In the United States, influenza and pneumonia still rank as the sixth cause of death; and as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, infections increase and some formerly not contagious become highly contagious. Babies are being born with cancer, which, a rarity in children thirty years ago, now strikes 500,000 annually; and cancer is increasing cruelly in all age groups. New diseases are constantly appearing. "The most rapidly enlarging and surprisingly varied" are the inborn errors of metabolism and the iatrogenic, or doctor-caused, diseases largely resulting from drug toxicity. What will halt this increase in illness? A country whose citizens are unhealthy becomes a sick nation.

The multibillion-dollar refined-food industry has gained such power that it keeps people in ignorance and literally controls the health of our nation. Its relentless radio, television, newspaper, and magazine advertising reaches like the life-crushing tentacles of an octopus into every home. Half the space in our beautiful markets is given to health-destroying products which fill shoppers' baskets to a frightening degree. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers, depending on advertising income from the foodless food industry, have carried articles and syndicated columns--clever mixtures of truth, misinformation, and propaganda--particularly designed to prevent the slightest interest in nutrition from interfering with enormous profits.

PABA was put on prescription only because it makes the now little used sulfanilamide ineffective, again depriving many people for a few. Such large quantities as 20,000 milligrams of PABA have been given daily in treating numerous diseases, often with excellent results, though this amount is needlessly high. Placing PABA on prescription has stopped both its sale and all research concerning its value, yet only 300 to 600 milligrams daily help to restore the natural color of hair, often clear up eczemas and loss of pigmentation, and frequently alleviate the intense agony of burns. It may prevent skin cancers caused by overexposure to sun and perhaps old-age changes in the skin, found to be almost identical to changes in the skin of young people who work out of doors. Certainly these problems are so worthy of further investigation that this vitamin should be sold without a prescription and perhaps 100 milligrams added to daily supplements.

Nitrates from commercial fertilizers destroy or decrease the vitamin-C content of plants. In the body, they can be changed to nitrites which have caused serious illnesses and fatalities in farm animals and babies. After 33 infant deaths in Illinois were traced to nitrates, state authorities set ten parts per million (p.p.m.)as a maximum safety limit, but many foods contain more than 1,000 p.p.m., some as much as 5,400 and 6,600 parts. Since nitrates are not destroyed by cooking, strained baby foods are "especially high" in them. These findings brought comments of "unjustified concern," though in experimental animals nitrates cause severe liver and kidney damage.

Steps to improve the nutritional status of our nation should be made while much still exists on the positive side: children are taller than their parents; American athletes win medals at the Olympics; and millions of people enjoy reasonably good health. There is an awakening among some physicians and intelligent citizens, but not yet in enough numbers to turn the tide. The Physical Fitness Program is a constructive move, though rats on inadequate diets are not made stronger by exercise. Just as in the past few decades atherosclerosis has increased from an unknown illness to one affecting almost every man, woman, and child in the United States, so can cirrhosis, cancer, and numerous other diseases become equally rampant in the next few decades, unless our national eating habits are changed.

Nervousness is such a vague term that in scientific circles it barely escapes being classified as a dirty word, though companies making millions from tranquilizers must bless it. Probably every person knows the miserable feeling we think of as nervousness. It has dozens of causes: low blood sugar; a drop in blood calcium; a magnesium deficiency; unconscious anxieties and fears; and a lack of almost any of the ten B vitamins, each of which is essential to the normal function of every nerve in the body!

When fatty deposits plug the small arteries in the feet, the oxygen supply is so decreased that such pain is made markedly worse. By reducing the need for oxygen, generous amounts of vitamin E bring greatest relief, especially in cases of Buerger's disease and diabetic gangrene, where the arteries to the feet may be completely obliterated. A similar condition, known as Raynaud's phenomenon, sometimes occurs in the hands. Nicotine impairs circulation by causing the blood vessels to contract and makes such conditions worse. The toxic substances from a single cigarette lower blood vitamin C and destroy approximately 25 milligrams of the vitamin; hence persons unable to give up smoking should increase their vitamin-C intake.

Convulsions apparently identical to epilepsy have been produced in many species of animals and in infants and adults by a lack of vitamin B6. Almost 25 years ago, the late Dr. Tom Spies gave vitamin B6 to persons subject to epilepsy and achieved excellent results. More recently a well known proprietary baby formula contained so little vitamin B6 that more than 300 infants given it developed severe convulsions, an inexcusable tragedy which could have been prevented had the formula been tested on animals before being marketed or had physicians who gave it checked its vitamin-B6 content. In our community, one exhausted and worried young mother committed suicide because her infant, receiving this formula, had such seizures, though the child is healthy today.