Toxins versus viruses

Viruses distract us from the real threats to our health--and the solutions

The word “virus” used to mean “toxin” or “poison.” This was true from antiquity into the 19^th century, when Louis Pasteur was developing the germ theory. At that time, a gradual transition was happening from the concept of “virus as a toxin” to “virus as a microbe.” Pasteur thought there was something poisonous in the saliva of a rabid dog that would cause the symptoms known as rabies, and he began calling this poison a “microbe of saliva.” Although Pasteur never found this microbe, he developed his vaccine believing it was present in the blood and spinal cord tissue of rabbits whom he had injected with the blood of rabid dogs.

Today, “virus” no longer has the meaning of a toxin or poison. It is defined solely as the pathogenic microbe that we are told causes disease, even though neither Pasteur nor any microbiologist since has actually found it. We can say with certainty that viruses have never been shown to exist, but toxins and poisons most certainly do.

Thus we are looking at a significant irony, in that it is viruses as toxins that we need to be aware of and concerned about, not viruses as pathogenic microbes. When we focus our attention on invisible particles that supposedly leap from one person to another as the cause of our illnesses, we turn our attention away from all the kinds of toxins that we are exposed to, from toxic thoughts and emotions—“I know I’m going to get sick!”—to the very real toxic dangers of all of the chemicals that have made their way into our air, water, soil, and food. Not only that, but it is almost certain that some specific diseases said to be caused by viruses actually have environmental toxins as their true cause.

Toxins in the environment

Throughout history, environmental toxins and poisons have caused illness and death for people. But since the Industrial Revolution, when industrial manufacturing activities began to involve more chemicals in larger amounts, more and more toxic substances have been loosed into the world that harm workers, consumers, and residents. The number of chemicals used in industry, mining, and agriculture, many of them synthetic, has reached an estimated 85,000, according to the state of California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.[1]

Besides industrial chemicals, other ever-present forms of toxic pollution abound in our world. Particulates from the burning of coal and oil, pollution of air and water by microscopic bits of plastic, and forever pollutants such as PCBs are inescapable no matter where you live. Agricultural chemicals such as Roundup, with its main ingredient glyphosate, also permeate our environment. Glyphosate, the most commonly used pesticide in the world, has been shown to be neurotoxic to humans and animals[2] and can interfere with human digestion because of its effect on bacteria in the gut.[3]

In addition to these industrial chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs have been found in municipal water supplies from feedlot runoff where cattle are fed antibiotics and other drugs, and from unmetabolized medications—antidepressants, hormones, anti-inflammatory drugs, etc.—that come out in the urine of people who take them. Municipal water treatment can’t remove these substances from tapwater.[4]

How the body deals with poisons

Being exposed to all of these industrial chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, and plastics in our everyday lives means that they are present in the tissues of our bodies. What do they do to our tissues? The detailed answer would take numerous books to contain. Put very simply, they damage the tissues of our body, both through their mere presence as a foreign substance that the body wants to get rid of and also through interfering with the body’s processes and thereby preventing cells from functioning properly. The body’s reaction—its effort to cleanse our tissues—creates “symptoms,” many if not all of which we have been taught to identify as viral in cause.

Because our bodies know what belongs inside us and what doesn’t, they are always attempting to remove foreign substances from our tissues and also to repair the damage they have caused. When we inhale pepper or dust, we feel the irritation and sneeze to blow that irritant out of our nose. When molecules of glyphosate or lead or particulate pollution from car exhaust get into our tissues, we typically don’t feel pain or discomfort. But the body will go to work in the same way to push that toxin out of our tissues and clean up the damage it has caused.

If the substance was in the air, there may be a reaction in our lungs. We may not feel it, if the amount was very tiny, but the lung tissue will push that foreign substance out when we exhale. There will almost certainly be a tiny amount of tissue damage where the molecule or two landed. The body will send bacteria to clean up the dead cells. The waste products from this activity will also be pushed out in an exhale. We probably wouldn’t even notice this.

Not just one at a time

Breathing in a tiny amount of something harmful just once in a while is not much of a problem, if we are in good overall health. But we are exposed to many toxic substances every day. When we have breathed in microscopic amounts of, say, particulate pollution from vehicle exhaust and power plant emissions daily for many months, there will be a buildup in the lungs of both the particulates and the tissue damage they have caused. When this happens, the daily exhalation of particulates and dead cell waste can’t keep up with the continual arrival of more particulates and the continual damage they do. At this point, the body’s detoxification response is triggered.

This response generates mucus to dislodge and mobilize the particles and the dead cells so they can be washed out from the lungs, along with sneezing and coughing to forcefully eject this material. Every time you blow your nose, you are pushing more of it out. There may be inflammation or a fever, the body’s way of using heat to liquefy the dead tissue so it can more easily flow up and out of the lungs through exhalation, sneezing, and coughing. The body may use the digestive tract to eliminate the waste, causing nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. We experience symptoms of a “cold” or “flu” that we formerly would have blamed on a virus.

Different types of toxins, of course, affect different body systems and organs, and many cause more severe damage. The individual’s state of health also makes a difference in how their body responds to each fresh assault. In all cases, however, the body’s response is to eliminate the toxic substance and clean up the dead tissue so it, too, can be eliminated. When the environment has so many harmful substances in it, the body is constantly taxed to find ways to accomplish this elimination. You can be sure that, as long as it is able, the body will continue trying to remove the substance and the damaged tissue.

