scientific context, it doesn’t make any sense. Many animals kiss, lick, preen, groom, and nuzzle for hours each day—time that could be spent hunting, eating, mating, or many other crucial functions.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
With the belief that everything serves a purpose, I set out to understand why so many animals show affection. What I’ve come to believe is happening may change our entire understanding of life itself.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
I believe there is an entire realm that exists on our planet—a world within the world—an internet of living organisms that use connection to make life as we know it possible. This is a very, very different way of viewing things.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
For a very long time, science told us our DNA was the blueprint of life—the instruction manual that determined everything about us. Hair color. Eye color. But not just our physical appearance, every single thing about our being. It turns out, we couldn’t have been more wrong.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Back in the 1990s, scientists announced they were going to map the entire human genome. An incredible project that, once complete, would unlock the keys to understanding life itself. All mysteries would be solved. All diseases, eradicated. Again, we were completely wrong.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
While scientists neared completion of the “The Human Genome” project, they realized something profound: There weren’t enough genes. If genes really worked like blueprints, we’d need HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of them. Instead, we have about 20,000. How is that even possible?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
With only 20,000 genes, humans can generate: • 86 billion neurons, each w/thousands of connections • Hundreds of distinct cell types w/specialized functions • Complex behaviors/cognitive abilities • Intricate immune responses to countless pathogens Something doesn't add up.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Within 20,000 genes, humans can somehow generate the capacity for consciousness, creativity, & culture. We can write symphonies, build skyscrapers, & generate artificial intelligence. DNA as a blueprint for life was clearly wrong. So how is all this possible? Through kissing?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Humans have less genes than many plants—less than even the water flea—yet we’re likely the most sophisticated creatures in the universe. Where does the missing data come from? How is it possible humans have so much complexity from such a tiny genetic blueprint?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Scientists have tried to solve the gene shortage problem with "epigenetics"—the idea that our environment switches genes on and off. They were getting warmer. But they were still lightyears away.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Epigenetics says, "it's not just genes, it's how they're expressed." True. But what's doing the expressing? What’s causing millions, billions, possibly trillions of switches to flip almost perfectly every time? This is where the kissing comes in.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If you’re interested in this topic, I wrote an entire book explaining this concept—a new way of looking at the world called SYNTROPY. The book is called “The Reason We Kiss" & I think it might change everything about how we understand our health. https://a.co/d/7QroWaM
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
First we need to realize something profound: we're not who we think we are. We're not individuals. We’re each a colony—a walking ecosystem of 39 trillion bacteria, viruses, & other microbes. They outnumber our human cells. And they're all talking to each other. ALL OF THEM.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Remember the book "The Selfish Gene"? It said life is just genes competing to replicate. Every organism is merely a vehicle for selfish DNA. Scientists have said this is the most important book in the last 100 years. But nature tells a much different story.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Does evolution & natural selection really work through selfishness? Bacteria freely share genetic material through horizontal gene transfer. They literally hand out survival tools to their competitors. That's like Apple giving its source code to Microsoft. Selfish? Hardly.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Underground, mycorrhizal fungal networks connect entire forests. Trees share nutrients, water, even information. They warn each other of threats. They feed struggling neighbors and nurture each other's young. The "selfish gene" can't explain this.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Even our cells betray the selfish model. Mitochondria—the power factory in every cell—were once free-living bacteria. They gave up independence to live inside us, creating energy in exchange for shelter. Cooperation—not selfishness—built such complex life.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The "selfish gene" sees life as a war. But look closer and you’ll find something beautiful. Something much more like jazz. Everyone's improvising together, sharing riffs, making something bigger, more complex than any one creature could. Life isn't selfish. It's symphonic.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Remember when I said regarding our ecosystem “they're all talking to each other. ALL OF THEM”? I didn’t just mean the 39 trillion microbes in YOUR body. I mean the uncountable numbers of microbes throughout ALL of OUR bodies. They’re ALL talking to each other. HOW?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The DNA blueprint model has failed to explain life. We have less genes than many plants, not nearly enough to encode the complex behaviors of humanity. But somehow, that information is still transferred. How? Through connection. Through affection. Through kissing.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
When you kiss someone, you exchange about 80 million bacteria. When a dog licks your face, millions more. Whenever you shake hands, sing on a road trip, or hug your neighbor, it isn't contamination. These signs of affection are actually purposeful microbial communication.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Microbes—bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, algae, & others—all serve an integral purpose for life. They aren’t just annoyances that cause infection. They may be THE essential network of communication that allows life to exist at all. Does this sound far-fetched to you?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Is memory contagious? In 2018, UCLA scientists trained snails with mild electric shocks. Then they extracted RNA from these snails and injected it into untrained ones. The recipients flinched at touches as if they "remembered" shocks—shocks they'd never received. Surprised?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Your brain stores memories using Arc proteins—which form virus-like capsules to carry information between neurons. Our memories literally spread like viruses inside our heads. What if they don't always stay inside? Could memory be contagious?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If simple sea snails can transfer learned behaviors through RNA, and our own memories use viral mechanisms... Maybe déjà vu isn't a glitch. Maybe you really have been here before—through someone else's memories. Maybe memory actually is contagious.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If memory is contagious, maybe dreaming is partly filtering through someone else’s (or someTHING else’s) memory leaks. Maybe this is why we yawn when we’re sleepy. Maybe this is why yawning is contagious. You’re probably yawning RIGHT NOW just reading this!
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
It’s not just memory that’s contagious—I think behavior is as well. [C. elegans worms] that learn to avoid dangerous bacteria can transmit this fear to other worms. Not through teaching. Through virus-like particles. They sneeze out survival knowledge!
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Even crazier: new worms can “catch” fear just from water that previously held the trained worms. No actual contact needed! The behavior spreads like a cold. Instinct might not be genetic at all—it might simply be infectious.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Think about the implications. Every behavior we call "instinct"—fear of snakes, love of certain faces, social bonds—might not be inherited through genes at all. They might be downloaded through the microbial internet. Through touch. Through breath. Through life.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
You might find the notion of memory or instinct or behavior as contagious crazy. I certainly do. But SOMETHING is allowing these things to move around, and obviously, pure genetics doesn’t work. Why? Because instinct and behavior CROSS SPECIES!
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's a mystery science can't explain: Why do nearly ALL domesticated animals develop the same traits? Dogs, pigs, foxes, even fish. Floppy ears. Spotted coats. Shorter snouts. Docile behavior. Every. Single. Time.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Floppy ears and spotted coats serve no survival purpose. Natural selection can't explain why a Russian fox experiment produced dog-like foxes in just 6 generations. Unless… they're essentially downloading the same "domestication app" through contact with humans.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
What if living with humans exposes animals to our microbial/viral network? What if "domestication syndrome" is actually a profound biological integration? They're not becoming tame. They're joining our network. They're literally becoming like us.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The lightning-fast domestication of animals would seem to go against the theory of “natural selection.” Natural selection requires millions—if not billions—of years. But things move MUCH faster than that. MUCH faster.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In 1971, scientists put 5 pairs of wall lizards on a Croatian island. When they checked 36 years later, the lizards had grown entirely NEW GUT ORGANS—cecal valves that NO other wall lizard has. 36 years! Evolution says this is impossible.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
These weren't minor tweaks. The island lizards developed larger heads, stronger jaws, new behaviors—their entire body reorganized for plant-eating. Genetic tests confirmed: same lizards. They just downloaded a vegetarian update—in 30 generations!
