Letter to the Editor – JD McKee

August 24, 2023

Jeez, this whole thing is like a 1940’s movie about the upstanding journalist on a small newspaper facing extortion, threats, and even death threats from crooked, mob connected politicians, with outstanding fortitude. From the other side, it is also a virtue signalling spiral to the bottom while treasuring victimhood, but as always, not from the alleged victims, but from otherwise unaffected “allies”.

I looked, but could not find what started this in your paper. I cannot imagine from what I have seen that it was anything remotely objectionable.

On the other hand, the letter you published from someone threatening you is nothing short of extortion.

Also, nepotism seems to be involved, as well as wrongful dismissal from someone at Denman Works. Well, that is what is being written in public anyway.

Keith, you rock. Keep up the integrity of the Fifth Estate. I don’t care if you run this or not but you can damn well put my name on it if you do.

JD McKee

Letter to the Editor – Teresa Clinton

August 24, 2023

Dear Sir,

I have supported your journalistic right to publish conflicting views in your publication through all the strife of the pandemic, no matter how vigorously I oppose some of those views.

However your bad tempered rant in the August 10 grapevine was way beyond any journalistic propriety. You have used your position to attack an individual who disagrees with you in a public forum after you were sent a personal email. That is not journalism, its vindictiveness. Also bringing her partner into this mudslinging is completely inappropriate.

What a disappointment to those of us who have continued to support the Grapevine.

Most sincerely,

Theresa Clinton.

So, you’d rather we’d brought this matter up with the police? – Ed.

Letter to the Editor – Steve Christensen

August 24, 2023

An open letter to Bronwyn Schuster, regarding “Aug 10th Grapevine Article – Threats, Lies, and Misuse of Public Funds”

You tossed a bomb into the community on Facebook and then you’ve hidden behind blocked comments. This isn’t about who’s opinion is the “correct” one, whether it’s yours, mine or anyone else’s. It’s about your actions. You chose to use your position, which includes disbursement of public funds, to go after people who hold a different personal opinion than you. I think this is about as toxic and damaging to a democratic community as it can get.

I am a member of the LGBTQ+ community and so I have some sensitivity to certain issues. I don’t get triggered by people having opinions on these topics; in fact I welcome and respect them and I welcome hard discussions with people whose ideas are different from mine. I like to think that is what a free and open society is about.

You did something that I think is very egregious and damaging. At the very least you should consider expanding your critical thinking so that you’re not so easily triggered into committing such unprofessional acts as lashing out and cancelling others simply because they hold an opinion that is challenging to you (not to mention committing libel by publicly accusing someone of being a transphobe with no supporting evidence). If you can’t do that then I fully support the Grapevine’s call for you to resign from all positions that give you authority over disbursing public funds.

The Grapevine doesn’t need a “sensitivity reader”. Maybe a better approach would be for people to learn to think for themselves and develop the critical thinking skills that seem to be in such short supply these days. I am willing and available to speak to this situation in person.

Steve Christensen

Letter to the Editor – Hersh Chernovsky

August 24, 2023

Compensation Policy BC Ferries

If you incur out-of-pocket expenses due to a sailing delay or cancellation within our control, on a sailing you booked, that prevented you from reaching your destination on your planned day of travel, you may submit a request for compensation and reimbursement. This also applies for customers who have received a ticket/boarding pass at the terminal to travel on one of our non-bookable routes where alternate travel is not available.

We review requests for reasonable expenses that qualify within our guidelines. Itemized receipts along with tickets or refund receipts for attempted travel are required. If confirmed, we will send a reimbursement to the email address provided with electronic payment options.

Customers with bookings that are cancelled without being moved to or accommodated on an alternate sailing will be fully refunded (reservation fee and fares) and will be provided a complimentary voucher for future ferry travel. Customers with bookings for standard and oversize vehicles will receive one (1) BC Ferries travel voucher for a standard vehicle and driver per cancelled booking on any route between Vancouver Island and the Mainland. Customers with foot passenger bookings will receive one (1) BC Ferries Adult Passenger voucher per passenger booked.

