Adolf Hitler - A Different Point of View

The Measure of Greatness

 August 31, 2016

A Cosmotheist view of history’s most vilified man

by Dr. William L. Pierce

April 20 of this year [1989] is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the greatest man of our era — a man who dared more and achieved more, who set his aim higher and climbed higher, who felt more deeply and stirred the souls of those around him more mightily, who was more closely attuned to the Life Force which permeates our cosmos and gives it meaning and purpose, and did more to serve that Life Force, than any other man of our times.

And yet he is the most reviled and hated man of our times. Only a few tens of thousands of men and women, in scattered groups around the world, will celebrate his birthday with love and reverence on April 20, while all of the scribblers and commentators of the controlled news media, the controlled politicians, and the controlled churchmen will pour out their hatred and venom and lies against him, and those lies will be believed by hundreds of millions. What is the measure of greatness in a man?

Only the most vulgar and doctrinaire democrat would seriously equate greatness with popularity — although in any polling of average citizens on their choice for the greatest man of the century there are certain to be substantial numbers of votes for Elvis Presley, John Kennedy, Billy Graham, Michael Jackson, and various other high-visibility lightweights: charismatic entertainers on the stage of politics, rock concerts, spectator sports, or what have you.

Franklin Roosevelt

More serious citizens would pass by the lightweights and choose men who have changed the world in some way. We would hear choices like Franklin Roosevelt (“he saved the world from fascism”), Albert Einstein (“he taught us about the nature of our universe”), and Martin Luther King (“he helped us achieve racial justice”), depending upon whether one’s personal inclinations lay more in the direction of politics, science, or racial self-abasement, respectively.

But if the poll asked instead for the most evil man of the century, or the most hated man, or the man having the most negative influence, at least three-quarters of the blue-collar and the white-collar pollees alike would name one man: Adolf Hitler. This, however, would be merely a reflection of the role assigned to him by the controlled mass media, rather than a truly informed and reasoned choice.

Winston Churchill

All of this raises several very interesting issues. There is, for example, the question of how we came to the preposterous state of affairs prevailing today, wherein we place the destiny of our nation, our planet, and our race in the hands of a mass of voters whose powers of judgment are manifested in such things as the type of television entertainment their preferences have pushed into prime time and the type of men they have elected to public office. And there is the equally weighty question of how, knowing the ease with which this mass is misled, we permitted virtually all of the media of mass information and entertainment to fall into the hands of a race whose interests are so diametrically opposed to our own.

Perhaps even more pertinent to a consideration of human greatness, however, is the question of how our system of values came to be turned on its head, so that Franklin Roosevelt is regarded as a hero and Adolf Hitler as a villain, not only by the stolid and stunned masses, but also by a majority of the supposedly “educated” elite, many of whom pride themselves on their intellectual independence.

Joseph Stalin

Whether we judge the greatness of a man by his intrinsic qualities of character and soul or by his accomplishments, Adolf Hitler had greatness of a very high order — if we use the standards which have been traditional in our race.

We cannot, of course, make comparisons with all the “mute, inglorious Miltons” whose lack of notable accomplishment has made them anonymous, despite the sterling inner qualities they may have possessed. But when Hitler’s character is held up beside those of other 20th century political leaders, he stands as a giant among pygmies.

At the prosaic level, we can note his ascetic personal habits, compared with Winston Churchill’s habitual drunkenness and notorious self-indulgence; or his personal loyalty to those who had been his comrades in the days of political struggle, compared with Joseph Stalin’s habit of murdering his former comrades by the dozen, as potential rivals, as soon as he no longer needed their services; or his direct, frank, and straightforward manner, compared to the cunning deviousness which was Franklin Roosevelt’s trademark.

At the spiritual level, the inner differences between Hitler and his contemporaries are even more striking. Hitler was a man with a mission, from the beginning. The testimony of his closest associates, from his boyhood days to the end of his life, agrees with the observations of more distant and impartial observers: Hitler had a mystical sense of destiny, a sense of having been singled out and called by a higher power to devote his life to the service of his race.

His childhood companion August Kubizek has related extraordinary evidence of this when Hitler was only 16 years old (August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund [Graz, 1953], pp. 127-135). Twenty years later, while he was in prison after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government, Hitler himself wrote of his motivation in a way which suggested the range of his vision:

What we must fight for is the security of the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the maintenance of the purity of our blood … so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted them by the Creator of the universe.

Every thought and every idea, every doctrine and all knowledge, must serve this purpose. And everything must be examined from this point of view and used or rejected according to its utility. Then no theory will stiffen into a dead doctrine, since it is life alone that all things must serve…

… The National Socialist philosophy finds the importance of mankind in its basic racial elements. In the state it sees on principle a means to an end and construes that end as the preservation of the racial existence of man…

And so the National Socialist philosophy of life corresponds to the innermost will of Nature, since it restores that free play of forces which must lead to a continuous mutual higher breeding, until finally the best of humanity, having achieved possession of this earth, will have a free play for activity in domains which will lie partly above it and partly outside it.

We all sense that in the distant future humanity must be faced by problems which only a highest race, become master people and supported by the means and possibilities of an entire globe, will be equipped to overcome…

Thus, the highest purpose of a National Socialist state is concern for the preservation of those original racial elements which bestow culture and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind. We, as Aryans, can conceive of the state only as the living organism of a nationality which not only assures the preservation of this nationality, but by the development of its spiritual and ideal abilities leads it to the highest freedom…

A National Socialist state must begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape…

It must set race in the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure. It must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. It must see to it that only the healthy beget children…

The National Socialist state must make certain that by a suitable education of youth it will someday obtain a race ripe for the last and greatest decisions on this earth…

… Anyone who wants to cure this era, which is inwardly sick and rotten, must first summon the courage to make clear the causes of this disease. And this should be the concern of the National Socialist movement: pushing aside all narrow-mindedness, to gather and to organize from the ranks of our nation those forces capable of becoming the vanguard fighters for a new philosophy of life…

We are not simple enough to believe that it could ever be possible to bring about a perfect era. But this relieves no one of the obligation to combat recognized errors, to overcome weaknesses, and to strive for the ideal. Harsh reality of its own accord will create only too many limitations. For that very reason, however, man must try to serve the ultimate goal, and failures must not deter him, any more than he can abandon a system of justice because mistakes creep into it, or any more than medicine is discarded because there always will be sickness in spite of it.