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
This rapid change happens everywhere. Guppies restructure their entire life strategy in 30 generations. City birds develop traffic-ready wings in 50 years. Not random changes—coordinated transformations. Like organisms can sense what they need and reorganize.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Natural selection needs millions of years for meaningful change. Why? Because you get one chance per generation. One chance in the genetic transfer that happens at conception. But something much different is happening. Information is transmitting constantly, in every direction.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The information of behavior, instinct and memory isn’t just transferring from mother to offspring. It’s moving from child to mother, from brother to sister, from father to son and son to father. In fact, it’s transferring from family to dog. From dog to tree. From tree to bird.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
All of these things happen through connection. Through microbial communication, living organisms with one another. This is why we kiss. Why we hug. Why our dogs want to lick us. Why primates groom and birds preen. We transmit the components of life constantly—through affection.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
I'm barely touching on the incredible story of SYNTROPY: The Affection-Infection Connection. If you're interested, you can get the book I wrote called "The Reason We Kiss" and find out ALL about it. It's truly an amazing new way of seeing the world! https://a.co/d/gf3ewxx
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
One of the first things that changed 200 years ago that made milk dangerous? Silos. Yes, silos. Before I started researching "The Germ in the Dairy Pail," I had no idea silos played a part in the downfall of milk. But they did. Wanna know how? It's a crazy story...
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Raw/unpasteurized was the only way humans drank milk from other animals for all of Creation. Every mammal drinks milk that way. Until the last 150 years, there wasn't a single mammal on the planet that made it past infancy without drinking raw, unpasteurized milk. What changed?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The first big change came in the form of silos. Silos began appearing in the early 1800s & allowed farmers to store food to be eaten later by their cows. Summer has plenty of grass. Winter? Not so much. So farmers stored up food for their animals in silos. Why's that a problem? https://t.co/XMKdpI8KQ6
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Silos changed the nature of cow manure. "Silage"—the fermented feed that formed in silos made a sloppy, slimy mess. The stables where cows slept & were milked became extremely filthy once they began to eat silage. Before silos, cow manure was easy to control. After? Not so much. https://t.co/gCoT4AFVaV
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
With cows eating fermented grass from silos, their manure became impossible to manage. The stables where they slept and were milked became filled with disease. Filth got into the milk and children—mainly infants—started getting sick from it. They had no idea what was happening. https://t.co/hSkEecxaTg
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Filthy stables from silo-fed cows became a real problem in the 1800s, but something else changed that made the milk even worse: corn. Farmers used to grow wheat. Wheat served as bedding for cows, keeping their stables clean. It was extra winter food. Corn changed everything. https://t.co/V8NdvU9yAp
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Wheat was the perfect farm product and could be used for all kinds of things. But corn made more money. It could be used for all kinds of things OFF the farm. So farmers grew it. It made for horrible bedding. Even worse food for the cows. Milk quality began to really suffer. https://t.co/HreJc0SUDF
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Milk—the healthiest, most nutritious food on the planet began to change. Industrialized farming practices changed this miracle food into something very dangerous. Infants drinking the milk began to die every summer. People still weren't sure why. But milk began to be suspected. https://t.co/LJOLldAqfP
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Silos and corn changed the nature of milk for the worse, but nothing could compare to the way milk began being produced in the 1840s/50s. They used the waste and slop from distilleries called "swill" to feed the cows. The milk from these pitiful animals was basically poison. https://t.co/TvGsmNv2Iq
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The cows in these "swill" stables were diseased and sick, often unable to stand. They'd use cranes to lift them off the ground so they could continue milking them, even as death was near. Infants drinking the "swill" milk began dying by the thousands each summer. Yes—thousands. https://t.co/nhDDiccyFB
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
You might think of polio as being the worst disease ever to affect children. This "swill" milk scandal was far worse. FAR worse. In a single year, up to 20,000 infants might die from diseased swill milk. That's more infants in one year in the U.S. than polio ever killed. EVER. https://t.co/G4uISDkN2W
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
By the way, if you're interested, I cover this whole thing in a book I wrote called "The Germ in the Diary Pail." It's available in print, digital, & audiobook—an incredible story of what happened to milk. It's available on Amazon (& soon my website). https://a.co/d/iYa1MUm https://t.co/x8knNxuNWd
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
I want to explain why so many in government, tech, public health, pharma, and philanthropy are SO dedicated to pushing the coronavirus vaccine, no matter what. Got a minute?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If you haven’t noticed, all rational thought seems to have left the planet. Governments, health officials, technology companies, and everyone else are pushing an experimental medical therapy—the coronavirus vaccine—on anything with two legs.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
They are censoring any message, video, tweet, or post that questions the coronavirus vaccine at any level—even from some of the most prestigious doctors, scientists, and epidemiologists on the planet.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
It doesn’t matter if thousands of people are dying from the shot. It doesn’t matter if you’re the guy that invented mRNA vaccines. If you don’t push the narrative that the coronavirus vaccine—and only that—will save us, you are seen as the enemy.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Why is that? Why are people SO incapable of rational thought or discussion on this issue? It seems like scientists would WANT to have open and transparent conversations about this. But they don’t.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Many people will say vaccines are all about money. Bill Gates is not pushing vaccines for money, no matter what you think. He doesn’t need more money. Money plays a tiny part in this whole charade.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Some people will claim the coronavirus vaccine is part of a master plan for population control. There may be people who are actually taking part in something nefarious. Even if there are, that isn’t the main reason why ANY negative talk about vaccines is being censored.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
The main reason most of these government officials, public health officials, tech and pharma companies, and everyone else are so aggressive about protecting the coronavirus shots is because they have a RELIGIOUS devotion to vaccines.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
People tend to think of religion as based purely on an unseen deity, but in the last few decades, something else replaced this traditional definition: Science. Progress. Technology. For many people, these things have become that thing they worship.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Humans are designed to worship something. It is in our DNA. It is unavoidable. And any people unwittingly found themselves worshiping at the altar of Science & Technology. They may still go to church. They may still pray. But their faith is more easily put in “science” than God.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
I can’t overstate how important this is to understand. All humans worship something. Even atheists. Many people, Christians included, have replaced God with Science and Technology as the most important entity in their lives.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In the Christian story, Jesus is worshiped as Savior. In the modern age, vaccines are worshiped as Savior. Due to decades of propaganda—particularly regarding polio—many people have come to believe that vaccines saved humanity from certain death. I was one of those people.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