Two things to note re: BC Ferries when it comes to compensation; it only applies “on a sailing you booked!” Even if they’re at fault, and the ferry does not leave on time. What’s not said is that if you rode a 6:35 pm ferry out of Horseshoe Bay last winter, arriving in Nanaimo at 8:15 pm, BC Ferries is of the opinion that you cannot make the last ferry at 9:30 pm from Buckley Bay to Denman on time. As such, you are not entitled to compensation. So much for their vaunted claim that they’re turning over a new leaf.

Hersh

Emergencies Area ‘A’ – Daniel Arbour

August 24, 2023

We can all protect our communities by being prepared for emergencies

This summer many local governments across BC and Canada have faced major wildfires, evacuations, and emergency management situations, and the trend will be escalating risks in the future. I have heard all summer from residents, especially on Hornby and Denman, about concerns and anxiety as we enter this new world of high heat and dryness. Through the CVRD, we are lucky to have excellent and dedicated volunteer fire departments in all 5 communities in Area A, a professional and competent emergency management staff to rely on for the whole Comox Valley, and local emergency volunteer committees. We also have plans in place for emergency situations.

For example, recently we completed the first emergency mass evacuation guidelines for Denman and Hornby islands – plans that would help coordinate and guide our evacuation approach in a catastrophic event. On an ongoing basis, the most important thing we can do in all of our Area A communities is prevention: including not taking risks and deep care year-round with fires; fire smarting our properties and homes; and being prepared in case of a major earthquake or long power outage. I do hope we never have to face the sort of situations places like Yellowknife, Kelowna, Salmon Arm, Hawaii, and so many other places have faced this summer, but we need to adjust our mindset to a new risk profile with drier summer and more intense storms in winter on the coast. Never hesitate to contact your local fire department for free advice on how to fire smart your property and home, or reach out to me if you have questions as we continue to build out strong emergency policies and procedures both regionally and locally.

Daniel Arbour, CVRD Area A Director

reachme@danielarbour.ca

250.650.8480

Sugar Daddy

August 24, 2023

March 23rd, 2007

Sugar Daddy

Well fuck! I think I may have a problem. My generosity coupled with a poor grasp of the word ‘NO’ is going to give me difficulties. There is this guy named Jerry, who is grinding me… hard. He arrived last week and, as everyone else new to these parts, without tobacco. What became the occasional request for a smoke has become a regularity. As I’ve written on this topic before, Jerry has spoken of impending monies coming his way. He initially told me of how he had helped out ‘buddies’ up in the dorms with tobacco. I suspect that in doing so he was trying to infer that, despite his need from me, he usually has the shoe on the other foot. He’s my peer, ‘don’t you know?’ But, save for his current tobacco dilemma buddies up in the main dorm are getting him back tonight. Well, that was last week. No sooner had he established this narrative, he returned from gym that night without being reimbursed. Oh well, having already broke the ‘bumming’ ice, he was one day closer to canteen and ‘would I mind shooting him another smoke.’ After all, what goes around, comes around. It’s not like he hasn’t been the one to help out a buddy in red. Peers! I say.

So come canteen, he had effectively run me down to my last smoke. Failing his buddies reimbursing his generosity, he has now taken to filling my ears with how he’s anticipating a tax return, PST and GST cheques and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. First of all, he is wearing red. I’ve only been here 68 days now but I gather that the colour of his wardrobe means he is in jail. While I doubt he’s here because he failed to file his tax return, I also question if the reason he’s my peer has anything to do with having a job at all. At least one with a taxable income anyways. I mean, come on! Most of the guys here are crack or meth addicts. ‘Fall downs’ as they are referred to. Guys who’ve messed up to such an extent that they’ve nobody on the outs who can lend a hand or, more specifically, lend some money. But thank God for the government monies imminently coming their way for all the hard work they’ve done smoking crack! I’ve simply heard too many stories from too many guys to not just wax over as the latest tale gets spun. It’s delivered often in attempts to build a bond. Absolution from being pegged as a grinder through ‘sharing.’ But it’s increasingly apparent that it is purely for the sake of getting the smoke. As for the next smoke, we’ll cross that bridge or spin the next yarn as we come to it. So shortsighted is the vision with such a game, but Jerry just takes it that much further. His energy and his look do nothing for me. I simply was being helpful in the course of feeling him out, but now I’m thinking that I’m getting felt up!

