It was the late 1980s, and I was pregnant with my daughter. My husband and I were excited about the future with our growing family. Upon my first maternity visit, in addition to other information, the doctor gave me instructions to be wary of taking any medications. I wasn’t taking prescription medications; however, my doctor also warned me about over-the-counter medications. She said that I should not even take acetaminophen (Tylenol) unless I really needed it. I was very careful to follow her instructions, wishing to give my baby the best chance of being born healthy.

In 2021, it was my turn to support my daughter who was having her first baby. I was happy to attend those first appointments with her eagerly sharing in this special time. Her pregnancy was advancing normally, and all systems were go. Then, during one of her appointments, the physician’s assistant (PA) said something that almost made me fall off my chair. She told my daughter that it was now time to give her some vaccines to immunize her developing fetus. Giving vaccines to a developing fetus, I had never heard of this, and it sounded strange. The PA explained that the nurse would give the shots in my daughter’s arm muscle so the vaccines would go through her blood stream, cross the placenta, and enter her baby’s blood stream through the umbilical cord. She would be receiving the Tdap vaccine and the Covid-19 vaccine. My daughter and I looked at each other in shock. This was a far cry from the advice several decades earlier not to take a Tylenol unless you absolutely must.

When my daughter refused the vaccines because the Covid-19 vaccine was new and untested on pregnant women, the physician’s assistant said something that made us extremely concerned about her knowledge base. She said that the Covid-19 vaccine was just a weakened virus in some salt water and nothing to be alarmed about. She did not even know the brand she was promoting was in fact new and experimental mRNA technology which did not have final approval by the FDA at the time and had not been tested on pregnant women. She had no idea about mRNA technology or its mechanism of action in the body.

Needless to say, I was alarmed. This new technology was far from a weakened virus in sterile salt water. In addition, my daughter had been fully vaccinated as a child. My husband and I had dutifully followed the doctor’s orders without question back then. We didn’t do our own research, because we fully believed after eleven years of education and years of practice in the field, the pediatricians had completed thorough research on the medications they were ordering, including any vaccines. We trusted them completely.

I was shocked that a health care practitioner was recommending my daughter take a new technology not tested for safety on pregnant women and their developing babies. In the past, obstetricians didn’t want their patients to even take a Tylenol or cold medication, and suddenly, they were recommending a new experimental technology for pregnant women whose age group has a very low chance of death from Covid-19. This made no sense. There was no research regarding the effects on the developing baby before and after birth when my daughter was pregnant in 2021. Therefore, I continued to complete my own research on the subject, and what I discovered was alarming.

In 2022, more research data became available, and I searched for a source that was not supported by money from pharmaceutical companies and had no conflicts of interest with the World Health Organization (WHO) that developed guidelines with the stated intention of fully controlling all pandemics for member nations. These guidelines remove the national sovereignty of these countries to address pandemics within their own borders. Thus far, these guidelines have been voted down by the member nations (VOA, 2024). These developments made me even more concerned about the direction the WHO was taking. However, I found the reliable source I was looking for.

Naomi Wolf (2022) gathered a number of medical and health professionals and scientists who volunteered to review Pfizer’s own documents regarding what they discovered about pregnancy and the Covid vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not want this data revealed for 75 years. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was made, and a judge ordered the documents released. It was discovered that pregnant women had not been included in phases 1, 2 or 3 of the Pfizer Covid-19 trials. However, when the Covid-19 vaccine became available, they were recommended to receive it anyway. Below is what the safety data revealed when collected on women pregnant and nursing after being given mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. 

The FDA requires Pfizer to collect any publicly available data on adverse events related to vaccination once it goes to market. Confidential document (5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports) contains case reports for the first 68 days of vaccine rollout (from 12/20/2020 to 2/28/2021). The section covering pregnancy and lactation on pages 12-13, reveals that 20% of the 413 reported cases of adverse events were “serious.” These included 25 miscarriages, 5 fetal deaths as well as uterine contractions during pregnancy, preterm deliveries, premature rupture of membranes, and fetal growth restriction. Also included were serious and less serious adverse side effects of breast-fed babies that included infantile vomiting, fever, rash, agitation, and allergy to the vaccine. There were also 6 cases of women having adverse events who received COVID-19 vaccine while breast feeding; some of these include paresis (partial paralysis), suppressed lactation, breast pain, migraines, and breast milk discoloration. Pfizer’s response to the above alarming data was, “There were no safety signals that emerge from the review of these cases of use in pregnancy and while breast feeding” (DailyClout, 2022).

Even after this data was released, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) continues to encourage vaccination for pregnant women. The CDC (2024) website states, “There is limited information available about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines for people who are pregnant, however, based on how these vaccines work in the body, experts believe they are unlikely to pose risk for pregnant people.” This is not the most reassuring statement I have ever read about a new medical product being given to pregnant women and their developing babies.