For those who worship Science and Technology, protecting the vaccine story is paramount. There is nothing else more important to maintain the faith of its followers than to sustain the myth that vaccines saved humanity from destruction.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
This is why discussion about Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin & other medicines is being deleted by those very people who worship Science & Progress. It doesn’t matter these may be miraculous drugs that could save thousands—vaccines are the most important thing. By far.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
This is why honest reporting about the experimental nature of the coronavirus vaccines will not be allowed. This is why stories about people who have been killed or their lives ruined by the vaccine will not see the light of day.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
This is why rational decision making is not going to happen regarding the coronavirus shots. This is why they’re recommending children who developed myocarditis after the first shot go ahead and get their second.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Vaccines are the cornerstone to this modern religion. Nothing else matters. Not medicine. Not antibiotics. Not ground-breaking surgery. Vaccines are the savior. Everything else is a distant second.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
People who subscribe to the religion of Science and Technology do not realize they’re being irrational. They cannot see it when you point it out to them. They are behaving rationally (as far as they can tell) because they believe in Science and Technology’s savior: vaccines.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
So as you try and unpack and understand all the irrational behavior so many otherwise intelligent people appear to be exhibiting regarding the coronavirus vaccines, just remember: They are religious zealots who are protecting their savior. Nothing else matters.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If you’re interested in the greatest myth ever told regarding vaccines, I have a book that covers the true story of polio called “The Moth in the Iron Lung.” You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1717583679/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_764S08D6KY04KMSGZD5Y
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
If you’re interested in the greatest medical cover-up ever committed, I have a book that tells the true story of vaccines and autism called “The Autism Vaccine.” You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R825338/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_AN2EWKR9EJ28VSB8A98E
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this thread, I'm going to present a collection songs, comics, and advertisements showing how no one really cared or worried about a #measles infection before the vaccine came out. https://t.co/6vuGhn1mVk
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
This doll let girls simulate measles or chickenpox infections. Strange they would do that for a disease that people were so terrified of. Were they just ignorant? https://t.co/3WjhntvNy4
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's a cute song sung by Cab Calloway's daughter, Lael, about her measles infection right at Christmas. She wasn't worried about measles but Santa NOT visiting her—that is, unless he had already had #measles. They knew it conferred a lifetime of immunity, unlike vaccines. https://t.co/FbjG4dPJ8R
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Cartoons frequently used these childhood illnesses as comic fodder. In this strip, Virgil says he wants to go visit his "enemies." Why? Because he has a measles infection. Infecting someone with #measles was treated almost like a prank, a joke to play on someone. Strange! https://t.co/3GRHUMZeSv
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this "Mugs and Skeeter" comic strip, they make light of nearly every trivial childhood illness. Does it look like they were terrified of a #measles infection? Ask yourself, why are we more afraid now that we have a vaccine for it? https://t.co/0DeUndzDSl
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Two children reminisce about their school pictures with spots all over their face. So terrified of #measles back then! https://t.co/mIPmAKlElx
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Measles was often more lamented for the quarantine it warranted than any effects from the illness itself. https://t.co/W3ysGMuWOf
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Measles was even credited with saving a boy's life. Not only were these people not afraid of #measles, they purposefully infected their child with it. The potential of immunotherapy is just now being recognized. https://t.co/VA7SsMM9pS
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's a frame from the infamous Brady Bunch Measles episode. This isn't a vaccine chart—it's an immunity chart. They're checking off these illnesses because their children will never have to worry about catching them (or spreading them) ever again. Vaccines require boosters. https://t.co/L7bXXINjPl
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Another child writes a letter to the editor about missing out on the Christmas concert because he had #measles. Not a word about the illness, symptoms, fears, or anything other than disappointment at missing the concert—a common theme. https://t.co/RtI9qXvDyP
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this Donald Duck comic strip, they joke about someone who had #measles and mumps at the same time. Why were they so unafraid of these infections before vaccines were available? https://t.co/gckWcqJA63
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Prince Charles, age 12, and heir to the Royal Throne, gets #measles. "...it is expected the illness will run its usual course." Why weren't they terrified? https://t.co/XewwGQ1c7H
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In "Gordo," this father-to-be shows fright at a list of childhood diseases. His wife, who knows better, steadies his nerve. https://t.co/gnk0vmp48M
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this 1956 "Etta Kett" strip, they make light of how many people one person was able to infect with measles. How could they laugh at such a serious disease? Were they ignorant to what was going on before their very eyes? https://t.co/eD31S3tomK
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Quarantine was a monotonous reality of a measles outbreak, but in this 1956 "Smokey Stover" strip, making fun of someone's measles isolation was fair game. Does this seem like a disease people were seriously afraid of? https://t.co/kqqGrmVoHI
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this episode of the Walter's, the youngest thinks her sister's boyfriend has the measles and asks for him to be sent home. Back then, people knew how to recognize the signs of measles and valued isolation and quarantine—of those who were infected. https://t.co/v43N6ARnsa
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
In this 1960s "Life's Like That," they joke about how one boy infected the whole class—including the teacher. Was humor just a coping mechanism for a terrifying disease they had no answers for? Were they just ignorant? Or was it they didn't fear measles before the vaccine? https://t.co/h0vPy7QY3r
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Telling 1961 article about German measles (Rubella) and pregnancy. The main reason we vaccinate for Rubella is to protect women from the illness during pregnancy, when it can cause problems with the baby. Before the vaccine, doctors tried to comfort & minimize the dangers. https://t.co/ADMisXheWq
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's another article about Rubella from the SAME doctor, just over ten years later in 1972—AFTER a Rubella vaccine was available. Notice how differently he describes Rubella from the previous article. Rather than comforting pregnant women, he now creates fear & panic. https://t.co/cPxrZzhZ3F
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Same doctor again in 1973, TWO years after the Rubella vaccine was licensed. Notice the shift in tone. An even more blatant attempt to terrify—this time much more succinct. Many diseases follow this exact pattern: "Don't be concerned" before the vaccine. "Be terrified" after. https://t.co/N3TlAFF8DX
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Once the fear-mongering has died down, doctors often enter Phase 2 of vaccine propoganda: Promises of eradication. This article was written in 1984, imploring the continued use of the Rubella vaccine not due to fear, but a civic duty to help eradicate a terrible disease. https://t.co/1K6fxSTEJA
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's a 1963 article about the new measles vaccine. Because there was so little fear of a measles infection, many went straight to Phase 2: promises of eradication. Note how confident they were the polio vaccine would eradicate polio, just years after its introduction. https://t.co/GSQ9QtXRjf