Poison masquerading as polio

We are familiar with poisons that affect the nervous system or interfere with the activities of hormones and enzymes. Even some of these, however, to the mind that can’t get out of the box of germ theory, are thought to be caused by viruses. One of the most egregious examples of a disease promoted heavily as being caused by a virus when the true cause is an environmental poison is the case of polio.

The polio vaccine is often hailed as the stellar example of how vaccines have saved countless lives. Jonas Salk is lionized for donating his vaccine to humanity, when patenting it could have made him fabulously wealthy.[5] This narrative masks a very different explanation for the disease that is called polio, and has distracted attention from a truth that has been hiding in plain sight: polio in the 1940s and 1950s coincided with the heavy use of arsenic and DDT as pesticides, and the epidemic faded with the declining use of these poisons. By the time the polio vaccine came into use, after 1955, polio was already in a rapid decline which continued until the prohibiton of DDT in most of the world by the early 1970s. The graph below shows the parallels between DDT use and polio diagnosis. If you find 1955 on the chart, you can see the incidence of both was on the way down.

Thanks to

Mike Stone

for this graph. Please read his excellent discussion of the polio fraud here:

The Magic Trick

The symptoms of the severest form of polio—muscle spasms and paralysis—are the same as the effects of DDT, which worked so well as a pesticide because it is a potent neurotoxin. The milder forms of polio have the same symptoms as arsenic poisoning—numbness, vomiting and diarrhea, and pain.[6] These highly effective pesticides were liberally used to control mosquitoes, and, ironically, in an effort to stop polio, which was thought to be spread by insects. DDT was sprayed in vast clouds into the air in many neighborhoods while children played outside, and was even sprayed directly onto them.[7]

Like Pasteur’s rabies vaccine, which created a new form of rabies that didn’t exist before, the polio vaccine itself has created a new variant of polio, called “vaccine-derived polio.” [8]^,[9]

Heavy metal poisoning

Heavy metals have become a serious pollution problem in recent decades.[10] Symptoms of heavy metal poisoning can include nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, headache, dehydration, abdominal pain, a scratchy throat, and weakness or fatigue—the same symptoms said to be caused by a flu virus. Because of this mistake, the true cause of these symptoms may be missed unless there is specific knowledge of exposure to a heavy metal such as aluminum or lead. And since heavy metals are finding their way into more and more corners of our environment and of our bodies, meaning we are all being exposed to them every day, this misdiagnosis is likely rampant, leading to inappropriate treatment and ongoing poisoning of body tissues.

Earth needs a detox just like we do

Our bodies have their ways of detoxing our systems when poisonous or damaging substances find their way inside of us. If we consider the Earth a living being—which I do—we can guess that she also has ways of cleansing herself. I would venture to say that we are part of that process for Earth. We can be like the bacteria in our bodies—cleaning up the damage done to the body of Earth and doing our best to remove the waste. We can’t literally digest it as bacteria do, but we can instigate the cleanup by supporting efforts to do so. We can call upon our friends the bacteria and fungi that can digest oil spills,[11] and support the removal of plastics from the ocean.[12]

And, of course, we can do everything possible to reduce and eliminate the sources of toxic pollution that are threatening entire ecosystems as well as our own health. The first step is understanding clearly that viruses are not responsible for our illnesses. The next step is being aware of how we might be contributing to the toxification of our planet and our bodies, and making different choices.

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[1] Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). (2025). Chemicals of Emerging Concern. State of California. https://dtsc.ca.gov/environmental-chemistry-lab/chemicals-of-emerging-concern/

[2] Costas-Ferreira, C., Durán, R., & Faro, L. (2022). Toxic Effects of Glyphosate on the Nervous System: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(9). https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/9/4605

[3] Web-MD. (n.d.). Glyphosate Herbicides and your Health. https://www.webmd.com/cancer/herbicide-glyphosate-cancer

[4] US Geological Survey. (2008, April 14). Pharmaceuticals in the nation’s water. https://www.usgs.gov/media/audio/pharmaceuticals-nations-water

[5] Intellectual Property Expert Group. (2024). Jonas Salk, Inventor of the Polio Vaccine, “Could You Patent the Sun?” https://www.ipeg.com/jonas-salk-inventor-of-the-polio-vaccine-could-you-patent-the-sun/

[6] Centers For Disease Control. (2022). Vaccine Derived Poliovirus. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/vaccine-derived-poliovirus-faq.html

[7] Apen-Sadler, D. (2018, March 6). Shocking 1940s video shows how US children were sprayed with dangerous pesticide as neighborhoods were gassed with the ‘miracle cure’ that could kill mosquitoes and and polio. Daily Mail online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5467597/Children-sprayed-dangerous-pesticide-DDT-shocking-clip.html

[8] World Health Organization (WHO). (2017, April 19). Poliomyelitis: vaccine-derived polio. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/poliomyelitis-vaccine-derived-polio

[9] Centers For Disease Control (CDC). (2022). Vaccine Derived Poliovirus. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/vaccine-derived-poliovirus-faq.html

[10] Briffa, J., Sinagra, E., & Blundell, R. (2020). Heavy metal pollution in the environment and their toxicological effect on humans. Helyion, 6(9). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7490536/

[11] American Society for Microbiology. (2011). FAQ: Microbes & Oil Spills. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562898/

[12] The Ocean Cleanup. (2025). The Largest Cleanup in History. https://theoceancleanup.com/