Author Archives: Mark Pegram

Iodine Mimics Ousted

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Fluorine and bromine are starting to be taken seriously as toxins in the body. Coca Cola recently announced that it would no longer use BVO, bromated vegetable oil, in its soft drink products. Now, the city council of Dallas is considering the end of fluoridation to the city’s water supply. Dr. Mercola recently reported that over 135 communities have stopped the use of fluoridation since 2010.

Fluorine has been shown to be a neurotoxin and bromine has been shown to be a class 2B cancer agent. We have both high rates of cancer and neurological disorders in the US. However, you still get writers for the press slamming people trying to have a conversation about science and medicine. Consider how Ms Jacquielynn Floyd, The Dallas Morning News, characterizes the opposition from people concerned about toxins forced into our water supplies – “Anti-fluoridation quacks should know there is no debate.” Wow! She goes on to say, “I don’t want to give deliberate offense, but the truth is, these are not issues of “perspective” or “debate.” They’re about the danger posed by abandoning our faith in science and our confidence in reputable institutions.” This kind of statement is not about debate, it is about trying to ‘shut up’ people with a different view point. Ms Floyd would have been entrenched in the group aligned with the mainstream of the fifteenth century that denied the earth rotates around the sun. We should not have FAITH in science or confidence in institutions that do not have empathy for the individuals they serve. Science is not a religion or should not be and institutions can be evil when acting without empathy. I suspect Ms Floyd gets paid well to maintain the pleasure of the advertisers for the Dallas Morning News. The dangers that are posed to society are the people that don’t understand the process of science and institutions. Anytime debate is stopped, then both science and institutions have failed.

Shut up all you mothers of children with autism, ADD, ADHD, and riddled with cancer! You are just stupid and don’t understand science and have no faith. This is so typical of how people with the bully pulpit try to prevent conversation about things that need to be changed. But then again, there are jobs to protect and advertisers that need to be pleased. Not a conspiracy, but follow the money. – Pandemic Survivor

Health or Health Insurance

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“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

“He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows, nor judge all he sees.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry

I don’t think Ben was talking about health or health insurance; or was he? We learned from last post that health insurance is just another “protection racket” that is legal. You will buy health insurance or we will “hurt” you! – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. Health on the other hand is what we would like to have as no one wants to be ill. However, no amount of money will stop the inevitable. That is; death will ultimately catch up to us. Have we traded our liberty for safety?

There are multiple questions now weighing on us like a load of rock on our backs in a slave quarry. How does only about fifty cents out of every dollar we spend on health insurance actually comes back to us for provider care? In other words, why do we give away fifty cents out of every dollar to someone for managing our health dollars? How did we get to this insurance economy? Why does government allow this type of protection racket to continue?

After a bit of research, how we got to this economy is easy. It was through government’s rules and laws. During the forties, wages were fixed for WWII. The labor market was short of workers. In order to draw qualified people to jobs, companies started to offer benefit packages. Then during the early fifty’s, the government passed a law that allowed these benefit packages to not be taxed for employees and were allowed as an expense by companies. After this, insurance was driven by employers because this was the best deal created by tax structure. Laws were also passed allowing states great leeway in setting laws and practices within states. This created a monopoly by states as health insurance was not transportable state to state.

Health insurance then became a significant portion of the economy. Jobs were created to handle money for health insurance. This segment, health insurance, became as large as the health industry. To hide this from voters, this segment of the economy was all lumped together. The desire for health between birth and death became a desire to maintain this segment because it drove campaign funds. Now, there is over a trillion dollars spent every year solely for health security. Combined with the cost of health providers, this is now about two and one half trillion dollars that we spend each year.

Does this type of economy build wealth? I really do not think that it does. It transfers wealth from the middle class to the upper class. As a member of a country club from the mid-80’s until I could no longer afford it from my own economic health disaster, members that were the wealthiest all were in insurance. From the 1960’s through the 2000’s, the real wealth creators of the economy, farming and manufacturing, were driven from the country. It became the burden of government to maintain jobs. Health and Human Services under the Administration and funded by Congress begin to protect health insurance jobs through the policy of “markets before mandates.” In other words the economy is more important than your health. “To valued life” became the last of the priorities for principles of government health services.

It is truly amazing to take a drive from Buffalo, NY to Toronto and observe all the manufacturing plants along the highway. The decision of locating a plant in the northern part of the US has become a no-brainer as to whether it goes into Canada or the US. Health is covered by the Canadian government and taxes are less. The Canadians have made significant policy corrections since the 1980’s. Their economy is much more stable than the US because it is based on manufacturing and not insurance.