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Here's a Peanuts comic strip from 1967, after the measles vaccine became available. Linus complains the doctor thinks he's a dart board because he's getting too many shots. Wonder what he'd think of the 800 shots a child gets today? https://t.co/D8pE1AehBi
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Another 1967 Peanuts comic strip where Linus shows a lack of fear about measles. Lucy, ever the bossy, annoying "fussbudget," lets her brother know what she thinks. Don't be a Lucy. Be a Linus. https://t.co/wZ5MJA33EU
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
End of year confession: I'm selling a book on Amazon and it's not real. The huge coffee-table book I released two months ago called Appalachia is not "real." Some of you may have already picked up on it, but others have not. It's +400 photographs and +38,000 words were generated using various AI tools such as Midjourney, ChatGPT, and Photoshop. I'm not sure if this is the first book of this type, but I would certainly guess it's the most ambitious project of its kind so far. As a modern-day Luddite, someone who has publicly warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence, I started the book with much trepidation. Because of that, I wrote the Afterword before I started the book. I ended up removing the Afterword from the book but thought I'd include it here for posterity. So, without further ado, here it is: Afterword (from Appalachia: A Photographic Novel) Typically, an afterword is written after a book is finished. This work poses, in several ways, a unique set of circumstances for which I feel compelled to write something before. Appalachia, as I’ve currently titled the book, represents a drastic departure from what has thus far characterized my writing. Much of what I’ve completed is historical in nature. Other works have attempted to explain my understanding of the nature of humanity or my distinct (some would say tragically distinct) interpretation of the Christian faith. All my books thus far have employed words as their principal method of conveyance. This one uses something entirely different. This book scares me—the reason why I’m composing the afterword before I’ve even really started. The themes exposed within are likely to be considered controversial, that much is true. Distrust of technology. Cynicism concerning science and progress. A fear of outsiders. Nationalism. Kinism, as the affectations for one’s own kin is sometimes called. Many of these things wouldn’t typically be discussed in mixed company, particularly within the polarized cultural and political dialogue of our time. I must first remind the reader Appalachia is something akin to a novel—albeit a novel portrayed not so much with words but, instead, photographs. As such, the story contained within is a figment of my imagination, its characters, locations, and scenarios seemingly conjured from thin air. They, along with the aforementioned themes, may or may not represent my personal beliefs regarding the state of affairs on a given topic. Most of my beliefs are already accessible for anyone to scrutinize. A decidedly more treacherous minefield than contentious political or cultural topics surrounds this book somewhere else—specifically, the way in which it was created. If a certain realization has not yet occurred, I must confess this book was created with copious help from computers. Not just word processors or photo editors or desktop publishing applications, but from the most sophisticated algorithms human kind has ever known. Some may refer to them as machine learning, deep learning, or, more broadly, artificial intelligence. Recent technological advances have created new opportunities, if, for the moment, I may call them that, which provide the ability to create things in ways heretofore nearly impossible. This book was created with an apologetic reliance upon such technology. Apart from a few sentences here and there, every photograph and bit of text is computer-generated in one way or the other. The disclosure you often see at the beginning of creative works—the one that goes ”Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental”—could not be more applicable. Nothing within Appalachia is real, depending upon how one defines real. Not the characters, not the locations, not the events—not even the supposed photographer responsible for documenting much of the book. I would mention his name for reference but I do not know it yet. I have seen a few pictures of him, but I have yet to name him. Perhaps the software will make a good suggestion (Update: Clayon Boone will work nicely. Thanks, computer.). I do know he dies content with his life and that his work lives on thanks to his uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time—with camera in hand. Joking aside, this book presents a cosmic quandary: What are we to do with this technology we’ve created? As a young boy, I wrote stories and used my father’s Super8 film camera to create what I hoped would be a faithful representation of a science-fiction world I’d envisioned in my head. My house, the only location I had accessible to me, the mothership’s interior. My half-opened ping-pong table, a miniature cyclorama on which mounds of fertilizer and toy figurines stuttered across using stop-motion animation. I even etched the developed film frame-by-frame with a safety pin, allowing light bleed through in specific places in order to simulate laser beams firing from a plastic cannon. The results were, needless to say, not Oscar-worthy. As a young adult, I labored to learn an early version of Photoshop called Digital Darkroom by switching people’s heads. Many years later, my wife and I moved to Los Angeles so I could work professionally in the visual effects world. Unfortunately, there were no laser beams, explosions, or alien lifeforms. My last job before we moved back home to North Carolina, ironically enough, was replacing actress Jane Lynch’s face from a Nexium commercial, an indignity triggered by her then-recent rise to fame (shrinking the posterior of a well-known songstress throughout a music video was my first). The ability to create a realistic historical depiction of a people and place out of thin air has, as far as I’m concerned, not existed until recently. Perhaps I could have employed an army of concept artists and 3d animators to create ex nihilo the vast scope of time and space Appalachia entails, but even today, with millions of dollars and Hollywood’s best at my disposal, it would have been nearly impossible. Certainly impossible for a humble book with nearly zero budget. I mention this bit of personal backstory to illustrate the fact that I’ve been imagining—and attempting to create—other worlds since I was a child. Visual effects software has brought us much closer to being able to do it, but nothing remotely close to what I, with a single laptop and a few weekends and evenings of spare time, can now accomplish. Deep learning and artificial intelligence have provided me the chance to do what I’ve dreamt of doing since I was a child. It’s truly a remarkable thing that has materialized—probably one of the most profound technological marvels I’ve ever witnessed. But there is a problem. A big problem. A big, personal problem: My apparent embrace of artificial intelligence makes me a world-class hypocrite. If one is unfamiliar with my beliefs, understand that I have publicly stated my disdain for much of technology. For much of what is labeled “progress.” What’s more, I’ve made grand assertions that virtual reality and artificial intelligence promote trans-humanism and are incompatible with my understanding of the Christian faith. If that’s the case, then why have I made this book using this very technology? Why have I ventured into this realm I’ve claimed is so abhorrent? In some ways, this book is an experiment. Perhaps an attempt at learning my enemy. My apprehension of trans-humanism and the way in which our species is threatened—through technology—by the desire to serve as our own gods remains intact. But many speak ill of what they don’t know and I, champion of the self-examined life, could not stomach being so accused. As someone who has frequently made their living drawing and animating and bringing other’s creative visions to life, it troubles me to envision how my—not to mention many of my colleague’s—ability to provide for their families is likely to be disrupted. The threat of artificial intelligence replacing human beings also looms large for computer programming, another frequent vocation of mine. A significant part of my occupation has, more recently, stemmed from writing books—another domain once reserved for a minority. With the ability to churn out encyclopedias at the click of a few buttons, what does that portend for those who desire to make their living as a wordsmith? What about the prospect of preserving the lives—if only digitally—of those who have died? People have already used recordings of