Any physicians taking a stand against pregnant women, or anyone for that matter, receiving the Covid vaccine may have had their hospital admitting privileges and even their license to practice threatened. The most courageous physicians had their licenses removed by their state medical boards, and they are fighting to have them reinstated. 

I searched professional academic literature for recent research, and it is full of conflicts of interests with the scientists involved with the CDC or the WHO (Pub Med, 2022). In addition, many research studies have funding from pharmaceutical companies. Even some physicians I talked with did not know the top position at the CDC is politically appointed by the President. The leader in the top position at the CDC is very influential in setting policy for the entire government agency. Currently, the US is the largest donor to the WHO (2024) with Bill Gates’ foundation being the second largest donor. Mr. Gates’ foundation (2024) has serious investments in virus technology as well as vaccine development. Please educate your health care practitioners. Many do not know and are not educated in their medical school or by their professional organization regarding these issues.

Pfizer’s own evidence proves the potential safety risks of pregnant women receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (DailyClout, 2022). We live in an age when profits are sometimes placed over safety. However, we also live in a time when access to information and knowledge is greater than it’s been in recorded history. Censorship is a constant threat from leaders and governments who do not want people to do their own research. It’s important to take advantage of this time to check the accuracy of what we’re being told by public health officials, scientists, and practitioners alike.

We must be our own health advocates when traversing the medical world by completing our own research of the evidence. This includes considering where the evidence is coming from and who is paying for it. My biostatistics professor in college clearly demonstrated to our class how easy it is to lie and mislead the public using statistics. We must support policies and laws that identify the wolves in sheep’s clothing and get the wolves out of the chicken pen. Then, we must hold these wolves accountable for their actions that have harmed people. And, if this means liquidating their assets to help those they have harmed, it’s been done before. They should no longer be allowed to hide behind a law that lets them say, "You can’t sue us no matter the destruction we have caused." The people must take a stand!

Having worked in the medical and health world for many years, I know that the vast majority of professionals who have devoted their lives to this field are good people who have care and compassion for their patients and truly want to “do no harm.” We must support them as well, as they were on the frontlines of this pandemic battle, being told the same information as the rest of us, and when they balked, physicians had their licenses threatened and some removed, and the nurses had their jobs threatened and many were fired. Too many nurses were pulled from the bedside of their very ill patients during a nursing shortage and perp-walked out the front door of their hospitals by security guards like a common criminal because they refused to comply with the Covid-19 injection mandates after completing their own research. Last but not least, pay close attention to your gut feelings. If something doesn’t feel right, it may not be right. When in doubt, check it out! 

References:

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (2024). Committed grants. Committed Grants | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

CDC. (2024). CDC recommendations before, during and after pregnancy. Vaccine Recommendations Before, During, and After Pregnancy | Pregnancy & Vaccines | CDC

DailyClout. (2022). COVID-19 vaccines & pregnancy: Risky business. Report 07: COVID-19 Vaccines and Pregnancy: Risky Business - DailyClout

PubMed. (2022). Efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. Efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines - PubMed (nih.gov)

Voice of America (VOA). 2024. WHO negotiators fail to draft pandemic treaty. WHO negotiators fail to draft pandemic treaty (voanews.com)

WHO. (2024). Top contributors. Our contributors (who.int). 

by Connie Domino, BSN, MPH, RN

Can forgiveness improve your health and help you meet your life goals, or is forgiveness just a nice thing you do for other people? Come with me on my journey to answer these questions. Several years ago, I began teaching a workshop on goal setting for a church group. I thought this was a good place to begin because I first learned about forgiveness in church. I remember our minister talking about the importance of forgiveness and how Jesus had made it a central part of his ministry. We were taught to forgive others as God had forgiven us. I would think of my current hurts and grievances, and I would wonder how to forgive, and how do I know when my forgiveness had worked. If my feelings of hurt and anger arose, had I really forgiven? 

I noticed in my goal setting workshops, my divorced participants' goals were not coming true as quickly as those never married or never divorced. I noticed they held onto a great amount of resentment and anger with their ex-spouses. It was all about Exes and Money and Money and Exes. There were also other participants angry at family members who appeared to be held back from obtaining their goals by a lack of forgiveness. That is when I began studying forgiveness and made some amazing discoveries.

I began looking in academic literature to find out if forgiveness had been studied scientifically. To my amazement, quite a few studies had been conducted on forgiveness, and it had held up to the scrutiny of the scientific method. Dr. Fred Luskin worked on A Campaign for Forgiveness, an organization that supported scientific research about forgiveness. Dr. Luskin writes about studies conducted at the University of Tennessee and the University of Wisconsin - Madison, which found physical health benefits related to forgiveness, including fewer medically diagnosed chronic conditions, lower blood pressure, less stress, and fewer physical symptoms from illness. Subjects participating in forgiveness studies report less depression, an improved spiritual connection with God, and an overall improvement in physical and mental well-being. If this was a medication, it would be a wonder drug.