So what did this US policy toward health do to American’s life expectancy? It made us about fortieth in the world. Look at Mary Meeker’s State of USA, Inc. graph from last post. We have the best health care for acute disease, but one of the worst for chronic disease. We have separated the practice of medicine into only drugs for treating illness because of the government policies. We have to keep a relatively ill population to support the economics of large health and health insurance sector. Does keeping the population riddled with chronic disease build wealth? I do not think so.

The correction is going to be hard. We spend 2.5 trillion annually on health insurance and health while spending only 1.5 trillion on food. This ratio of food to health should be turned upside down. For a healthy US, farming and manufacturing have to be brought back to this country. The practice of stealing from family farms and causing them to fail through death taxes while allowing health insurance to bloom through tax protection has to stop. The maintenance of the health insurance complex has truly become a burden as well as a dilemma – health insurance jobs versus health. I believe at this point, term limits in Congress is the only solution so that people will be put first and not institutions. My own health was caught up in this practice of health insurance and would have killed or kept me in a significantly ill state if not for nutritional intervention. How about your health? – Pandemic Survivor

Health Insurance Companies Deliver Your Dollar

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Over the last year I have seen several commercials by health insurance companies saying that the issues in health cost are not their fault. I tend to agree with them. It is the ineptness of our governing bodies or if you prefer, the desire for large campaign contributions from health insurance companies. If you search on the web anywhere for how your health insurance dollar is spent you will typically find something that looks like this:

”Most for-profit insurance companies spend 87 cents out of every dollar to pay physicians, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other medical providers for medical care. This number is disputed somewhat by some experts, who put it at 82 cents, leaving five more cents for overhead and profit, but in a typical scenario, here is how your insurance company spends each dollar of your premium.

  • 33 cents goes to paying physicians
  • 20 cents goes to paying for inpatient hospital costs
  • 15 cents goes to paying for outpatient facility costs
  • 14 cents goes to pharmaceutical companies for medications
  • 5 cents goes to other medical services (this is the disputed amount since it isn’t transparent as to how it is spent)
  • 6 cents goes to government payments, compliance, claims processing and other administrative costs
  • 4 cents goes to consumer services, provider support and marketing
  • 3 cents goes to insurer’s profits”– See more at

After examining this, it appears that the health insurance company only gets about thirteen percent of every dollar for handling your money. I know this is not correct from my years of experience in business. Typically most businesses operate on forty percent internal cost, forty percent external cost, and twenty percent gross margin with General, Selling, and Administrative in the gross margin. This translates to about seven to eight percent profit, with about four percent of that going to the government in taxes. This looks like the last four lines of the above analysis.  I also noted that Nancy Pelosi made great claims of how at least eighty percent of your health care dollar is going to provider payments. It turns out that for large groups this number is calculated as 85% and 80% for small groups. But the question is; how is this calculated? After much sweat and tears in searching in the last six months, I found Uwe E. Reinhardt, Economist and Professor at Princeton. Here is his comment from his blog in the NY Times:

“Up to half the premium can go for these non-medical items. It is the reason why that market urgently needs to reform.” Uwe E. Reinhardt, Political Economist, “How much money do health insurance companies make? A Primer”

Reinhardt gives the formula for calculating the number that Ms. Pelosi was describing as:PP

This is not really a complicated formula. Having years of experience in math related to engineering, in particular ratios, it is easy to see how this formula can be manipulated to fit Ms. Pelosi’s requirements of 85% and in the Obamacare law. So, how is it that Reinhardt is right that as much as fifty percent goes to administrative cost or health insurance cost? This can be answered by determining what is OUTLAYS TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE QUALITY? If this is truly part of the ratio, then I should be able to find it in the federal register. Sure enough: FR 158.150 Activities that Improve Healthcare Quality

Activities that improve healthcare quality – what an interesting definition. Are trips to the tropics for rest and relaxation by health insurance professionals in this number?  The answer is yes. Take some time and go look at what is listed. It is the internal cost of the insurance company that can be almost anything. So we are depending on the health insurance companies to determine healthcare quality and not based on our expectations. After all, quality is defined as meeting the customer’s expectations. I personally expect at least eighty percent of my insurance dollar to go to provider care as Ms. Nancy stated. So where is the rub? Let’s play with the numbers.