We National Socialists know that with this conception we stand as revolutionaries in the world of today and are branded as such. But our thoughts and actions must in no way be determined by the approval or disapproval of our time, but by the binding obligation to a truth which we have recognized (Mein Kampf).

Hitler’s opponents, Churchill and Roosevelt, were party politicians, with the minds and souls of party politicians. Great, impersonal goals, just as truth, meant nothing at all to them. The only thing that counted was the approval or disapproval of their times: the outcome of the next election, a good press claque, votes. Only Stalin shared in any way Hitler’s disdain for approval; only Stalin was motivated to any degree by an impersonal idea. But the idea that Stalin served was the alien, destructive idea of Jewish Marxism. And while Hitler served the Life Force with the instincts of a seer, Stalin served Marxism with the instincts of a bureaucrat and a butcher. A comparison of careers leads us to a similar ranking of greatness of soul. Churchill and Roosevelt were born into the political establishment. They fed at the public trough for years, in one office after another, grabbing greedily at opportunities for a bigger serving of swill. But it was circumstance, not their own efforts, which thrust them onto the stage of world history.

Stalin hacked out his own niche in history to a much greater extent than his western allies, and he was an incomparably stronger man than either of them. He was tough, ruthless, infinitely cunning, and utterly determined to prevail, no matter what the obstacles. Even so, his struggle for prominence and power was entirely within the Bolshevik party and its predecessors. He was the consummate bureaucratic infighter, not the innovator or the lone pioneer.

Only Adolf Hitler started literally from nothing and through the exercise of a superhuman will created the physical basis for the realization of his vision. In 1918, recovering in a veterans’ hospital from a British poison-gas attack, he made the decision to enter politics in order to serve that vision. He was a 29-year-old invalid, with no money, no family, no friends or connections, no university education, and no experience. Liberals, Jews, and communists ruled his country, making him and all those to whom he might appeal for support outsiders.

Five and one-half years later he was sentenced to five years in prison for his political activity, and his enemies thought that was the end of him and his movement. But less than nine years after being sentenced he was Chancellor of Germany, with the strongest and most progressive nation in Europe at his command. He had built the National Socialist movement and led it to victory over the organized opposition of the entire Establishment: conservatives, liberals, communists, Jews, and Christians.

He then transformed Germany, lifting it out of its economic depression (while Americans, under Roosevelt, continued to line up at the soup kitchens), restoring its spirit (and much of the territory which had been taken from it by the victors of the First World War), stimulating its artistic and scientific creativity, and winning the admiration (or, in some cases, the envy and hatred) of other nations. It was an achievement hardly paralleled in the history of the world. Even those who do not understand the real significance of his creation must concede that.

And what was the real significance of Hitler’s work? One of his most earnest admirers in India, Savitri Devi, has given us a poetic answer to that question. She wrote:

In its essence, the National Socialist idea exceeds not only Germany and our times, but the Aryan race and mankind itself and any epoch … it ultimately expresses that mysterious and unfailing wisdom according to which Nature lives and creates: the impersonal wisdom of the primeval forest and of the ocean depth and of the spheres in the dark fields of space; and … it is Adolf Hitler’s glory not merely to have gone back to that divine wisdom — stigmatizing man’s silly infatuation for “intellect,” his childish pride in “progress,” and his criminal attempt to enslave Nature — but to have made it the basis of a practical regeneration policy of worldwide scope, precisely now, in our overcrowded, over civilized, and technically over evolved world, at the very end of the dark age. (Savitri Devi, The Lightning and the Sun[National Socialist World No. 1, p. 61]).

More prosaically, Hitler’s work, in contrast to that of his contemporaries, was above politics, above economics, above nationalism. He had mobilized a powerful, modern state and placed it at the service of our race, so that our race might become fit to serve as an agent of the Life Force.

Perceptive and idealistic young men from every nation in Europe — and from many nations outside Europe as well — recognized this significance, and they flocked to serve him and to fight for his cause, even at the cost of censure and ostracism from their more parochial and narrow-minded countrymen. There was never before an elite fighting force to match the SS, which by the end of the Second World War had more non-Germans than Germans in it.

The war, of course, is counted as Hitler’s great failure, even as the proof of his lack of greatness, by his detractors. It merely proves that he was a man, not a god, even if a divine will worked through him, and that he could not perform miracles. He could not defend himself forever, with the governments of nearly the whole world allied in a total war to pull him down and destroy his creation, so that they and the interests they served could return to “business as usual.” Even so, he gave a far better account of himself than any of his adversaries.

And what will count in the long run in determining Adolf Hitler’s stature is not whether he lost or won the war, but whether it was he or his adversaries who were on the side of the Life Force, whether it was he or they who served the cause of Truth and human progress. We only have to look around us today to know it was not they.

---

Source: National Vanguard magazine No. 110, April 1989

Physicist finds entanglement instantly gives rise to a wormhole

Physicist finds entanglement instantly gives rise to a wormhole

Quantum entanglement is one of the more bizarre theories to come out of the study of quantum mechanics – so strange, in fact, that Albert Einstein famously referred to it as “spooky action at a distance.”

Essentially, entanglement involves two particles, each occupying multiple states at once – a condition referred to as superposition. For example, both particles may simultaneously spin clockwise and counterclockwise. But neither has a definite state until one is measured, causing the other particle to instantly assume a corresponding state.

