Book Review - The Hundred-Year Lie

The Hundred-Year Lie, How to Protect Yourself From the Chemicals That are Destroying Your Health, by Randall Fitzgerald.

Investigative journalist, Randall Fitzgerald, chronicles the development of man-made chemicals found in our food, water, medicine and environment that are making humans the most polluted species on the earth. Fitzgerald explores and challenges "myths we cherish" that lead to toxic body burden but not without offering antidotes for a more healthful and less toxic society.

From documented research, Fitzgerald takes a fearless position that the general public has been duped by the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industries. And, under the guise of protecting society, even our own government has failed us. The author shows us the direction of his book by opening Part One with "Our Vicious Cycle" which I believe is so profound, I share it here:

• We are surrounded every day by an invisible sea of synthetic chemicals, and our bodies absorb them like sponges until we are toxic.

• We consume foods that have been depleted of essential natural healing nutrients. These nutrients have been replaced by synthetic chemical additives.

• These additives in or processed foods interact synergistically in our bodies with synthetic chemicals absorbed from our water, our air, and our consumer products, weakening our immune systems.
• Once weakened, we become susceptible to illnesses and diseases that medical practitioners treat with synthetic chemical drug compounds that often prove even more toxic to us.

• And this cycle in our culture and in our lives repeats itself over and over ...

Based on his research of scientific and medical literature, in Chapter Two, Fitzgerald shares what he calls "Our Five Toxic Phases of Life." Fitzgerald's aim is to help the reader understand how our bodies become so burdened with chemicals throughout a lifetime of exposure, beginning in the womb. Appropriately, he follows this with a factual chronology of our synthetic history from 1900 through 2004 and the patterns of accumulating health problems. The chronology takes us from a time when diseases such as cancer and diabetes were rare to today when we see diseases in epidemic proportions and, more startling, related to synthetics absorbed by our bodies. As Texas A&M University toxicologist states "...The diseases we're beginning to see as the major causes of death in the latter part of this century and into the 21st century are diseases of chemical origin."

In Part Two of The Hundred-Year Lie, Fitzgerald unveils some astounding myths of the food and drug industries. The author reduces his research to reality in Chapter Four by taking us through the process of preparing a normal meal and showing us we accumulate toxins in some of the simplest food preparation tasks. And, as if that were not enough, Fitzgerald exposes the contradictory messages we receive about the proper levels of vitamins and nutrients we get from our foods. The messages, brought to us by the food, drug, medical and regulatory agencies, are that on the one hand, we get all the vitamins and minerals we need from our food but, in reaction to nutrient research, on the other hand we need to add vitamins and minerals to our diet, thus leading to the admission of synthetic vitamins to our foods. It seems to be a never-ending cycle with downside being that we ignore the reality of synthetics in our bodies.

Fitzgerald shares compelling research about the correlation of the use of toxic synthetics and heavy metals, such as mercury, in our health care system and the increase of diseases such as autism, alzheimer's, cancer, and even diabetes to epidemic proportions. He does acknowledge that people are living longer today than ever before. However, he challenges medical science with records maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Public Health Service, which reveal that increased life-span is due more to the success of economic, social and lifestyle changes and medical technology as opposed to drugs. The author continues in the medical arena focusing on the over-medication of our children, who are less able to process toxins than adults, and the trend of "marketing a disease" by pharmaceutical companies.

In Part Three, Fitzgerald focuses on the hope we have in naturally occurring synergies "harnessed" to energize and stimulate then entire body while facilitating the immune system to do its job more efficiently. As I read the author's third section of his book, he makes a great case for negative synergy of toxic synthetics and heavy metals and its threat to the positive, naturally occurring positive synergy of nature. One of his more poignant comments has to do with our pharmaceutical approach to researching healing chemicals in plants. Rather than utilizing the entire healing plant, we try to find a single active ingredient and thereby reduce the naturally occurring synergy in nature.

In his last chapter, Fitzgerald does "bring it all home" for the reader. He does a nice job of reducing the facts and details of his book into nice, concise, summary points. In his appendix, the author shares reference books on detoxifying the body so he doesn't leave us with awareness without a remedy.

All in all, this is a book I think anyone and everyone should read at least once. I must say that much of the information I have heard or read in other forms, but Fitzgerald does an outstanding job of compiling the research into a logical, compelling format. If you don't read anything else, read the chronology in Chapter Three and Appendix One on how to detoxify yourself.

Review by Jeanette Sanderson, May 25, 2009, http://JeanetteSanderson.com

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