their deceased loved ones to train an AI model to sound just like their human twin. What would such a “person” say to you, if you asked them a burning question you were never able to bring yourself to present before they died? Well, present the algorithms with enough of your father’s diaries and journals and it will handle that for you as well. Perhaps a drop of blood or hair sample will eventually suffice. The danger of this technology would seem to extend far beyond the vocational and meta-physical, so much so, there’s much I haven’t even allowed myself to contemplate. Even so, there is always a counterweight. A glimmer of light for those shafts of darkness piercing through the night. For instance, a trusted friend pushed back on my disparaging remarks regarding virtual reality. His wife, occasionally housebound from severe illness, discovered profound comfort within a community of like-minded people through an online game. My father, now at 87 years old, has booked over 60 years of service within the Lion’s Club, a charity focused on vision care. Having spent much of my childhood around the blind and seeing-impaired, I cannot help but to be thrilled at the prospect artificial intelligence might allow for translating the visual world into audible descriptions (“You are standing at a crosswalk. The light is red. Wait for traffic to stop before you cross. It is forty five feet to the other side. There are traffic cones in the middle you may need to walk around. Probably to your left would be easier.”). There are many other domains and applications where artificial intelligence may offer humankind much needed respite from misery or suffering. But if history has taught us anything, it is that nothing is free, and with every transaction there is a cost. It may be hidden, it may be paid later at interest, but regardless, nothing is free and the promise of machine learning and artificial intelligence are unlikely to be creation’s first exception. What is the cost? Are humans destined for eventual replacement at the hands of AI-powered simulants? Or will we, as some narratives suggest, continue to be the most dangerous force on the planet, no matter the level of technology we’re able to compose? I think, in reality, there is little to fear. There is a paradox at play, increasingly visible to anyone who’s paying close attention. An increasing level of human intelligence is required to generate increasing levels of artificial intelligence. At the same time, increasing levels of artificial intelligence are creating decreasing levels of human intelligence—thus the paradox. How is this so? Technology is making us stupid, that’s how. There’s no need to memorize things anymore. Many years ago, I once boasted a list of over 100 phone numbers memorized. Now I know my own, my wife’s (not my son’s) and two of the original list of 100. This is not progress, in my mind. Many people no longer read. They watch videos or listen to audiobooks instead—and those engaging their minds in through learning at all represent some of the more advanced of our species. Another problem—we no longer write. We type, as I’m doing right now, pressing a button to form a single letter at a time. Many of our applications don’t even require us to type well, auto-correcting our words for us in real-time and, more recently, suggesting an entire phrase or sentence at a time. I’m sorry I was unable to come to your mother’s funeral, but unforeseen legal matters held me up in traffic in such a way being on time was nearly impossible. That’s what the computer suggested at least. I got a speeding ticket, but the computer-version sounded much better, so you that’s what you get—a facsimile of what thousands of other people might have said in a similar situation. The consequence of such affairs—no writing, no reading, no doing math, no memorization, and a hundred other self-inflicted handicaps—is that we, as a species, are becoming less intelligent. Less capable of creating (or even sustaining) the very technology that crippled us to being with. Progress is neither linear or inevitable. It will sometimes rise, sometimes fall, and never in ways we can predict. As such, my prediction, if I may, is that technology will, in the words of Andy Warhol, eat itself. It will allow us to proceed to untold heights until such a point is reached—a gravitational collapse, if we could call it that—when the complexities of maintaining it becomes impossible because of the unintelligent beings it successfully produced. At that point in time, the collective intelligence of the world will have been reduced to such a state we will be lucky to get a drive-thru order correct, much less have clean running water or safely fly across the country. Boeing is reported to required hundreds of thousands of vendors for the manufacture of its 777 plane. Will the intricate infrastructure and supply chains required to support this complexity exist forever? In my opinion, it will not. If my recent experience at the drive-thru is any indication, we are nearing that point of concern, that technological oscillation where the rising tide of scientific advance will reverse and reveal us for the fragile creatures we’d forgotten about. That point of gravitational collapse at which progress reverses and technology will decrease for years, maybe decades or centuries—until human intelligence, once again, begins to surface from the depths. This is, of course, to say nothing of other vectors of expansion and contraction that may affect the arc of human existence. Recent spiritual contraction will likely one day be replaced with profound spiritual revival. An insistence upon democracy as the correct form of government may be superseded by monarchies or even dictatorships. But with talk of AI-driven robots replacing humans at every turn, in books and movies and newspaper columns around the world, the technological column appears to be most likely to flip first. Whether spoken or otherwise, there is a feeling we may have nearly reached this tipping point. So back to the original question: Why am I writing this afterword before the actual book? Because I am afraid of the technology. I’m afraid of how it may change me. I’ve purposefully avoided using it for fear that the ability of being able to create anything I wanted would rob me of my humanity. For fear of—perhaps, the most human fear of all—for fear of convincing me I was wrong about things. That I was wrong to suggest artificial intelligence and virtual reality will usher in a new era of technological dystopia that makes Hollywood films seem drab in comparison. There may yet be enough steam left in the digital procession to introduce yet another invention we’ll struggle with even more than virtual worlds and artificial intelligence. Depending upon your view of things, this may sound dire. For me, the possibility (if not likelihood) we’re about to come about, as a seaman might call it, offers profound hope. The winds are changing and I dream I’ll see the day we reach this pivot point. Perhaps that is why I am making this book, after all. Perhaps I’m hoping to fan the flames of technological progress in such a way the inevitable oscillation takes place sooner, rather than later. I have frequently called for something I call the “Amish 2.0.” A new way of living that depends less on technology and more on dependence upon other human beings—something I wrote more about in a book called The Tribal Instinct. There is much we, as humans, have lost through technology. Our relationships. Our sense of belonging. Our sense of people and place—blood and soil, as the people of Appalachia would call it. I have a feeling this return to a more primitive existence will happen naturally, whether we like it or not. It may happen suddenly. It may happen gradually over decades. But not to fear—if the people and technology at the drive-throughs don’t function as you’d prefer, you can always make that cheeseburger and fries at home. Just keep some firewood handy in case the air-fryer stops working.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
1. The polio story as you learned it is wrong. It’s one of the most often misunderstood sequence of events in the last two hundred years. I wanted to explain a few things about the disease to help people understand what actually happened.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
2. The first modern account of something resembling polio was in 1789. A physician named Michael Underwood described an illness in children he called “Debility of the Lower Extremities.” He attributed it to teething and foul bowels. https://archive.org/details/b28771254_0001
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
3. One of the next mentions was from Louisiana in 1841. A few children came down with paralysis. The supposed cause: teething. Why would teething be associated with paralysis? https://tinyurl.com/yc2k7vay
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
4. Various stories appeared throughout the 1800s of children coming down with paralysis, almost always in their legs. Many people called it “teething paralysis,” but others settled on “infantile paralysis.”
