Fighting Malaria

Having carried out as much desk-bound research as is possible on MMS (see previous post), I have now found that the wormwood tree can also be used to treat malaria.

Apparently - and I have not tried it - an infusion made with the leaves of the wormwood can cure malaria, and that propriety drugs are only synthetic versions of this natural remedy.

If anyone has documented proof (not anecdotes, please) that wormwood is effective against malaria, please contact me at david@kcisupport.plus.com

Thank you.

MMS - What is it?

Now, I may be a bit cynical, or I maybe I am very cynical. That is not for me to say, but when I see a product with the word "Miracle" in its title, my suspicions are raised.

And when a product with "miracle" in its name comes out of the USA, I just think, "Yeah! Another wind-up!".

But MMS has got me thinking. MMS is Miracle Mineral Supplement, which doesn't really explain anything. It was discovered by an American, Jim Humble, a few years ago while he was traipsing through the South American jungle, prospecting for gold or oil or something. Two of his colleagues went down with malaria and they had no medication.

So Mr. Humble made up a solution using his water purification tablets, thinking that if they could kill pathogens in the water, maybe they could kill pathogens in the body - and it worked. It worked surprisingly quickly, so, when he got back home, he started on his long path of research into the effects of the purification tablets (sodium chlorite) on pathogens in the body.

The long and short of it is that Jim found that mixing sodium chlorite with citric acid makes chlorine dioxide, a disinfectant used in swimming pools, abattoirs, meat cleaning, etc. However, this compound is, to say the least, unstable and has to be made up at the time it is needed.

He has carried out extensive trials in East Africa and South America, in areas where malaria is rife and has found that ClO2, or MMS is very efficient. As an aside, he also found that it would attack other pathogens and viruses in the body, whilst leaving "friendly" bacteria alone.

I had to try this for myself, not because I have any known dangerous pathogens in my own body, but i needed to know if it did any harm.

I can say with authority that the compound tastes awful - no, it is worse than that. Imagine drinking bleach. Yes, that's what it tastes like. But it is not chlorine and does not harm the body in the way that chlorine would.

But apart from that, it did me no harm. And I found that instead of using water to dilute the compound, using apple juice, as recommended by Mr. Humble, takes some of the awful taste away.

Now, as I said, I didn't have any particular illness I wanted to cure. However, I did suffer with chronic back pain, caused by two damaged disks just above the pelvis. I got sciatica on a regular basis and I was in constant pain.

This next bit is stupid, ridiculous, but true. After a week of a low dosage course of MMS, the back pain eased and then disappeared altogether. I cannot explain it, but after15 years of constant pain, I was pain-free.

That was at the end of last year (2008). I stopped taking MMS just before Christmas and now, in March 2009, the pain is just beginning to return, so I will put myself on the same low dose course and will report what happens in this blog.

Now, about Jim Humble. Jim has not made any real money out of MMS. He has written a couple of books which he sells for profit, but he will give anyone who wants it instruction on how to make and use MMS - for free. He wants MMS to be used to eradicate malaria. Why?

He says that thousands of work days are lost through malaria. If MMS can get workers back to work within a couple of days instead of a week, people will lose less of their earnings and African countries will benefit.

This is a bit simplistic, but in essence, true.

So where do we go from here? There are a couple of organisations that I know of in Kenya that promote MMS, under different names, and from what I can gather, the results are good. But these are very small organisations working in small communities. If this stuff works, and I believe it does, it needs to be produced locally and distributed as far and as wide as possible.

Shifting target? Or just expanding?

This was originally posted on my other blog, but as it relates to KCIS work, I have copied it here:

I have been approached by a businessman in Cameroon to shift the malaria-control project to Cameroon. He reckons that he could find financial backing for the project, and that is tempting.

But I can't do that. My loyalty is with Kenya. Kenya is my love, my mistress. Kenya is my second home. So, when the project gets off the ground, it has to be in Kenya.

But, that is not to say that when it is established and I have proven to myself that we are on the right track, I will not expand to Cameroon [or Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi ...]