As last week’s canteen drew nearer, I showed Jerry incrementally greater reluctance to fulfil his requests for help as I was trying to establish without saying so much that I can’t be his steady grind. Thankfully canteen arrived, as his ability to take my broad hinting was nil. A fair number of the guys here come to me on Tuesday, and especially Wednesday for similar aid as it is but they don’t go to the well with abandon. Abusing the willingness to help can be a fine line.

Going outside for a smoke on Tuesday and Wednesday is more of an exercise in averting the wanting eyes of those looking for the last pull of your cigarette than smoking the thing itself. It can become uncomfortable, really. You begin to go to the farther reaches of the smoking pit and develop a hard look to yourself just to have one on your own. But this just compels the needy to have to make greater efforts to get what they seek. Like taking more footsteps to approach you and scaling the wall that you erect in obvious defence of what you don’t wish to share. Desperation, or inability to establish any willpower, obliterates any and all decorum for these tobacco-less souls.

Now it must be said that Jerry did reimburse me six tailor made cigarettes come canteen, so I couldn’t begrudge him that. But what I managed to see in him and his approach has got me leery. Like I say, his energy seems off to me. I feel as though he is keeping his eye on me and I don’t care for it. I don’t see much to go on with him given his disregard of boundaries most others would respect. It just seems one-dimensional. He’s hurting for tobacco and I have tobacco. Our common bond is that we both wear red. That’s it. Beyond this, his stories of money or returned favours are purely to help ease my grip on what is mine, and what he desires. It certainly is not a means to furthering our bond. No camaraderie has, or will be struck upon with such dalliance. Having not gotten the gist of my subtle coaching over my dwindling reserves only compels me to freeze him out. He did, as I say, return to me some smokes but as I had given him tailor mades, he had to return to me the same. I didn’t tell him that was what I expected and the cost of them is far more expensive than the already prohibitive cost of a pouch of tobacco. Especially on our wages. And only more so for a new guy who talks of incoming monies that haven’t arrived yet.

So the egg with the flat end creeps over to its rounded edge once more. Everyone has tobacco, debts are honoured, everything is good… or ought to be. Yesterday afternoon I ask Jerry in passing, “how’s it going?” To which he replies,“not bad.” I counter, “better with tobacco, eh?” And his response is that he’s almost out already! Seems he had a few others he needed to repay. Lord only knows at $7.75/pack, how many packs his $14.10/week salary can afford, but after giving me 30% of the pack he had in his hand, I’d venture to say not more than the pack I saw in his hand. I don’t know. It’s this ability in rudimentary math that I picked up somewhere along the way! This set alarm bells to ringing in my head. We’re talking about the day AFTER canteen. The rate at which he’s hit me up for help tells me he carries at least a ‘pack-a-day’ habit. And this is to say nothing of the help he’s sought from others. With the fingers I exercise my math skills upon outnumbering the remaining smokes in Jerry’s pack I can see he can’t afford it. His consumption outstrips his means. If I don’t conjure up an ability to shut down this notion of his (that I’m his sugar daddy), I’ll be his, well… sugar daddy. That much I can’t afford!

Shucking Oysters: The Summers of Love

August 24, 2023

Shucking Oysters: The Summers of Love

Living on Hornby Island can be seen as both a curse and a blessing. Loved to death and living in “paradise.” The perfect Molotov cocktail (with one of those tiny drink umbrellas). And this is not an isolated phenomena; this over-tourism theme is everywhere.

Hornby summers are intense (especially if you work on the front lines and need to go from A to B). The traffic jams at the four corners. The waiting to turn on Central after a ferry has unloaded. The line ups at the Co-op. The market. The market! The amount of cars parked in the vicinity, you’d think it was a Taylor Swift concert. And e bikes. After the paddle board, e bikes of course, are the next best thing. But when I have to speed up in my car to pass a bike going 30k, that worries me.