The resulting correlations between the particles are preserved, even if they reside on opposite ends of the universe.

But what enables particles to communicate instantaneously – and seemingly faster than the speed of light – over such vast distances? Earlier this year, physicists proposed an answer in the form of “wormholes,” or gravitational tunnels. The group showed that by creating two entangled black holes, then pulling them apart, they formed a wormhole – essentially a “shortcut” through the universe – connecting the distant black holes.

Now an MIT physicist has found that, looked at through the lens of string theory, the creation of two entangled quarks – the building blocks of matter – simultaneously gives rise to a wormhole connecting the pair.

The theoretical results bolster the relatively new and exciting idea that the laws of gravity holding together the universe may not be fundamental, but arise from something else: quantum entanglement.

Julian Sonner, a senior postdoc in MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Center for Theoretical Physics, has published his results in the journal Physical Review Letters, where it appears together with a related paper by Kristan Jensen of the University of Victoria and Andreas Karch of the University of Washington.

A diagram of a wormhole, a hypothetical “shortcut” through the universe, where its two ends are each in separate points in spacetime.

The tangled web that is gravity

Ever since quantum mechanics was first proposed more than a century ago, the main challenge for physicists in the field has been to explain gravity in quantum-mechanical terms. While quantum mechanics works extremely well in describing interactions at a microscopic level, it fails to explain gravity – a fundamental concept of relativity, a theory proposed by Einstein to describe the macroscopic world. Thus, there appears to be a major barrier to reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity; for years, physicists have tried to come up with a theory of quantum gravity to marry the two fields.

“There are some hard questions of quantum gravity we still don’t understand, and we’ve been banging our heads against these problems for a long time,” Sonner says. “We need to find the right inroads to understanding these questions.”

A theory of quantum gravity would suggest that classical gravity is not a fundamental concept, as Einstein first proposed, but rather emerges from a more basic, quantum-based phenomenon. In a macroscopic context, this would mean that the universe is shaped by something more fundamental than the forces of gravity.

This is where quantum entanglement could play a role. It might appear that the concept of entanglement – one of the most fundamental in quantum mechanics – is in direct conflict with general relativity: Two entangled particles, “communicating” across vast distances, would have to do so at speeds faster than that of light – a violation of the laws of physics, according to Einstein. It may therefore come as a surprise that using the concept of entanglement in order to build up space-time may be a major step toward reconciling the laws of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Tunneling to the fifth dimension

In July, physicists Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study and Leonard Susskind of Stanford University proposed a theoretical solution in the form of two entangled black holes. When the black holes were entangled, then pulled apart, the theorists found that what emerged was a wormhole – a tunnel through space-time that is thought to be held together by gravity. The idea seemed to suggest that, in the case of wormholes, gravity emerges from the more fundamental phenomenon of entangled black holes.

Following up on work by Jensen and Karch, Sonner has sought to tackle this idea at the level of quarks – subatomic building blocks of matter. To see what emerges from two entangled quarks, he first generated quarks using the Schwinger effect – a concept in quantum theory that enables one to create particles out of nothing. More precisely, the effect, also called “pair creation,” allows two particles to emerge from a vacuum, or soup of transient particles. Under an electric field, one can, as Sonner puts it, “catch a pair of particles” before they disappear back into the vacuum. Once extracted, these particles are considered entangled.

Sonner mapped the entangled quarks onto a four-dimensional space, considered a representation of space-time. In contrast, gravity is thought to exist in the next dimension as, according to Einstein’s laws, it acts to “bend” and shape space-time, thereby existing in the fifth dimension.

To see what geometry may emerge in the fifth dimension from entangled quarks in the fourth, Sonner employed holographic duality, a concept in string theory. While a hologram is a two-dimensional object, it contains all the information necessary to represent a three-dimensional view. Essentially, holographic duality is a way to derive a more complex dimension from the next lowest dimension.

Using holographic duality, Sonner derived the entangled quarks, and found that what emerged was a wormhole connecting the two, implying that the creation of quarks simultaneously creates a wormhole. More fundamentally, the results suggest that gravity may, in fact, emerge from entanglement. What’s more, the geometry, or bending, of the universe as described by classical gravity, may be a consequence of entanglement, such as that between pairs of particles strung together by tunneling wormholes.

“It’s the most basic representation yet that we have where entanglement gives rise to some sort of geometry,” Sonner says. “What happens if some of this entanglement is lost, and what happens to the geometry? There are many roads that can be pursued, and in that sense, this work can turn out to be very helpful.”

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

KRATOM

The Kratom User's GuideVersion date: September 1, 2016

( The most recent version can always be found at: http://sagewisdom.org/kratomguide.html )
Created by Daniel Siebert and "Sage Student"