My expectation is that only the provider payments should be on top and the cost of the insurance companies to be under the line. Let’s take a typical insurance company in one state with the numbers shown in billions of dollars. Total premiums collected 18 billion. Let PP = 10 and on top with the rest on the bottom as QQ = 5, SG&A=2, Profits = 1 or 28%, 11%, and 6% respectively. This gives us a ratio of 55% or payments to medical providers. This is very typical of a business loss ratio. Let’s do it the way that Obamacare defines it: 10+5/10+5+2+1= 83% – Right in line with policy. But wait, what if we reversed provider payments versus the outlays to improve healthcare quality? The ratio is still the same but provider payments are cut in half and the health insurance company gets twice as much.  Delivering your money in the tropics with feet in the sand.  The government has decided that health insurance companies are concerned about your health, the quality of healthcare, and not their profit – yeah, right.  This explains why when compared to the rest of the world we spend twice as much for healthcare with low expectations for life.  Mary Meeker’s State of the USA.

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Ms. Pelosi, we passed it; we have seen what is in it; and we have determined that it is amazingly stupid to allow the people handling our money to have their way with us. – Pandemic Survivor

On Mother’s Day

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Mom2 cleaned

My mother was a lovely beautiful woman who had nine children.  She worked both hard in the kitchen and hard in the fields.  She promoted the characteristics of commitment, integrity, and character.   We celebrate mother’s all over the world for without them, we would not be.  Mother’s effort:

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It is important to remember the children as well on this day.  Sometimes infants are born with hearts that do not thrive.  It is important, along with standard treatment to be sure they are getting enough vitamin D.  Read about this at he Vitamin D Council, Infant Heart Failure.

As we forgive and ask for forgiveness for the number one cause of death in the US, a mother’s right to choice, we celebrate life.  – Pandemic Survivor

Arogance Intruding on Peace

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I was off to enjoy the afternoon at one of the local vineyards. We had taken a picnic as this particular vineyard had set up tables for just that purpose. After the tasting, you could go out and take in the panoramic views of the mountains while enjoying cheese and grapes with the wine of choice. This particular afternoon, the mountains had taken on the many breathtaking colors of blue for which they are named. The interplay of sun and clouds danced off the sides of the mountains bringing shades of Italy to the Piedmont of North Carolina. The Tuscany stone building set in the middle of the vineyard in combination with the infusion of Chianti grapes with the local wild cherry set a peaceful relaxation.

blue vine1The people next to us were chatting incessantly about this or that and I allowed the beauty of the afternoon drown out any intrusive thoughts. Then I started to hear that their patients were idiots who were taking vitamins and minerals. I could not separate the joy of the surroundings with the intrusion of lambasting individuals who were trying to stay healthy. It was obviously a table of doctors from the local medical institutions building up their egos; how smart they are and how stupid their patients are. Even if they believed this, could they not hold their voices down so as not to intrude on others?

The first thought that came to mind; why did you go to medical school to serve the masses if you have no compassion for the ones you serve. There must be empathy for sick, otherwise, you are just trying to make enough money to pay off your school loans, buy a large home on top of a mountain, and perhaps a yacht for the Chesapeake. Why would they let the disgust for their patients efforts destroy such a beautiful afternoon? Worse, why would you believe that twelve years of school was any better than millenniums of common practice for chronic medical conditions? After all, is medicine not an art to relieve the ailing by weaving science and centuries of common practice into a balm for suffering? We all know the eventual outcome – death. It is the living of the years between birth and death that we want to be filled with love, joy, and peace. Why would you want to give such arrogance an opportunity to destroy this tranquility?

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After the beginning of another tirade about how stupid his patient was for taking vitamin D3 and MSM to lower his blood pressure, I took another sip of Sangiovese and separated myself from this delusion of grander. – Pandemic Survivor

Healed from Chronic Pain

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Okay, so I have finally done it. My book, Healed from Chronic Pain, is now available on Amazon as an e-book. I first wrote this book five years ago, but have delayed in publishing for multiple reasons. The main reason; I thought that using nutrients to heal cartilage would have been figured out by a medical professional and published.  It has not happened.

I would like to thank you for continuing to read my blog and my many ramblings about the health system. My story is an amazing story and appears to be like none other. To think that I have healed form degenerative disc disease, severe sleep apnea, high blood pressure, and have improved cardio vascular health is hard for me to believe. It feels like a resurrection from death. The emotions that I have suffered since healing is like a combination of post traumatic stress and survivor guilt.

Here is the description: An engaging story of a non-medical person, who through faith and an unbelievable amount of research, found healing through nutrition. After decades of crippling back pain, countless medical procedures, and thousands of pain meds, a man on the brink of paralysis from failed surgery and possible death from severe sleep apnea, discovered he could change the course of his outcome by supplementation. This true story of a struggling individual restored to a fulfilling life through nutrition, will captivate readers as they plunge into the mind of Mark Pegram. One might discover the key that unlocks the door to self-healing in this compelling work.

Available at your favorite retailer!