In the summer, many Hornby Islanders feel that they are living in some theme park. Most visitors think the entire island is Disneyland. (Those are the ones on their magical rides zig zagging down the middle of the road in blissful oblivion.) But, hey, how can you not love Hornby, “the Hawaii of the north”? When it’s too, too busy, perhaps?

I find myself staring at visitors like they are aliens from a foreign country: unfamiliar and disturbing. The incessant staring down at the glow of their smart phones. The inability to navigate themselves in a small grocery store. The challenges with reading signs, from the 60 kilometre speed limit sign to the “Sorry, no ice” sign. Parking their cars blocking entrances, driveways and beach accesses. Parking with no dog in the shaded “dog in car parking only” area or worse, leaving dogs in their car in the blazing sun, window open a crack in 24 plus degree weather.

And the garbage. Every public receptacle is stuffed to the max. Recycled signs are blatantly ignored and apparently it’s far too inconvenient to go up to the depot. Just toss the bags at the bottom of the entrance, someone will deal with them. And those green doggie poop bags? Tossed willy-nilly on the side of the roads and in the parking lots. I even see those poop bags hanging off branches on the trails, like some exotic breed of bird. Is that a green forest flicker? And let’s not forget the random used diapers that “accidentally fell” off the roof of a car, lying on the shoulders like road kill.

Working on the front line means I know too much. Waaay too much. Sure, you’re on holiday, but really? You didn’t do a Google search before you got here? It’s like playing Existential Question. “Is there a beach?” “Is the coffee fresh?” “Are these today’s newspapers?” Can both destiny and free will exist simultaneously? What is the location of the soul? Does it reside within you?

I know, I know, Hornby needs its tourism. But, as I keep saying, it’s the difference between four people showing up at your front door and 20 people.

A sobering Canadian documentary, “The Last Tourist,” darkly exposes the effects of mass tourism on our planet. The timing of the documentary’s spring 2022 release as the world’s borders reopened and people looked to travel with purpose, made it all the more prescient.

Executive Producer Bruce Poon Tip points to the “unconscious consumers” created by the vacation industry, and says while we live by a certain set of values at home, we often suspend those values when we go on holiday. When on vacation, “we tend to have more showers, we tend to be more wasteful, we tend to eat more,” says Ryerson University Professor Rachel Dodds.

It is no surprise that it’s the internet driving all this. “The advent of social media has completely changed the way we travel,” says Dodds. “We’re going after a photograph.” Filmed in over 15 countries, “The Last Tourist” is overpopulated with millennials posting Instagrams everywhere.

And warning, with its blunt coverage on the cruelty of animal tourism, the doc is not for the faint of heart. As Kim Hughes wrote, “It’s a tough slog, this film, partly because it delivers its arguments with a sledgehammer, and partly because we know what it’s saying is true.”

Closer to home, the Sea to Sky Destination Management Council, an offshoot of Destination BC, launched a ‘Don’t Love It to Death’ campaign in 2022. “Having access to beautiful spaces and vibrant communities is a privilege — one we will lose if we don’t change our ways.” The campaign reminded visitors that we “are all guests on these lands and waters. Respect the people, wildlife, natural spaces, and communities by exploring mindfully.”

Meanwhile back on Hornby, we continue to debate the uppers and downers of tourism. The employment benefits, all that money entering our local economy. The crowds, the stress on businesses and locals (human and otherwise). I’m even hearing from people who have been coming to Hornby for years, rethinking about coming back next year because of the huge influx of visitors. I know it’s not every visitor that treats this place with disrespect, but enough of them, that you see the evidence everywhere.

Are we loved to death? Or is it seduction and we should just lie back and enjoy it?

Threats, Lies and the Misuse of Public Funds – Team TIG

August 10, 2023

Domino effect with human face silhouettes.

Threats, Lies, and the Misuse of Public Funds

Imagine if you were a Denman Island newspaper publisher who received an email from a local public employee that attempted to intimidate you by threatening to cut off your publicly funded advertising revenue unless you conformed to their personal idea of what your editorial policy should be. No, this is not the “offer you can’t refuse” gangster scenario that you might expect in The Godfather.