The statements below have not been evaluated by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
Information regarding the use of kratom in folk medicine is provided for education purposes only, it is not intended as medical advice.
Important News Update:
On August 25, 2016, the DEA announced their intention to ban kratom and make it a Schedule I controlled substance. The ban is expected to go into effect September 30, 2016. After that date, it will be a felony offense to possess, distribute, or grow kratom in the United States. As part of its justification, the DEA claims that kratom has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” Both of these claims are inaccurate. There is no question that kratom is a very effective pain medication. This is what one would expect since it is known that the primary active principals of this herb are potent opiate receptor agonists. In many ways kratom is safer than many commonly prescribed opiate pain medications: It is not as addictive; people do not develop rapid tolerance to it; and it is not known to depress respiration significantly. Many thousands of people benefit from the use of this herb to treat chronic pain, and many report that it is more effective than prescription narcotic pain killers, and does not produce the undesirable side effects of those drugs. To take this medicine away from people who need it is inhumane. Sadly, we are losing one of the most effective pain medications that nature has to offer. Kratom has improved the lives of countless people by helping them manage chronic pain that is otherwise debilitating. Clearly, it has legitimate medical value. People should not be labeled criminals, put in prison, and have other severe penalties imposed on them for using an herb that reduces physical suffering. Click here to read the full text of this DEA action.
Please add your name to this petition, which opposes the ban on kratom. With enough petitioners, our voice will be heard and a response required by the White House. Every name counts and will make a difference.
A march on the White House, in Washington DC, is being organized to protest this unreasonable infringement of freedom (lest we forget, freedom is one of the founding principles of the US Constitution). It will take place September 13th. The required permit has already been approved. We hope to see a huge turnout. While the primary purpose of the march is to protest this recent action by the DEA, it is also part of a much larger struggle: a struggle for freedom; freedom to use nature's medicines as one chooses and to do what one wants with one's own body. It is also a struggle for independence, self-sufficiency, and the right to take care of one's self. We should all be free to use medicinal plants (nature's gifts) if we choose to, and not be forced to depend on the pharmaceutical industry for medicines, especially when there are effective natural alternatives, such as kratom. For details, go to the Kratom March website and Facebook page.