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
5. This was a new phenomenon: Doctors had never seen it before and didn’t know why it was happening. Research began to reveal that the cause of paralysis were lesions on the grey part of the spinal cord.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
6. If you developed a lesion on your spinal cord, they called this a “poliomyelitis.” Polio = grey. Myelitis = inflammation of the spinal cord.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
7. A poliomyelitis was a lesion on your spinal cord. You could have more than one of them. But they didn’t know why children had begun developing them, seemingly out of nowhere.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
8. Scientists conducted research on animals by purposefully poisoning them with arsenic, an ingredient of popular medical remedies of the time. The result? Paralysis in their hind legs. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/101502128/PDF/101502128.pdf
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
9. When they did autopsies of the animals, they discovered lesions in their spinal cord. The animals had what they called “poliomyelitis.”
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
10. During the 1800s, the most common medical treatments for any sickness contained mercury—in order to clear the bowels. Infants received mercury-containing teething powder.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
11. This wasn’t a fringe treatment, but something as common as Tylenol might be considered today. If the metal arsenic was known to cause poliomyelitis, then perhaps, so could mercury.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
12. Throughout the 1800s, there were a few cases of infantile paralysis that would pop up here and there. Not really any epidemics. In the 1890s, something changed.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
13. A new pesticide was invented in 1892 called lead arsenate near Boston, Mass to combat the spread of a foreign invader—the gypsy moth. It combined lead and arsenic together because it couldn’t be easily washed off. deq.state.va.us/Portals/0/DEQ/…
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
14. If you’re interested, I talk about this whole story in my book, “The Moth in the Iron Lung.” You can get it here: amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung…
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
15. The pesticide began being sprayed aggressively and within two years, the first real epidemics of poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) began to appear in the northeastern U.S. Rather than a few children coming down with something, it started getting into the hundreds.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
16. These epidemics affected children more than anyone, but had another strange set of victims: animals. Horses, dogs, chickens, pigs. All dead from poliomyelitis—lesions in their spinal cords that caused paralysis & death. https://archive.org/details/infantileparalys00cave
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
17. I say strange because the poliovirus doesn’t affect animals (besides Old World Monkeys). These early outbreaks are referred to as the first polio outbreaks in the U.S., but we know it couldn’t have been due to the poliovirus if animals were being struck.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
18. Another event would confuse scientists of the day—an effect which is the main reason people get the polio story so wrong even today: Koch’s Postulates. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7105
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
19. Koch’s Postulates were some research guidelines that basically stipulated there was a single causative microbe for every disease. It WAS true for all of the other diseases: cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
20. Over the next few years, scientists discovered that many things could cause a poliomyelitis—it wasn’t just arsenic. There were several other viruses and bacteria that if injected directly into the nervous system could cause lesions that would trigger paralysis.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
21. But the cloud of Koch’s Postulates hung over their research, and many scientists felt that—like all the other diseases—poliomyelitis HAD to be due to ONE thing: a bacteria or a virus. They just had to find it.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
22. You can see the shift in their thinking around this time. They start referring to the disease as a proper noun: Poliomyelitis, rather than using it as a symptom: The patient has a poliomyelitis.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
23. At this time, viruses were still very difficult to work with. They couldn’t see them, only deduce their presence by the symptoms they might cause. In 1908, a virus was found to be able to cause paralysis in monkeys. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/poliovirus-identified
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
24. They named it “poliovirus,” because it could cause poliomyelitis in the monkeys. Other viruses and bacteria could cause the same thing: coxsackievirus, echovirus, D68, etc.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
25. With Koch’s Postulates guiding their search, they began to focus on this one virus as THE cause of poliomyelitis, despite knowing there were many other causes. This mistake would create suffering for millions of people over the next few decades.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
26. The question is if viruses and bacteria COULD cause poliomyelitis, why then, and not before? Why did epidemics of polio suddenly appear in the 1900s when they did not exist before?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
27. Some have suggested improvements in sanitation as the cause. They suggest that better sanitation prevented people from picking up the infections as children, when they were protected by their mother’s breastmilk antibodies.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
28. This hypothesis is weak. The disease was called infantile paralysis by many even in the 1940s because it seemed to always strike infants. If better sanitation was the cause, teens or adults should have been the ones with problems.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
29. Also, the early outbreaks were always in rural areas, where there was little change in sanitation practices. Not coincidentally, these rural areas were subjected to heavy pesticide spraying.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
30. The real question is if the spinal cord was well-protected from these paralytic infections, why did it suddenly seem to become vulnerable starting around this time.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
31. I believe ingested pesticides, known to cause cellular membrane dysfunction, created a path directly from the intestines to the bottom of the spinal cord, located directly behind, for the viruses and bacteria to take hold.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
32. This is why multiple viruses (poliovirus, coxsackievirus, echovirus, etc.) all began paralyzing children around this time. It wasn’t a genetic mutation. It wasn’t sanitation improvements. It was a physical alteration of the gut integrity by pesticides.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
33. Modern scientists will say the virus gets in the blood and reaches the spinal cord that way. But why did the infection nearly always affect the bottom of the spinal cord, when the blood supply reaches the entire cord evenly?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
34. This is why I believe infants & children were the worst affected. The bottom of the infant spinal cord (the part that controls the legs) lies directly behind the intestines.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
35. As you grow, the spinal cord does not grow as much as the vertebrae and in adults, the bottom of the spinal cord ends up being much higher in relation to the intestines—well out of reach for most toxic or microbial assaults.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
36. This is why the injected Salk polio vaccine worked so poorly. It created antibodies for only one of many viruses that could paralyze, and it created antibodies in the blood—a useless defense against an intestinal infection.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
37. As lead arsenate fell out of favor because of its toxicity, a new set of synthetic pesticides came into play and made this problem much worse.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
38. After World War 2, DDT began being applied everywhere, sprayed directly onto children’s food, their clothing, their bedding, etc. It made people very sick and the paralysis of poliomyelitis exploded. It was horrible.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
39. By 1952, it was clear many of the insects were becoming DDT-resistant, and its toxicity began to concern people. They began to use safer pesticides and, with lead arsenate also fading out of the picture, infantile paralysis began to disappear.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
40. Even Steedman’s Teething Powder, the mercury containing product administered to teething infants for so long, changed its formula. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47581346
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
41. By 1960, the ineffectiveness of the Salk vaccine concerned scientists and they gathered in Chicago to discuss the problem. People were getting paralyzed after even 4 or more shots. manmadedisease.s3.amazonaws.com/ThePresentStat…
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
42. They were also concerned about study in Detroit where they had taken stool samples of nearly 1,000 people diagnosed with polio. Just one third of those people tested actually had polio. Everyone else had been stricken with some other paralyzing virus. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/327642
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
43. This presents a problem because many people were told they had “polio” when they were affected as children. The reality is—doctors could not have known what caused the paralysis. It could have been one of many different viruses, pesticides, or even bacteria.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
44. The Sabin oral polio vaccine soon came into use & it could actually control the poliovirus infection within the gut—where it actually made a difference. But it didn’t matter. It only affected the poliovirus—none of the other paralyzing microbes.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
45. By this time (1963), poliomyelitis (aka “polio”) had all but disappeared. As it turns out, neither of the vaccines were actually necessary. The Salk vaccine was horrible at actually preventing paralysis, and the Sabin vaccine came too late to make a difference.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
46. Today, countries that use toxic pesticides still struggle with infantile paralysis, aka polio. Extremely aggressive oral polio vaccine use may help control poliovirus infections... pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/135/Su…
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
47. ...but with several other paralyzing viruses in existence, it is not the panacea people believe it to be. To complicate matters, the oral poliovirus vaccine itself occasionally creates paralysis. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/06/28/534403083/mutant-strains-of-polio-vaccine-now-cause-more-paralysis-than-wild-polio