In a written message to The Islands Grapevine (TIG), Bronwyn Schuster, who was hired by the publicly funded Denman Island Bus Service to do its marketing and publicity, demanded editorial policy changes from TIG’s publisher/editor Mike Van Santvoord, or face the withdrawal of the public monies used for advertising in TIG from the budgets they manage. While no mobster would be foolish enough to put such a threat into writing, this is what Bronwyn Schuster wrote in their email to TIG:

“I am deeply concerned by the things you are choosing to publish”

“I understand you have been holding an editorial policy to publish everything with no curation [sic].”

“I will be choosing alternate avenues for articles and advertising for the various community projects I am involved with (emphasis added) until you create an editorial policy that holds the vulnerable members of our community in higher regard.” Letter to The Islands Grapevine from Bronwyn Schuster, July 19, 2023.

The CVRD funded Denman Island Bus Service (DIBS) has advertised in TIG in the past, but it would now seem that Bronwyn Schuster has followed through with their threats, as they no longer advertise these publicly funded projects in TIG, and have redirected their advertising expenditures elsewhere, just as they threatened to do. TIG holds a “high regard” and respect for all members of our communities. Bronwyn Schuster has misused public funds by weaponizing them to implement their own personal agenda.

Bronwyn Schuster is being paid by DIBS from the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) tax supported funds disbursed through the non-profit agency DenmanWorks, which is Chaired by Anthony Gregson, who is also a member of the DIBS committee. Bronwyn Schuster’s partner, local Islands Trustee Sam Borthwick, is the DIBS Coordinator, who is paid with the same public money that is funnelled through DenmanWorks to DIBS from the CVRD. Part of Borthwick’s job as DIBS Coordinator, is to advise his partner Bronwyn Schuster on their work in marketing and publicity. Anthony Gregson’s position as DenmanWorks Chairperson, and as a member of the DIBS Committee, is oversight of all public funds that are channeled from the CVRD through DenmanWorks to DIBS.

TIG is demanding Bronwyn Schuster’s resignation or summary dismissal from any positions where they are responsible for expenditure of public monies, as a result of these breaches of public trust. TIG insists that Schuster reveal all of the projects for which they are responsible for publicly funded advertising and publicity programs and they should be required to apologize to TIG and all Denman Island residents for these threats and malfeasances. The Islands Grapevine has forwarded these correspondences to the appropriate agencies and legal authorities for review.

Everyone has the right to express their opinion in regard to TIG’s editorial decisions, but they don’t have the right to make threats in order to extort editorial policy changes, then manipulate CVRD tax funded advertising money by withdrawing and redirecting it based on their personal views, especially when these views are unfounded and dishonest claims containing false accusations. In this case, Bronwyn Schuster has done just that, and attempted to justify it as a defence of “vulnerable members of our community.” TIG firmly rejects any content that is homophobic, transphobic, or is discriminatory or bigoted toward any identifiable group.

TIG publishes its clear editorial policy relating to content it receives from all contributors to the paper and has rejected submissions based on this policy, or asked contributors to revise their written submissions that violate its editorial policies, and these contributions do not necessarily reflect the personal views of its publisher/editor. Schuster’s claim that TIG will “publish everything with no curation” is an obvious lie. Here’s publisher/editor Mike Van Santvoord’s July 19, 2023 responses to Bronwyn’s threatening letter:

“I couldn’t discern if your email to me was a private note, or intended for publication. If it was the latter, I would reject it in its current form, as it violates TIG’s editorial policy.”

“I have attached the TIG editorial policy for your convenience.”

“Your threat to take business elsewhere will have no effect on TIG’s editorial policies.”

To date, Bronwyn Schuster has not replied to TIG’s response to their threats. You might think that we’re being “crabby” about the loss of advertising revenue, but the loss of revenue is well beside the point. It would seem that Bronwyn has a distorted grasp of the facts, a warped sense of entitlement, and a lack of the needed integrity in handling tax supported budgets for publicly funded projects.

Team TIG

Apology

August 10, 2023

APOLOGY by Sally Campbell

What makes the simple act of apology so hard?

Why does a poorly-timed apology make matters worse?