Introduction
This guide was created as an educational resource to provide accurate information about kratom. It is also intended to correct much of the misinformation circulating on the Internet and being perpetrated by the Media.
What is kratom?
Kratom is a tree native to Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, etc.). Its botanical name is Mitragyna speciosa. Kratom is in the same family as the coffee tree (Rubiaceae). The leaves of kratom have been used as an herbal drug from time immemorial by peoples of Southeast Asia. It is used in folk medicine as a stimulant (at low doses), sedative (at high doses), recreational drug, pain killer, medicine for diarrhea, and treatment for opiate addiction. Many people report that kratom is an effective treatment for arthritis, restless legs syndrome (RLS), and fibromyalgia.
How is it taken?
In its native region, kratom leaves are often chewed fresh (usually after removing the stringy central vein). Dried leaves can also be chewed, but since they are a bit tough, most people prefer to crush them up or powder them so that they can be swallowed easily. Powdered kratom can be mixed with water and then drunk. This method is quick and easy. It can also be mixed with other liquids, such as fruit juice, milk, or kefir. Chocolate milk works especially well for masking the taste. Powdered kratom can also be made into a paste that can easily be swallowed with water. The powder can also be mixed with applesauce or yogurt. It can also be put into capsules. Dried kratom leaves are often made into a tea that is strained and then drunk. Kratom can be smoked, but doing so is impractical because the amount of leaf that constitutes a typical dose is too much to be smoked easily. A resin-like extract can be prepared by evaporating the water from kratom tea. This can be stored for later use. Small pellets of this extract can be swallowed, or it can be dissolved in hot water and consumed as a tea. Some people like to mix kratom tea with ordinary black tea, or other herbal teas, before it is consumed. This is done to make it more palatable. Sugar or honey can be added to sweeten it.
How does one prepare a chocolate kratom milkshake?
This is the nicest way to ingest kratom that we know of. It actually tastes quite good. Chocolate milk masks the bitter taste of kratom remarkably well and its viscosity helps to keep the kratom from settling to the bottom. If you just add powdered kratom to a glass of chocolate milk, the kratom tends to float on top and resists absorbing liquid. Even with stirring, it tends to stay floating on the top and forms lumps. Ideally you want to make a smooth milkshake without lumps and without dry kratom powder floating on the top. To do that, follow these simple instructions:
AMAZING CHOCOLATE KRATOM MILKSHAKE
Use about 1 cup (8 fl. oz.) of chocolate milk per dose of kratom. Chocolate-flavored almond milk also works very well for this, and is non-dairy (we especially like the "dark chocolate" flavored almond milk produced under the brand name Silk®, because of it's especially thick viscocity and rich flavor).
1.) Put one dose of powdered kratom into an empty glass.
2.) Add an equal volume of chocolate milk (typically, just 1-2 tablespoons).
3.) Stir until the kratom absorbs the liquid completely and forms a homogeneous paste.
4.) Add a few more tablespoons of chocolate milk and stir again until smooth and free of lumps.
5.) Add the remaining chocolate milk and stir again until well mixed.
6.) Drink until the glass is empty.
7.) Add a little more chocolate milk to the glass, stir, and drink. (This caches any kratom particles left clinging to the sides of the glass. And since it is mainly just chocolate milk, it tastes even better than the kratom milkshake.)
How does one prepare a powdered kratom PASTE for drinking?
1.) Place a single dose of powdered kratom in a small empty cup.
2.) Add just enough water to make a soft paste (roughly equal parts kratom powder to water, by volume). You will need to stir the mixture for a few minutes until the powder completely absorbs the water and you have a nicely homogenized paste.
3.) Fill a separate glass with water and set it aside. Using a spoon, scoop an easy-to-swallow spoonful of paste into your mouth, then take a big sip of water from the other glass and gulp it down. Repeat spooning, sipping, and swallowing until you have consumed the entire dose. Be careful not to gulp down too much at once, so you don't accidentally choke on the mixture.
How does one prepare a powdered kratom SLURRY for drinking?
1.) Add powdered kratom to a glass of water (or other beverage). For a typical dose of kratom (about 7 grams), use about 1 cup (8 ounces) of water.
2.) Stir throughly (until the powder is completely suspended), then gulp it down quickly before it has a chance to settle (it is like drinking a bitter-tasting, slightly fibrous smoothy).
3.) Add more water to the glass to recover any material that stuck to the sides. About 1/2 cup of water should be sufficient, but it doesn't hurt to use more.
4.) Stir again and drink.
5.) When you have got it all down, you can drink a little fruit juice to chase away the bitter taste. Mint-flavored chewing gum also work great for this.
How does one make kratom tea?
Following is a basic recipe for making kratom tea. This recipe makes enough tea for several doses--about 8 moderately strong doses, if using "premium quality" kratom (see "dosage guidelines" below):
1.) Take 2 ounces (56 grams) of dried, coarsley ground or crushed kratom leaves and put into a pot. To this add 1 quart (about 1 liter) of water.
2.) Boil gently for 15 minutes.
3.) Pour the tea through a strainer into a bowl and reserve the liquid.
 (squeeze the leaves in the strainer to get most of the liquid out).
4.) Put the leaves back in the pot and add another liter of fresh water. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
 (after the leaves have been strained a second time, they can be discarded.)
5.) Put the combined liquid from both boilings back into the pot and boil until the volume is reduced to about 1 cup (250 ml).
 (The idea is to boil the tea down to a small volume so that each individual dose can be quickly swallowed.
 You can boil it down to whatever concentration you are comfortable with. Be careful near the end of the process.
 If it starts to become syrupy, it may spatter and/or burn.)
The tea is bitter tasting. To minimize the unpleasant taste, gulp it down quickly and then immediately chase it with a pleasant-tasting bevearge, such as fruit juice.
The same general preparation method can of course be used with larger or smaller amounts of herb by simply adjusting the volume of water used. Kratom tea can be safely stored in the refrigerator for about five days. It is probably okay to keep it a bit longer, but it's better to play it safe and not drink it after five days. It can be stored for many months if you add some alcohol to it. Adding about 10% alcohol will preserve it for many months (in the refrigerator). That is one part 80 proof liquor (vodka, rum, or a similar spirit) to three parts kratom tea. When refrigerated, some components may precipitate out of solution and form a sediment in the bottom of the container. This sediment may contain active alkaloids so it should be redissolved before consuming the tea. This is easily done by warming the tea and stirring.
How can I powder dried leaves?
Dried leaves, whether whole, crushed, or coarsely ground, can easily be powdered by putting them in a kitchen blender and processing for a few minutes at high speed. Many suppliers offer kratom that is already finely powdered.
How does one measure dosage?
The best way to measure dosage is with a scale. Since a typical dose of kratom is just a few, or several, grams, one should ideally use a scale that can measure down to a single gram and is accurate to at least 1/10th of a gram. Low-cost, highly accurate, digital scales are widely available, and purchasing one is a great investment, since they can last a lifetime and are useful for many other things besides weighing kratom. These can be obtained from Sage Wisdom Botanicals, as well as many other suppliers.
Measuring kratom by volume is less accurate than measuring by weight because the amount contained in a given volume depends on how finely ground the material is. Obviously, a teaspoon of finely powdered kratom will weigh more than a teaspoon of loosely crushed or coarsely ground leaves. That said, here are some rough guidelines. On average, 1 LEVEL teaspoon of most commercially available, finely powdered kratom will weigh about 2 grams (very finely powdered kratom may weigh closer to 2.25 grams). Since there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, that means that a LEVEL tablespoon of finely powdered kratom will weigh, on average, about 6 to 7 grams. That is a mid-sized dose for kratom of average potency (possibly a strong dose for high-potency kratom, or a mild dose for low-potency kratrom).
Coarsely ground leaves weigh less than finely powdered leaves (when measured by volume). A LEVEL teaspoon of typical, commercially available, coarsely ground leaves typically weighs about 0.8 grams. If the leaves are loosely crushed they will weigh less, possibly much less, depending on how finely (or coarsely) crushed they are.
What are the effects?
Kratom is a rather unique drug in that a low to moderate dose will usually (but not always) be stimulating, while a high dose is almost always quite sedating. This is apparently because the active alkaloids have both stimulant and sedative effects. Which predominates probably depends both on dosage and individual differences between users. Many people report that the effects are very similar to opiate drugs. From a pharmacological perspective this is not surprising because kratom contains alkaloids that act as opiate receptor agonists. Interestingly, although kratom has a similar mechanism of action as many opiate pain medications it does not appear to be nearly as addictive. In fact many people use kratom to overcome opiate addiction.
The stimulant level: At the stimulant level, the mind is more alert, physical energy (and sometimes sexual energy) is increased, one feels more motivated to get things done, ability to do hard, monotonous physical work may be improved, there is an elevation of mood (it has an antidepressant effect), one is more talkative, friendly, and sociable. The stimulant effects of kratom are different from typical CNS stimulants, such as caffeine or amphetamine drugs. Kratom is more of a cognitive stimulant tnan a physical stimulant.
The sedative-euphoric-analgesic level: At this dosage you will be less sensitive to physical or emotional pain, feel and look calm, have a general feeling of comfortable pleasure, and may enter a pleasant dreamy reverie. You may experience some itching or sweating. Your pupils may be constricted (small). It is possible you may feel nauseated, but if you lie down and relax the nausea should quickly subside. You may find your appreciation of music is increased. It will be very pleasant to lie down on your back in a semi-darkened room, with eyes closed, and just listen to your favorite music. If you do this you may be fortunate enough to enter the delightful mixed-state of ‘waking-dreaming’ where you have one foot in dreamland and the other foot in the real world. This state was much prized by the 19th century Romantic writers, who, lacking knowledge of kratom, resorted to the much more habit-forming narcotic, opium, to achieve it.
What effects are associated with different doses? (dosage guidelines)
That depends on the potency of the kratom. The following dosage-guidline charts are typical for the kratom varieties offered bySage Wisdom Botanicals, the sponsor of this page.