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If you do decide to read, thank you and I would greatly appreciate it if you would write a review. I know many of you have had the same experience of healing after years of pain from disease. It is important that we continue to spread the word about our deplete diets and sun phobia. It is also important to understand how we arrived at this process in our health system to expatiate change.

This first book is my story of discovery primarily about vitamin D3. However, vitamin D3 alone will only get you part way to musculoskeletal health. It is a combination of at least six nutrients or more to achieve the best results. This will be the topic of my second book to be released in six months or so. It will enlist the aid of two medical professionals. This book will be pointed toward healing back pain and cartilage repair. It will have a chapter for doctors and a chapter on how to enlist your doctor’s help in pursuing a nutritional solution.

Thank You! – Pandemic Survivor

Our Health Connection to the Sun Easily Explained

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Learn about vitamin D and its advantages in just five minutes. I think about the thousands of hours that I have spent on understanding the effectiveness of vitamin D; it makes my head spin. Henry Lahore at Vitamin D Wiki has been able to accomplish this in a five minute video.

How easy was that?  Are there any more questions? – Pandemic Survivor

VITAMIN D reduces 42 health problems

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Henry Lahore at VitaminDWiki list forty-two health problems as proven by Double-blind random-controlled-trials.

Hypertension,  Cardiovascular,  Back Pain,  Diabetes,  Influenza,  Falls,  Hip Fractures,  Breast Cancer, Raynaud’s pain,  Menstrual Pain,  C-section and pregnancy risks,  Low Birth Weight, Chronic Kidney Disease, Cystic Fibrosis,  Rheumatoid Arthritis,  TB,  Rickets,  Respiratory Tract Infection, Lupus, Sickle Cell pain, leg ulcers, traumatic brain injury. Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Congestive Heart Failure,  Middle Ear Infection, Gingivitis, Muscles in seniors, Antibiotic use in seniors, Taller Infants, Gestational Diabetes, Heart Strength following an attack, Prostate Cancer, Asthma, Depression, Breastfeeding, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Hives, cholesterol, Weight Loss: http://is.gd/proofvitd

What else do you need to know to be sure you have an adequate serum vitamin D level?   – Pandemic Survivor

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Time for Action to Help Relieve Pain

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I started to write this blog in 2009. That was five years after I had recovered from chronic severe back pain. I had written a non-published book at that time about the experience of healing. The book was about my two back surgeries and how I avoided the advice of doctors for more surgeries. This original book was a flow out of all that I had experienced. Three decades of chronic pain, two failed surgeries, the discovery that I could heal back pain with nutrition and growing three inches taller in ten months as I healed (think about twenty plus discs expanding in height more than one tenth inch to clear all the nerve roots). I have finally gotten over my thinking that the medical profession would move forward and not allow people to continue to suffer with back pain. After all, if an engineer could figure the combination of nutrients to allow cartilage to heal, then certainly someone in medical research could do the same.

I struggled after healing that first two years with why the medical guideline changes for healing failed cartilage had not already occurred. I had met twice with my congressman about the possibility of Congressional hearings to allow the experts to speak on things they had found on nutritional deficiency and chronic disease. We had talked about a meeting with Senator Burr to see if we could make it happen. Then, I discovered Secretary Michael Levitt’s Principles for Health and Human Services. With “Markets before Mandates” five positions above “Value Life”, I knew the economy is more important to the US Government than any life of an individual or many individuals. I knew that only a grass roots effort would cause change. I was happy to see Carole Baggerly turn her anger into action with the founding GrassrootsHealth. If you did not watch her in my last post then do that now! Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

I have finally gotten over my emotions enough to act. I took an online course in creative writing, a daunting task for an engineer. I have reduced that first two hundred page book into about one hundred fifty pages and plan to e-publish within a week or so. It is about my life of pain, the discovery of healing, the healing, social acceptance, and my struggle to understand what was happening in government and our institutions. I only tout vitamin D3 in this book, but understand that it is the combination of many nutrients that allows cartilage to heal. Also, I wanted to wait because of the possibility that I was a unique case.   But after ten years of enjoying good health, it is now time to act.

I am about seventy percent through writing a how to book on healing back pain(still working on finding a publisher). This book will include a section on how to manage pain, the nutrients required for healing, and how to work with your doctor as you use nutrients to heal. To accomplish this task, I have persuaded a couple of medical professionals to coauthor, Molly Schneider, PharmD, and Caitlin Gerrald, PA-C.  Also, my primary care physician has agreed to write a preface supporting my claims of healing. We will also have a chapter for physicians. Here we will try to describe the physiological mechanisms as we best understand them to get physicians to understand the multiple levels of DNA/RNA action and needed nutrition to support them. We will also help physicians avoid the pit falls like just supplementing vitamin D versus checking the blood serum level of 25(OH)D.  Also supplementing with vitamin D3 versus vitamin D2. We will also do the same with other nutrients that are on the market as mimics or analogs of natural supplements. I am asking several of the people that have tried the supplements to be interviewed for this book and to discuss their outcomes. Hopefully, I will be able to release this book within six months to a year.