When I explain why the wrong happened, shouldn’t that make it okay?

These are a few of the questions surrounding the “ouchy”, often complicated realm of apology. As children, we were often taught to say we were sorry when we didn’t feel sorry. We learned that if we refused to apologize, things were going to get worse. We might’ve felt righteous (& rightful) indignation at the idea of apologizing, convinced that the other was at fault, not us. To add to our sense of injury, the adult(s) involved might not even have cared who was right, who was wrong. They simply wanted the matter resolved and they saw an apology as a public act of contrition that the other party was obliged to accept, thus putting the dispute to rest.

Alas, the world does not really work that way. Sometimes an apology is given in a tone of voice that merely heightens the acrimony. Lack of genuine remorse from the offender gets communicated nonverbally to the aggrieved person. Sometimes the apology is followed by minimization of the offence, or detailed justification. These kinds of responses erase the value of the apology and can easily create more inter-personal distance. The overt conflict may be considered to be “done with”, but really the conflict has just gone underground, or more dangerously, into the body, rather than being resolved.

If the apology is given too quickly in an attempt to convince the offended person to “just get over it”, its value is lost. We live in a general culture that is busy and driven, that expects things to move quickly and efficiently. Matters of the heart move in kairos time, not chronos time. They are related to the spiritual and emotional aspects of our being, not the mental/rational aspects. This may be why we feel those old hurts, that unfinished business so strongly, even though they may be years in the past. The memory of the cut, the wound, is as if it occurred yesterday. An apology given before one is ready to really hear and receive it can go right over the offended person’s head. Timing matters.

There are many ways to deliver an incomplete apology; certain expressions or turns of phrase mark it as such. Here are a few examples:

“If I did something to offend you, I am sorry.”

“I am sorry you feel that way”.

“I’m sorry you got so upset about it”.

None of these apologies show the speaker taking responsibility. They don’t acknowledge what was done or said that caused offense, they merely show regret that offense may have happened.

Aaron Lazare, MD, head of Psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Medical School, has some wonderful insights on apology. He outlines what he sees as necessary steps to constitute a complete apology in his book, On Apology (Oxford University Press, 2004). Here they are in the context of private rather than public apologies.

1. Acknowledging the offense.

When we acknowledge we were wrong, both we and the offended party are assured we share certain values. Effective acknowledging includes a fair and complete remembering of what happened, and how it was offensive to the other person. He says: “This places high demands on our truthfulness” (p.80), as there is often temptation to distort or to minimize.

2. Communicating remorse

If we don’t feel genuine remorse or regret about what happened and our part in it, we may not be ready to apologize. As well, this aspect of an apology entails communication of a resolve to do something differently. Looking back, the apologizer accepts responsibility for the offense; looking forward involves commitment to avoid repeating the offending behaviour (forbearance).

3. Explanation

An explanation often helps the injured party understand the context, and can go a long way toward mending a torn relationship. “…explanations demystify offenses committed against us by telling us whether an offense was a random act, …how much responsibility we share for the offense and whether we should expect similar offenses in the future”(p.120). It is critical that the explanation not be given as an excuse or seen as an attempt to minimize the harm done. When that happens, the value of the apology is lost.

4. Reparations

Apologies often place us in the position of “one-down”. In order to restore balance to the relationship, the offender may need to offer reparations, either symbolic or real. Sometimes this is the most important aspect of an apology – to find ways to restore the loss. Other times, reparations are not enough, because the other critical aspects of apology have not been adequately addressed.

One of the most helpful points of Lazare’s book is the idea that an apology is actually the beginning of making amends, not the end!

(Next week: Part 2)

Green Wizardries with Maxine Rogers

August 10, 2023

Green Wizardries, Breast Cancer Prevention by Maxine Rogers

Did you know there has been an 80% increase in breast cancer in the last 40 years? Mammograms only pick up tumours when they are the size of a small grape. When they do the wide-incision biopsy to remove the tumour, in 2/3rds of cases there are multi-focal deposits of tumour in the surrounding tissue. So, not a great result with mammograms.