Premium Quality Kratom (oral dosage)
Threshold	2-4 grams
Mild	3-5 grams
Moderate	4-10 grams
Strong	8-15 grams
Very Strong	12-25 grams

Ultra-Potent Kratom (oral dosage)
Threshold	1-3 grams
Mild	2-4 grams
Moderate	3-7 grams
Strong	6-10 grams
Very Strong	8-16 grams

Kratom Extract (oral dosage)
Threshold	1 gram
Mild	1-2 grams
Moderate	2-4 grams
Strong	3-6 grams
Very Strong	5-8 grams

          Threshold = The effects are clearly apparent, but subtle.
          Mild = Typically the effects are stimulant-like.
          Moderate = The effects can be stimulant-like or sedative-euphoric-analgesic.
          Strong = Sedative-euphoric-analgesic effects; too strong for highly sensitive people.
          Very Strong = Sedative-euphoric-analgesic effects (TOO STRONG FOR MOST PEOPLE)
Caution: People vary in sensitivity to kratom, and kratom from different sources can vary in potency (sometimes quite a lot), so these dosage estimates should be regarded as loose approximations. One should always start with a low dose when experimenting with a new batch of kratom. One can then increase the dose gradually with subsequent experiments until one obtains the desired level of effects. DO NOT take a strong, or very strong dose, the first time you are sampling a new batch of kratom. Most people experience nausea when using very strong doses. Sensitive individuals may experience nausea at lower doses. For this reason, it is best to take kratom on an empty stomach when using strong doses (i.e. wait about 3 hours after eating). Some people are hypersensitive to kratom, and may experience adverse reactions (such as severe and prolonged vomiting) when using very strong doses.
What is duration of kratoms effects?
The effects of kratom usually last 5-6 hours. When taken on an empty stomach, the onset of effects is typically felt 30-40 minutes after ingestion. If there is much food in the stomach, it may take 60-90 minutes before it begins to take effect. When taken in capsules (gelatin or vegetarian), the onset of effects may be delayed a little because it takes time for the capsules to dissolve in the stomach.
What are the risks? How safe is it?
When kratom is taken by itself (without mixing it with other drugs), the greatest risk is falling asleep while engaged in hazardous activities. NEVER drive while under the influence of kratom, even if you feel stimulated, rather than sleepy, for sleepiness may come on you without warning. Use common sense. Do not use power tools or climb ladders while under the influence of kratom. Be careful not to leave a pot on a lit stove and then fall asleep.
Pregnant women should not take any drug or medication except on medical advice. Since there have been no studies of the risks of kratom use by pregnant women, it is not known whether it could cause birth defects or fetal death. We strongly recommend that any woman who could possibly be pregnant NOT use kratom.
Is kratom an effective pain medication?
Yes, kratom is an effective pain medication (analgesic). In fact, except for opium, kratom is probably the most effective herbal analgesic available. Many people use kratom to alleviate aches and pains, and to help manage painful conditions such as arthritis and fibromyalgia.
Is kratom an effective treatment for opiate addiction?
One of the traditional uses of kratom in Thailand is as a treatment opiate addiction. Opiate addiction is a widespread problem. Not just for people who use opiate drugs illegally, but also for people who are prescribed opiate pain medications. Unfortunately, people who use opiate drugs daily often become addicted. Understandably, many people do not like being addicted to these drugs and are looking for ways to overcome their addiction. Many people report that kratom is effective for this purpose. Because it contains alkaloids that act as opiate receptor agonists it can be used as a substitute for opiate drugs, both as a pain medication and to avoid opiate withdrawals. After switching to kratom for a while, people say that they are able to reduce and then end their kratom use completely without suffering through difficult opiate withdrawal. This suggests that although it contains opiate receptor agonists, the pharmacology of kratom differs from opiate drugs in an important and potentially useful way. Before using kratom to overcome opiate addiction, it is obviously a good idea to discuss this with an open-minded physician.
Is kratom habit forming?
Kratom is not habit forming when it is used responsibly. If used occasionally as a recreational drug, rather than daily, there is virtually no risk of becoming dependent on it. But it is very important not to get into the habit of using it every day. For kratom, like many drugs [e.g. alcohol, coffee, tobacco, etc.] if used on a daily basis for a prolonged period of time, could become a habit hard to break. Before starting to experiment with it set yourself usage guidelines. If you ever find it is hard to stay within your usage guidelines immediately quit using kratom. Of course, people who are using kratom to overcome a preexisting opiate addiction may need to use kratom daily to avoid opiate withdrawal. People suffering from chronic pain may need to take pain medications on a daily basis, and some people choose to use kratom instead of pharmaceutical pain killers. Interestingly, studies have found that opiate drugs (morphine and its relatives) are rarely addictive for pain sufferers except among people with a history of substance abuse. This is probably also true for kratom, because like opiate drugs, the effects of kratom are due to opiate receptor agonist activity.
Is it possible to develop tolerance to kratom?
Yes. Like many drugs, if kratom is used on a daily basis one will eventually develop some tolerance to its effects and will gradually need to take increasingly larger doses to obtain the same level of effects. Tolerance does not develop when kratom is taken occasionally (no more than twice a week). Since the active constituents in kratom are opioid receptor agonists, there is likely to be cross-tolerance with other opioid drugs. This means that people who have developed tolerance to other opioid drugs will probably need to use higher doses of kratom than people who have not. Tolerance is not permanent. Normal sensitivity resumes after a few weeks of abstinence.
I have heard that tolerance can be avoided by taking different varieties of kratom on different days. Is that true?
No. Mixing up different kinds of kratom is not going reduce tolerance. All varieties of kratom contain the same active constituents, although their concentration varies with different batches.
I have heard that the potency and quality of kratom's effects is correlated with the color of the central leaf vein. Is that true?
The color of the central leaf vein ranges from various shades of green to various shades of red. This is partly determined by genetics, but it also varies depending on how mature the leaf is, how much sunlight the tree receives, and other environmental factors. The same tree can have leaves with pale green, dark green, and red veins. Usually the young leaves have red veins, but the red color disappears as the leaves mature, changing to green. Eventually the leaves fade to yellow, then to brown. Since the leaves cycle through these various colors as they mature, they can all occur on a tree at the same time. Obviously, one can select a particular color when harvesting the leaves. Some trees do not produce leaves with red coloration, so that is probably a genetically variable trait. We have not seen any consistent connection between vein color and potency or type of effects. It appears that such correlations are mostly marketing hype invented by kratom merchants. We do see variations in potency between different batches of leaves, but those differences do not correlate with color in any consistent way. Since the effects of kratom do vary based on dosage, differences in potency will cause a week batch of leaves to seem like it has different effects than a stronger batch, when the same amount of both are compared.