How significant is the need for a method to heal back pain? Consider Dr. Mercola’s recent article of “How to Avoid the Number One Cause of Disability”

My doctor, after the second surgery, offered to write me a letter for seventy percent disability. I declined at the time because through faith I believed there was a solution. It turned out to be both medical, environmental, and nutritional. Everyone who has suffered with back pain should at least try the nutrients before attempting the surgery route. Dr. Mercola makes this statement in the summary: “I strongly recommend avoiding surgery until or unless you’ve exhausted other treatment options, which include chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, exercise, and most importantly, K-Laser treatment.”

I would here like to apologize to all the people in the world suffering from chronic pain for not releasing these two books earlier.  Also for not disclosing all the needed nutrients in a timely manner. Unfortunately, there is more than physical disability in suffering with chronic pain. It totally distorts your outlook and mood from decades of pain and drugs. Every time I would hear of another person dying from chronic disease from apparent nutritional deficiency, I would allow anger to raise its ugly head instead of using it for action of love, peace, and joy. Here is a video of a recent Toastmasters speech in which I describe an event with one of my neighbors.

“Pulled from the Abyss Again”

I would like to thank my wife for her help in this effort and all the pain and suffering she has had to witness without a flinch.  – Jill W. Pegram, MT(ASCP)SC

Breast Cancer Survivor Takes on the Issues

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Carole Baggerly had her own experience with breast cancer. She then started to research the reason why. Her discovery; scientists have expressed the understanding that breast cancer is a deficiency disease. That is over her life time, her intake of vitamin D was not adequate. She was so upset and concerned about the issues that she started GrassrootsHealth. This is a consortium of more than forty scientists and doctors that are experts in vitamin D and nutrition. She discovered that it was not only breast cancer, but a host of chronic illness related to deficiencies. Take the time and watch her explain the issues in the first thirty minutes of this video presentation.  Carole Baggerly and Dr. Heaney, September, 2012  Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

If you are concerned about the health of your children, yourself, your parents, the next hour is Dr. Heaney who has contributed significantly to the understanding of vitamin D. He talks about the longevity issues and decline with chronic disease because of nutritional deficiencies. There are many diseases that have now been linked to deficiencies that number into the hundreds. This is particularly pointed to vitamin D deficiency.

This discussion is fairly non-technical and is understandable by the average person. Dr. Heaney expresses the understanding that “things go better with vitamin D”. That is that vitamin D deficiency may not be the cause of a disease like TB, but not having enough vitamin D will prevent your body from properly healing. However, this understanding falls into the logic of the chicken versus the egg. In other words, if you had enough vitamin D would you have gotten TB in the first place? Dr. Heaney discusses everything from diabetes, heart disease, MS, pregnancy, and cancer to infectious diseases like TB. I give the video presentation six stars out of a five star rating system for understanding of chronic disease and the effect of vitamin D.  Presentation to Direct-MS Canada.

Your take away from this, is you, your friends, and your family should not suffer from vitamin D deficiency.   Standards within the medical industry have long been 20 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml.   There have not been any cases of toxicity below 200 ng/ml or 500 nmol/l.  There does not appear to be any downside at this level of vitamin D.  Some laboratories have decreased the upper number, 100 ng/ml, to whatever they are measuring the population. Best health for you can be reached with a vitamin D serum level, 25(OH)D between 40 ng/ml to 80 ng/ml; note this is still within the normal range as defined by medicine. It is not how much you take; it is where you maintain your serum level. Everyone responds differently to their intake from all sources of vitamin D. The only way to know is to test.  Dr. Heaney says to maintain a level above 40ng/ml will require an intake from all sources of 5000 IU or more of vitamin D3 per day.

Please note this presentation is in Canada. The measurements used are in nanamoles per liter or nmol/l. To convert ng/ml to nmol/l multiply ng/ml by 2.5. So the normal range of 20 to 100 ng/ml is 50 to 250 nmol/l. Get your serum level tested to give your body a chance to thrive. If you choose to do it through GrassrootsHealth, you become part of the study that will help to advance health in the population. – Pandemic Survivor

Test by GrassrootsHealth: banner_ad_long5company postingVideo of how to do the test:  bscvideothumbnailv3web