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
48. So what is one to takeaway from all of this? “Polio” is a man-made problem. The paralysis caused from direct pesticide exposure OR from viruses being allowed into the spinal cord can be directly attributed to a man-made cause.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
49. It appeared in epidemic form in the 1890s from the introduction of lead arsenate and disappeared in the 1950s when DDT usage fell. Because we know it was caused by many different things, the effect of a single-virus vaccine on its decline is minimal.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
50. As I mentioned earlier, I have a book that covers this entire story in detail and mentions many things I’ve skipped. It’s called “The Moth in the Iron Lung.” I hope you’re able to read it. amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung…
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
51. If we can get the polio story correct in our heads, many other problems can be solved. The infantile paralysis that still takes place in many developing countries will not be solved from the polio vaccine! Cleaning up their environment is absolutely necessary.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
52. Many thanks for reading, and I’m happy to try and answer any of your questions.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
53. One more thing, this picture is what everyone thinks of when they think of polio. This was a publicity stunt arranged for Life Magazine. Most of these iron lungs were brand new and were headed around the country to other hospitals. https://t.co/hCpMwNYYPX
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
54. It was taken in the auditorium of Ranchos Los Amigos Hospital in Los Angeles, which had been emptied of its rows of seating to make this picture. It was designed to show worried parents that the U.S. was ready for battle.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
55. Although the hospital had the largest polio ward in the country, at its peak it would have never had this many iron lungs in operation. Most hospitals in big cities had a couple of iron lungs.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
56. There were around 1,1000 in the whole country at their peak. Nothing like this picture would indicate.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
57. The next time you look at this photo, you should be struck at the destructive power of man and his inventions. The poliovirus, like all the other paralytic causes of that era, were incapable of harming us without some of our help.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
58. End.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
Tweet #56 should have read 1,100 iron lungs, not 11,000. Ranchos Los Amigos, in Los Angeles, the largest polio ward in the country, is thought to have normally kept 10 or 11 iron lungs on hand. Boston had around 8.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
1) One of the most jaw-dropping discoveries I made while researching “The Autism Vaccine” took place in Austria. I was initially intrigued by the autism story when I realized that the first time aluminum had been used in a U.S. pediatric vaccine was 1932.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
2) This was less than a year before Donald Triplett—the first child ever diagnosed with autism—was born. Knowing scientific studies have pointed towards elevated levels of aluminum in children with autism, I began to research when this new ingredient was first added.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
3) The story of WHY it was added is fascinating, but WHEN it was added—1932—is important. Before that year, you will only find a rare mention of a few kids here & there resembling the modern diagnosis of autism.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
4) It was extremely rare before 1932—so rare that even the most prominent child psychiatrist in the country had never seen any children with it. In 1932, the decision was made to add aluminum to a vaccine because it seemed to make it work better.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
5) Within a year or two, accounts of parents noticing aloneness in their children or obsession with repetitive patterns & behaviors began to appear.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
6) In Baltimore, a famous child psychiatrist named Leo Kanner began to see children—mostly boys—show up in his Baltimore clinic with a strange set of behaviors he had never even heard of before.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
7) In 1935, Kanner published a 500-page book on childhood psychiatry—the largest such book in the world. He mentioned nothing resembling autism. It's clear he'd never seen or heard of anything like the children who were now being brought to his clinic. https://archive.org/details/childpsychiatrye3kann/page/n7
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
8) This coincidence in time was enough to make me want to understand if there was a possible relationship between the addition of aluminum in 1932 & the sudden appearance of children with autism.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
9) I explored this lead for quite a while & became convinced they were related. It seemed unlikely that the one country in the world that made this change would begin to see autism within a year after having done so.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
10) I realized later the U.S wasn’t the only country to make this change. There was another, & in fact, like the United States, they were struggling with a massive outbreak of diphtheria.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
11) This other country had begun to launch nationwide campaigns to have every child immunized—with the new aluminum-containing vaccine.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
12) The US was using a very nasty type of aluminum called potassium aluminum sulfate, sometimes called potash. Scientists in Denmark had experimented with something different—aluminum hydroxide & noticed that this type of aluminum caused fewer granulomas, or nodules than potash.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
13) In Austria, they noticed that aluminum hydroxide seemed to cause fewer problems so in their national campaign to immunize their children against diphtheria, they added aluminum hydroxide to their vaccines.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
14) This would be the first time thousands of children would be injected with a metallic compound in recorded history. A few may have received mercury injections during experiments for congenital syphilis, but this was a nationwide campaign.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
15) If you don’t know the story, there was another child psychiatrist in Austria who began to see young patients show up at his clinic—their parents confused as to what had happened to their previously healthy children.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
16) Hans Asperger was at a loss to explain what was causing these children to experience strange neurological symptoms. He saw over 200 children—every one of them boys, & they closely resembled the children Leo Kanner had seen in Baltimore.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
17) It should strike anyone as remarkable that the two countries which launched nationwide diphtheria immunization campaigns in the 1930s using a new aluminum-containing shot were the very two countries where autism was first noticed & documented.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
18) Two countries began running nationwide immunization campaigns for their children, with a new vaccine that contained aluminum, & within a year or so, those same two countries began to see the appearance of a new neurological disorder that would later be called autism.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
19) The United States & Austria—the two countries that used this new aluminum-containing vaccine in the 1930s, and the two countries where the case reports first describing autism appeared. Coincidence? You decide.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
20) I tell the incredible story about the actual origins of autism—something I’ve never heard anyone else talk about—in a new book called “The Autism Vaccine.” It may be on Amazon by the time you read this, but it's now available at: http://www.theautismvaccine.com
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
21) "The Autism Vaccine" is now available on Amazon as well. It may not stay there forever, as they've banned other books that ask too many of the wrong questions, but here's the link, which works for now: https://www.amazon.com/Autism-Vaccine-Medicines-Greatest-Tragedy/dp/1090448201/
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
1. A lot of people are taking a second look at vaccines these days. As someone who’s written several books about them, I thought you might enjoy my personal opinion/list of the most interesting unknown facts about vaccines. It’s a crazy list! (Thread)
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
2. Polio. The paralysis of polio was caused by many different viruses—not just one. It started happening in the 1890s when they stared coating everything in a new pesticide. It caused leaky guts & allowed these viruses to reach the spinal cord.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
3. Polio ended in the 1950s when they stopped using DDT on children. Like the 1890s pesticide, DDT also caused leaky gut and allowed many different dangerous viruses into the spinal cord, paralyzing many children.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
4. There were basically two polio vaccines. The first one was injected and didn’t work. The second was taken orally and worked okay. But it had a side effect—polio! This vaccine is currently the largest source of polio/paralysis in the world.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
5. Both vaccines targeted the poliovirus. No vaccines were created for the other paralyzing viruses, which is why countries with out-of-control pesticide use (like India) still struggle with childhood paralysis.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
6. Vaccines are the leading cause of autism. Scientists and doctors will swear they are not, but it's obvious to anyone who’s not afraid to look, it's vaccines. How do we know this? I’ll mention two things.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
7. There are thousands and thousands of parents whose children developed autistic symptoms directly after their vaccines—within hours. Sometimes before they got home from the doctor’s offices. This has been documented, often with video proof, over and over.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
8. Autism began appearing in the 1930s in the U.S., directly after aluminum was added to the single pediatric vaccine children received at that time. Another country made this change: Austria. Autism began to appear there as well.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
9. You’ll hear the MSM say the autism/vaccine link has been studied & debunked over & over, but it hasn’t—It’s never been studied. They looked at one vaccine & one ingredient: MMR/mercury. They’ve never looked at aluminum & they never studied all the childhood vaccines together.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
10. You’ll hear that Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s autism/vaccines paper was retracted. That paper looked at the connection between gut illness & children with autism. It specifically said it found no association between vaccines & autism. Why was it retracted then?