Is it true that some kratom products are adulterated or mislabeled?
Chemical analysis has shown that some kratom products are adulterated with other substances. In some cases the kratom has been "cut" with less expensive herbs to reduce the seller's cost and increase profits. In some cases synthetic drugs have been added to enhance the effects. In some cases products labeled as kratom or as a kratom extract don't contain any kratom, but other, less expensive, substances instead. Disturbingly, some products labeled as kratom extracts have been found to contain the "designer drug" O-desmethyltramadol, which is a dangerously potent synthetic opioid drug. Sadly, products containing this compound have resulted in several deaths (first reported in Sweden). Similar compounds have been detected in some other kratom products. Analysis has also found kratom laced with hydrocodone and morphine. Since these are opioid compounds, the effects they produce would be somewhat similar to those of kratom, but obviously far dangerous (there is not a single case in which a death could be attributed to kratom by itself). Obviously, it is important to obtain kratom from a trustworthy source, preferable someone who routinely tests the kratom obtained from his or her own suppliers before reselling it. Kratom is a tremendously helpful and relatively safe herb. It is sad that some unscrupulous merchants are acting so recklessly.
What are safe usage guidelines?
It is best to err on the side of caution. Therefore, we recommend that people not use Kratom more than once or twice a week. Preferably, no more than once or twice a month. This will insure that Kratom does not become a habit. In other words, kratom should be reserved as a special, but OCCASIONAL treat. By using it infrequently, you will avoid habituation and get more pleasure from it.
Are there any reported health problems?
Health problems are unlikely unless one is consuming large quantities of kratom every day. In Thailand, where there are some people who use kratom every day, those dependent on it can develop weight loss, dark pigmentation of the face, and have physical withdrawal symptoms if they quit abruptly. The withdrawal symptoms may include muscle aches, irritability, crying, runny nose, diarrhea, and muscle jerking. Health problems are unlikely to occur in occasional kratom users. Like any drug or medicine, people's reactions vary and some people could possibly have an allergic or other unusual reaction to kratom, even if they used it responsibly.
Can kratom be combined safely with other substances?
In general, combining drugs can be risky. We recommend that kratom not be combined with yohimbine, cocaine, amphetamine-like drugs, or large doses of caffeine, because of the possibility of over-stimulation or increased blood pressure. We recommend that kratom not be combined with large amounts of alcohol, with benzodiazepines, opiates (other than possible use with red poppy tea—see below), or any other drugs that depress the nervous system. This is because of the possibility that such combinations might cause over-sedation or even possible respiratory depression (slowed breathing, or possibly death), We recommended that kratom not be combined with Syrian rue, Banesteriopsis caapi, or any other MAO inhibitor drug. Serious, even fatal, reactions can occur if MAO inhibitor drugs are combined with monoamine drugs. The combination of MAO inhibitor drugs with kratom, which contains monoamine alkaloids, has not been studied.
Certain combinations have been reported by users to be pleasant and supposedly safe. Kratom can certainly be combined with ordinary tea without risk. It has been used with a tea made from red poppy flowers (Papaver rhoeas), which itself has an extremely mild narcotic effect, and with a sedating-euphoriant tea made from ‘blue lotus’ (Nymphaea caerulea). It has been safely combined with SMALL quantities of alcohol, however large quantities of alcohol must be avoided. Some people report they like to smoke tobacco or cannabis while under the influence of kratom. But anyone smoking under the influence of kratom must be very careful not to nod off and drop lit smoking materials.
What is kratom's legal status?
Kratom is illegal in Australia, Denmark, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand. It will become illegal in the United States begining September 30, 2016 (previously, it was only illegal in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin). Some of these countries impose sever penalties for possession of this herb. It is legal in most other countries. Laws can and do change, so be sure that kratom is legal where you live before using it.
What are kratom's active constituents?
There are many closely-related tryptamine alkaloids in kratom. The most important ones are mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. These are primarily responsible for kratom’s pain relieving, sedative, euphoric, and stimulating effects. These alkaloids resemble yohimbine in structure, but do not have the same effects.
Is kratom use detected on drug tests?
Although kratom does contain alkaloids that bind to opiate receptors, they are structurally unrelated to opiate drugs and therefore would not be detected by opiate drug tests. It is technically possible to detect the alkaloids in kratom in body fluids, but since kratom is a legal herbal drug (in most places), it is not normally tested for. This will probably soon change, becasue of the changing legal status of kratom in the United States.
Where can kratom be purchased?
There are a number of online merchants who sell the dried leaves, extracts, or both. One of the authors of this guide offers high-quality kratom through his online herbal products company, Sage Wisdom Botanicals. Beware of misleading labels and marketing hype. It is important to find a trustworthy source. There have been problems with some vendors selling bogus "kratom" (misrepresenting other herbs as kratom) or adulterating kratom with other herbs.
Can kratom be cultivated?
Kratom plants are available from Sage Wisdom Botanicals. They can be grown as house plants (but will have to be cut back because they can grow quite large). They prefer a humid environment. They dislike cold weather and do not tolerate frost. Potted plants can be grown outdoors in temperate climates when the weather is sufficiently warm, and grown indoors the rest of the time. Kratom can be grown outdoors all year in tropical climates. Potted plants should be lightly fertilized every few weeks, but only when actively growing. They can be propagated from cuttings.
Has The Kratom User's Guide been plagiarized?
Yes. Several kratom vendors have copied huge parts of the Kratom User's Guide and put the text of it on their own websites without even bothering to credit the original source. We are happy to see that some kratom vendors are providing information about kratom, but they must write it themeselves. It is not okay to copy and republish the work of other people, unless one is clearly quoting and crediting one's sources.