Most research I studied looked at physical, mental, and emotional benefits, but no one has studied whether forgiveness would assist people to meet their life’s goals. I was eager to find out. However, I had to develop some guidelines to teach people about the nature of forgiveness and then to teach them “how to” forgive using an easy technique consistent with their faith tradition. The guidelines were to answer questions the participants had about forgiveness.

1. Who Should I Forgive? You should forgive everyone you can remember, living or deceased, from the sandbox through today. You can also forgive institutions, political parties and governments, etc. People worked in these organizations, remember; it’s still people you are forgiving. Make a list of people you need to forgive and work down your list. 

2. How Do You Know I Need to Forgive? You know you need to forgive someone if, when you think of them, you feel hurt, anger, or resentment.

3. What If Someone Needs to Forgive You? - You can make a list of these people as well. You can use the same forgiveness statement you use to forgive others but change the words for others to forgive you.

4. Forgiveness is Something You Do For Yourself - Many people think forgiveness is a weak strategy that involves giving in to people who hurt you. This thought cannot be further from the truth. Forgiveness is one of the strongest and most loving things you can do for yourself and others. However, it doesn’t mean that what the person did to hurt you was acceptable or correct. Forgiveness is not the same thing as pardon. People should be held accountable for their behavior if it is unethical, immoral, illegal, or all three. Far from being a weak strategy, forgiveness can help the wheels of justice move, which is something I learned after working with numerous people in workshops and in my coaching practice.

5. Do I Need to Contact the Person I Am Forgiving? The answer is “no” you do not need to contact the person you are forgiving. It will work just the same. You can reconcile the relationship if you want to, but you don’t have to for forgiveness to work. You can forgive in the privacy of your own home.

6. What is Required for Forgiveness to Work? Only that you are sincere. You cannot say, “I forgive you, you old so-and-so. I forgive you, you mean terrible person.” You may still be angry with the person, and that’s fine; forgive them anyway. And, if you work on forgiveness, eventually your anger and resentment will fade. Forgiveness will still work if you are angry, as long as you’re sincere.

7. The Other Person May Be Affected as Well. You may wonder how the other person can be affected when you are forgiving them in the privacy of your own home and not contacting them. This is the most surprising thing that happened when I taught people to forgive, that there were supernatural results for many people. I think it can be scientifically explained, and our science is still catching up. Jesus certainly knew the power of forgiveness and its ability to change people and change the world. Workshop participants and coaching clients who had forgiven using a simple technique I taught them would report that sometimes people they had forgiven would contact them out of the blue and want to mend fences. They also reported they received money, checks in the mail, from people who had owed them money for years. Some reported old lawsuits were suddenly settled. Also, if an injustice was committed against them, suddenly the wheels of justice moved. Many mothers I worked with finally received child support payments they had not received for years. Divorces were suddenly settled amicably. Family members who had not called in years would suddenly contact the person forgiving them. One woman whose ex-husband molested all five of their children said that she had tried to get him in prison for eleven years. When she forgave him, the wheels of justice moved, and he went to prison. Again, not one of these people contacted the people they were forgiving to let them know.

8. Can you Forgive yourself? Yes, do not forget to forgive yourself. Lack of forgiveness can block your goals from coming true in every area of your life – money, relationships, job/career, and health. Forgiveness is freeing, and some people claim it feels like a heavy stone has been removed from around their necks, making them feel lighter than they have in years. So, can forgiveness positively affect your health? Absolutely, and every other area of your life.

America uses the second highest quantity of pesticides in the world. The damaging effects of these chemicals on the health of humans and the planet are becoming hard to ignore. The good news is that the EWG (Environmental Working Group) has researched conventionally grown produce to determine which foods remain low in pesticides and are safer to purchase. They also found which fruits and vegetables contain the highest amounts of pesticides. The EWG found that even after peeling, washing, and scrubbing 46 different fruits and vegetables there were over 250 different pesticides detected. 

Organic food prices can be a barrier to many and this valuable information from the EWG can help ease our concerns when shopping for our families. The guidance they have provided points us to the produce that is low in pesticides when conventionally grown and which produce is heavily sprayed and needs to be organically grown. Let us first discuss why we are encouraging the avoidance of these once-hailed-miracles. 

Dangers of pesticides

Most pesticides are oil based in order to prevent rainwater from washing off the chemicals. Special fruit and veggie washes may help with some of the external pesticide spray. However, the plants can contain copious amounts of pesticide residue inside as they are surrounded by these chemicals in their soil and water as they grow.  