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
11. Because parents started getting suspicious, Wakefield and the other dozen authors of the paper became targets of the medical establishment. The result was the longest, most expensive medical court proceeding in the history of the U.K. It was a sham. He was the scapegoat.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
12. The Wakefield paper wasn’t retracted due to fraudulent data, despite what people say. The data wasn’t generated or interpreted by Wakefield anyway. He lost his medical license on a technicality—obtaining control samples of blood from healthy children in an unapproved way.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
13. Smallpox. Many people credit the smallpox vaccine with eradicating smallpox. This is the only human disease which vaccines even receive that credit, by the way. Polio, measles, and every other illness is still out there.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
14. Smallpox was a horrible vaccine. Only a small percentage of the world ever received it and it was stopped being given because the side effects were so horrible and frequent—not because the disease was declared eradicated. You can look up pictures of the side effects.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
15. Scientists don’t currently even know what’s in the smallpox vaccine. It’s been grown in so many different animal species that they can’t even identify what exactly it is anymore. It has been this way for a long time. No other vaccine works like this.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
16. You will hear that smallpox only exists in two laboratories in the U.S. and Russia (as a safeguard against future biological attack—makes sense), but the reality is its virologic descendants probably exist throughout the world—we just don’t even know it.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
17. Vaccines have brought with them many other problems. Eczema. Food allergies. Autoimmune disorders. Other neurological problems—all of these illnesses which didn’t appear to exist before the advent of widespread childhood vaccinations.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
18. Vaccines are not treated as drugs by the government. As a result, they are not safety tested in the same way. A typical drug might be studied for months or years. Vaccines may be monitored for side-effects for as little as 48 hours.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
19. Vaccines aren’t tested against truly inert placebos. They’re tested again OTHER VACCINES! That’s how they compare how safe a vaccine is—by determining if it’s as safe as another vaccine! Crazy but true.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
20. The entire childhood vaccine schedule has never been safety tested. Each vaccine is tested in the ridiculously lax method I just described, but never together the way other drug interactions might be studied.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
21. Flu and TDaP shots which are recommended to pregnant women have never been safety tested on pregnant women. Why? It’s too DANGEROUS. So rather than safety test them, they just administer them and hope for the best. You are the guinea pig.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
22. Vaccine manufacturers made a deal with the government in 1986 & can’t be sued. There is no other business in the world that has this deal. You have to sue the gov’t if something happens, & guess who pays for damages? Not pharma! You do! Through a per-vaccine fee.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
23. SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, are babies who die from their vaccines. Of course no one wants to say that, so they call it unexplained. It doesn’t matter if perfectly health twin babies died the night after their shots, doctors will say “We don’t know what happened.”
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
24. Vaccines routinely cause cranial nerve damage that is visible as asymmetry on your face. Crooked smiles and misaligned eyes are the most easily-recognized symptoms.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
25. Other commonly visible vaccine problems: a droopy mouth & torticollis, when a baby can’t hold their head straight. There are many others I cover in my book, Crooked:Man-made Disease Explained. It’s a fascinating and horrible phenomenon—once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
26. Before I list some other common unknown facts about vaccines, I’ll list some books real quick. “Unvaccinated” is a short, little book that describes why growing numbers of parents are choosing natural immunity for their children: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1722908696/
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
27. The true story about polio is fascinating if you’ve never heard it. I have a book called “The Moth in the Iron Lung” that describes it like a detective novel—it’s a fairly popular book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1717583679/ Super easy to read.
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
28. Here’s the book about Crooked faces and many other neurological and autoimmune issues: Lyme, Chronic Fatigue, Lupus, POTS, etc.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1983816620/
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
29. Here is a longer explanation of the Polio story within a Tweet thread. It doesn't do "The Moth" justice, but if you're interested, it is fascinating:
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
30. Here is a longer explanation of the Autism Vaccine story within a Tweet thread. The book, "The Autism Vaccine" is much better, but you're curious, it may be worth a quick read:
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
31. Much of my vaccine-related research is contained within a nearly 3-hour video that will blow your mind. I don't want to link the YouTube video directly as it may be deleted at anytime, but it's currently at the bottom of this page: http://areyoucrooked.com/
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
32. Okay, more interesting facts about vaccines. Many people believe that AIDS originated from an experimental polio vaccine administered in the Congo. This may seem crazy, but vaccines are routinely cultured in animal tissue. Problems happen when animal viruses get into humans. https://t.co/Bu1gFlNcYZ
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
33. There are 2 HIV strains. Not one, but two. They both got into humans around the same time. How did this seemingly impossible coincidence take place? This map showing where the experimental polio vaccine was administered + initial reports of AIDS might explain it. https://t.co/gFg1RIrvI6
@forrestmaready - Forrest Maready
34. If you think there's no chance this could've happened, it's happened before. Bernice Eddy discovered the polio vaccine in America was tainted with SV40, a virus that was causing cancer. SV = Simian Virus. 40 = They had already discovered 39 other ones. https://t.co/4FNwx0mmam