I am a bi-lingual English/French speaker, so communication will not a problem in Cameroon, and I am not against helping Cameroonians (is that right?) or any other people, wherever they are, but they have to accept that Kenya takes priority.

Or am I looking at the problem with blinkers?

This Is Our Year

2009 is going to be the year that KCIS makes a difference.

No, we haven't received a large legacy, nor have we been offered financial support from a deep-pocketed benefactor (not that we need a lot of money to make a difference).

But I have decided that 2009 is going to be our year. I have been working on the theory of our projects for nearly a year now, so it is about time I out them into practice.

So, what is it that we are trying t achieve?

We are not trying to change the world, but, we do want to help to reduce the incidence of malaria, we do want to find ways of increasing crop yield, we do want to show that water can be purified without expensive equipment or chemicals.

And I am pretty sure we can do it - in such a way that rural communities can benefit without costing the earth.

[NB - a farm worker earns about $1 a day. We want to offer the above at a cost that these people can afford.]

To make all this happen, we need funding. We are not begging for money, although if someone out there wants to bankroll us, we will not refuse. We have set up a business based in Kenya, that, if successful, will fund our projects, or at least, get them moving. Once we can show that our projects work, then maybe people will take us seriously.

Next trip to Kenya

It rather looks like I will be returning to Kenya at the beginning of January - and about time too!

As soon as I have got Christmas over and done with, I will be on my way, or at least, that's the plan - probably leaving here on 6th January.

Of course, funding comes into play - I think I have just about enough to get me there and back, and survive whilst I am there as long as I am careful.

I will be going straight to Kisii where I will start setting up the River Cottage and Scrapheap Challenge projects, as well as looking at the possibility of farming Tilapia, a type of fresh-water fish that thrives in Kenya.

Then there is the push to combat malaria. There are many ways to fight malaria and we willb e looking at many of them.

Somehow, I have got to find the time and money to travel across Kenya to the coast to see my significant other and children - it's a tough life but someone has to do it.

Malaria Kills 3,000 Children Every Day

Shocking isn't it? And most of these deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya.

And what is just as distressing is that these deaths are unnecessary. Malaria can be controlled. Drugs are available to cure people who have contracted the disease.

Unfortunately, many people cannot afford them, or live too far in the bush to be able to get to a clinic or dispensary.

KCIS is planning a major drive in the New Year to combat the malaria problem, with drugs for those who have malaria, and an education and training program to help control where mosquitoes can breed. If we can control mosquito breeding, we can reduce the instances of malaria.

Our education program, aimed primarily at schools, will make people aware of unnecessary standing water where mosquitoes breed, and eradicate them.

BUT WE NEED FUNDING!

We need funding to buy the drugs, funding to set up dispensaries where they are not available, funding to employ people to work in the dispensaries, etc.

Please, if you can help, visit our KCIS website where there is a PayPal account where you help save the lives of children.

Even if you can only give a few Dollars/Pounds/Euros. If enough people give just a little, it will amount to a lot. If we can get this project started, we ... you ... will be saving lives!

Feed the Orphans

It is about time to start an appeal again. The last one asked people to donate their old mobile phones, digital cameras and any other old, high tech gadgets that are lying around in the back of a drawer.

I took all this "rubbish" to Kenya and we sold it on the local market. Every child at the Mercy Gate orphanage, that is 38 kids, got a new pair of black leather school shoes - success!

So I think I will do it again. Maybe the village has now off-loaded their old phones to us already, but I bet there are still a lot out there, gathering dust. So it is worth a try.

This time, I hope that I will be able to raise enough to start a health fund, a pot of money set aside to treat kids when they are ill. Malaria, chiggers and intestinal parasites seem to be the main ailments. They are all treatable, as long as the money is available.

It would be such a relief to be able to take a child to the hospital without wondering who is going to go without what to pay for the treatment.

-oOo-

On another tack, I was reading somewhere that there is a World Blog Day, where people get together to do their bit to help others - or something like that.

This got me thinking. All those in Kenya who write blogs, and all those Kenyans overseas who also write blogs (and all us non-Kenyans who have an interest in Kenya), if we all got together and donated a bit of time [or money] to a central blog-pot, I wonder how much of a change we could make?