Why the sudden sharp increase? Well, our diet and the medication we take have both changed out of all recognition in the last 40 years so they may well be factors. Some aspects of our diet have changed without the public noticing. For example, several foods, including bread and milk, used to be enriched with iodine. This is no longer the case. Indeed, commercially prepared bread contains bromides which are iodine antagonists.

I got most of the information for this story by watching a recent interview with Dr. Nyjon Eccles, a British physician who holds a PhD in Pharmacology. Dr Eccles likes to call himself a Natural Doctor or a practitioner of Functional Medicine.

Dr. Eccles uses thermography in his clinic to detect changes in breast tissue before tumours develop. Thermography uses infrared cameras to look at heat in breast tissue and it can also detect abnormal veins and resistance to cooling. All these things can precede the structural changes seen later on a mammogram.

Dr. Eccles has been studying thermography since 2013 because he thinks we need to detect changes in the breast before it turns to cancer. He went on to explain that an abnormal thermogram is not a diagnoses of cancer but they do represent an increased risk of developing breast cancer later.

When he had a cohort of women with abnormal breast thermograms, he started studying them nutritionally. He measured their Vitamin D and iodine levels. He looked at how they were metabolizing their estrogen as some women metabolize their estrogen in a toxic way that can damage breast tissue. He also looked at their Omega 3 fatty acids. What he found was that women with abnormal thermograms, almost always, had imbalances in at least two of the four factors measured.

He worked with the women to overcome these imbalances and deficiencies. He found that within six months of starting treatment, 80% of the women would have normal or normalizing thermograms.

Dr. Eccles finds vitamin D and iodine deficiencies are very common. He also studied the Japanese who eat a diet high in seaweed. Their blood-iodine levels are very high and their breast cancer rates are some of the lowest in the world. Iceland, which is very far away and has a different culture also has very high rates of iodine in their diet and similarly low levels of breast cancer. Dr. Eccles says medical science does not know how iodine is protecting against breast cancer but there is a huge correlation between low-iodine levels and increases in breast cancer.

To get his patient’s Omega 3 levels up, he said they could eat fatty fish and if they preferred a vegetable source of Omega 3 fatty acids, he got them to eat flax, chia, hemp and echium seeds. I like his approach as it is very low-tech and inexpensive.

Dr Eccles is strongly against his patients taking synthetic progesterone as it leads to increased cancers and clotting. He finds natural progesterone has no associated risk of increased breast cancer.

The way a woman metabolizes her estrogen can be benign or toxic which damages breast tissue. The good news is that simply eating cruciferous vegetables allows a woman to switch from toxic estrogen metabolism to non-toxic. Just eating a plate of cabbage, Brussels sprouts, watercress, broccoli, cauliflower or the wonderful kale that grows so readily here, is enough to reduce this risk factor in women.

Dr. Eccles recommends 4000 to 5000 IUs of Vitamin D to all his patients even if they did not have an abnormal thermography. He pairs the Vitamin D with Vitamin K2 which ensures that calcium stays in the bones and makes these higher doses of Vitamin D safe.

Dr Eccles sites a 2016 study which showed that people having blood levels of Vitamin D at 100 nanomils per litre showed a sharp drop in all types of cancers. So, keep your Vitamin D levels at that magic 100 number to reduce your risk of cancer.

His rule is to take 50 to 100 micrograms of Vitamin K2 for every 1000 international units of Vitamin D. Vitamin K2 is usually derived from fermented foods such as fermented pickles (delicious), sauerkraut and kimchee. We could all do with eating more fermented foods for general good health.

For iodine, Dr. Eccles explains that some populations routinely ingest 3 to 12 milligrams of iodine in their food daily. If you take higher doses of iodine than the body needs, it is excreted harmlessly in the urine.

When most people in the West take the SIP test to measure their levels of Omega fatty acids, they are usually 15 to 20 units of Omega 6 to every unit of Omega 3. The ratio should be more like 6 units of Omega 6 to every 3 units Omega 3. You can reduce your levels of Omega 6 by not eating any seed oils which are very unhealthy.

With the supplements mentioned and eating a large plate of cruciferous vegetables every day, we could make Denman and Hornby the capital of low breast-cancer rates in Canada