It was once thought that the small amount sprayed on foods was just enough to destroy the unwanted pests and not affect the consumer. We now know that these chemicals store up in the body, particularly in fat cells, allowing the body to become toxic over time. Regular detoxing is essential in this toxin filled world. 

The harmful effects

One of the most prevalent pesticides used in the United States is glyphosate, or more commonly known as RoundUp, and we now have mountains of evidence linking its ingestion to gut lining problems, creating a condition called Leaky Gut (see references HERE, HERE and HERE). Beneficial bacteria are also disrupted, causing various digestive disorders. Since pesticides tend to store up in the colon, there is a special concern about the increased risks of colon cancer. In fact, the World Atlas has even reported that between 4,000 and 20,000 new cases of cancer (various types) each year can be attributed to pesticides. 

The human body is run largely by chemical messengers we call hormones which are susceptible to disruptions in their balance. When imbalance occurs, virtually every system in the body can be negatively affected. However, the reproductive system takes the biggest hit.

A study done in 2010 on Atrazine, a widely used pesticide (especially on corn), showed that male frogs were being chemically castrated and some even turned into females. Biologist, Tyrone B. Hayes, found that it is likely a large contributor to the decline in amphibians worldwide. The decreased immune function seen in the frogs was suggested to be decreasing the population, too. This same study showed that human cells were impacted as well, even stating a relationship between birth defects and low birth weight when the pregnant mother was exposed to the pesticide. Other research  shows increases in these outcomes for pregnant women who live within a quarter mile of agricultural crops using any kind of pesticide. One would think Atrazine would be banned in the US after the reporting and research on its hormonal effects. Fortunately, for Europeans, Atrazine has been prohibited by the European Union. The United States has not been so lucky and many foods tainted with Atrazine are still sitting on the grocery store shelves. 

Many pesticides are also neurotoxic or neurodegenerative, meaning that they are damaging to our body’s main control centers; our brain and nerves. Sadly, agriculture workers, who have close regular contact with large quantities of pesticides are at increased risk for Cognitive decline, Dementia, and Alzheimer's Disease.  However, researchers are now seeing these same increased risks after chronic low-dose exposure (i.e. the average consumer) especially when there are mixed pesticides (which is common) or the individual is vitamin deficient. Unfortunately, given the weak nutrient state of our produce due to growing conditions and pesticides, vitamin deficiencies are commonplace.  

Time Magazine, reported on research in 2010 that linked ADHD to pesticide consumption. This study showed through urinalysis that presence of pesticides revealed a 50% greater prevalence of ADHD in the 1,100 children studied. Children and adults with ADD or ADHD are now encouraged to avoid pesticides and eat organic foods.  

Because of the massive commercial use of pesticides, it is nearly impossible to fully avoid them, even if you eat exclusively organic. Runoff causes a large amount of these pesticides to end up in water used for the cooking of food. Wildlife is also affected by the pesticide contaminated water runoff. Their reproductive systems are altered by these chemicals and in some cases are causing a decline in species. It leads one to wonder if the animals we consume further expose humans to additional pesticides. 

Where to begin? 

Buying 100% organic 100% of the time isn’t always an option. The EWG’s Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists will make your shopping trips less overwhelming. The Dirty Dozen list includes the most pesticide ridden produce that should be purchased organically. The Clean 15 provides a list of fruits and vegetables that contain the lowest amounts of pesticides when grown conventionally. Knowing this information is helpful for those of us who desire organic but also need to watch the pocketbook.

Every year a new list comes out with a few variations, but the list mostly remains the same. For instance, strawberries are almost always on the Dirty Dozen because of the high level of pesticide contamination. Whereas, avocados, because of their thick skin, are usually on the Clean 15. Keep a lookout for the 2024 version, but for now, follow 2023’s recommendations. We have provided a “Clean Produce Shopping Card” that can be downloaded, printed out, and taken with you while you shop.   

The lists

The Dirty Dozen (the 12 most pesticide ridden fruits and veggies). Purchasing organic is a priority:

1. Strawberries

2. Spinach

3. Kale, collards, mustard greens

4. Peaches

5. Pears

6. Nectarines

7. Apples

8. Grapes

9. Bell/hot peppers

10. Cherries

11. Blueberries

12. Green beans 

The Clean 15 (these foods are the safest to buy conventionally, or non-organic):

1. Avocados

2. Sweet Corn 

3. Pineapple

4. Onion

5. Papaya

6. Sweet peas (frozen)

7. Asparagus

8. Honeydew melon

9. Kiwi

10. Cabbage

11. Mushrooms

12. Mangoes

13. Sweet potatoes

14. Watermelon

15. Carrots