Source: http://www.sagewisdom.org/kratomguide.html

Real Holocaust Victims Were Germans via the British Firebombing during World War II

Lady Renouf: The Real Holocaust Victims Were the Victims of British Firebombing in World War II

Source: http://www.renegadetribune.com/lady-renouf-the-real-holocaust-victims-were-the-victims-of-british-firebombing-in-world-war-ii/

View YouTube Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPaCEFl-Zzg

 

Excerpts from a presentation by Lady Michele Renouf, speaking in Vancouver, reporting on a recent “Identitarian” conference in Mexico during which the true events of World War II were discussed in relation to understanding current affairs in modern day Europe. She spoke of “swindle-speak” and the historical misappropriation of terms by the media and enemies of truth, providing the term “holocaust” (a burnt whole offering) as a major example. She cited historical facts concerning the British military policy of targeting civilians in the WWII air war against Germany, and she concludes that it was the Germans who, by definition, were the true victims of an actual “holocaust”. She refered to Churchill’s policy, to “baste” the Germans and burn them alive. Thus, she said, the German people should rightfully reclaim this term for themselves. She then quoted Dennis Richards, Official Historian of the R.A.F. who admitted that the British initiated the air war, targeting civilians, in order to goad Hitler into bombing England in retaliation. Regarding effective activism in terms of “Identitarianism”, from her own expertise in the advertising industry, she says that in order to reach the general public with the message, it is important to not use the adversary’s terminology, to not act and dress as they wish, and of not adopt archaic or nostalgic symbolism which the enemies of truth have already demonized. She urges civility and creativity in order to appeal to the wider audience with one’s message and opposes the “Neo-Nazi” look and imagery.

The Virus That Could Cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and More

By Jon Palfreman on Wed, 23 Mar 2016

In 2004, the British chemist Chris Dobson speculated that there might be a universal elixir out there that could combat not just alpha-synuclein for Parkinson’s but the amyloids caused by many protein-misfolding diseases at once. Remarkably, in that same year an Israeli scientist named Beka Solomon discovered an unlikely candidate for this elixir, a naturally occurring microorganism called a phage.

Solomon, a professor at Tel Aviv University, made a serendipitous discovery one day when she was testing a new class of agents against Alzheimer’s disease. If it pans out, it might mark the beginning of the end of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and many other neurodegenerative diseases. It’s a remarkable story, and the main character isn’t Solomon or any other scientist but a humble virus that scientists refer to as M13.

Among the many varieties of viruses, there is a kind that only infects bacteria. Known as bacteriophages, or just phages, these microbes are ancient (over three billion years old) and ubiquitous: they’re found everywhere from the ocean floor to human stomachs. The phage M13’s goal is to infect just one type of bacteria,Escherichia coli, or E. coli, which can be found in copious amounts in the intestines of mammals. Like other microorganisms, phages such as M13 have only one purpose: to pass on their genes. In order to do this, they have developed weapons to enable them to invade, take over, and even kill their bacterial hosts. Before the advent of antibiotics, in fact, doctors occasionally used phages to fight otherwise incurable bacterial infections.

To understand Solomon’s interest in M13 requires a little background about her research. Solomon is a leading Alzheimer’s researcher, renowned for pioneering so-called immunotherapy treatments for the disease. Immunotherapy employs specially made antibodies, rather than small molecule drugs, to target the disease’s plaques and tangles. As high school students learn in biology class, antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that are part of the body’s natural defense against infection. These proteins are designed to latch onto invaders and hold them so that they can be destroyed by the immune system. But since the 1970s, molecular biologists have been able to genetically engineer human-made antibodies, fashioned to attack undesirable interlopers like cancer cells. In the 1990s, Solomon set out to prove that such engineered antibodies could be effective in attacking amyloid-beta plaques in Alzheimer’s as well.

In 2004, she was running an experiment on a group of mice that had been genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s disease plaques in their brains. She wanted to see if human-made antibodies delivered through the animals’ nasal passages would penetrate the blood-brain barrier and dissolve the amyloid-beta plaques in their brains. Seeking a way to get more antibodies into the brain, she decided to attach them to M13 phages in the hope that the two acting in concert would better penetrate the blood-brain barrier, dissolve more of the plaques, and improve the symptoms in the mice—as measured by their ability to run mazes and perform similar tasks.

Solomon divided the rodents into three groups. She gave the antibody to one group. The second group got the phage-antibody combination, which she hoped would have an enhanced effect in dissolving the plaques. And as a scientific control, the third group received the plain phage M13.

Because M13 cannot infect any organism except E. coli, she expected that the control group of mice would get absolutely no benefit from the phage. But, surprisingly, the phage by itself proved highly effective at dissolving amyloid-beta plaques and in laboratory tests improved the cognition and sense of smell of the mice. She repeated the experiment again and again, and the same thing happened. “The mice showed very nice recovery of their cognitive function,” Solomon says. And when Solomon and her team examined the brains of the mice, the plaques had been largely dissolved. She ran the experiment for a year and found that the phage-treated mice had 80% fewer plaques than untreated ones. Solomon had no clear idea how a simple phage could dissolve Alzheimer’s plaques, but given even a remote chance that she had stumbled across something important, she decided to patent M13’s therapeutic properties for the University of Tel Aviv. According to her son Jonathan, she even “joked about launching a new company around the phage called NeuroPhage. But she wasn’t really serious about it.”

The following year, Jonathan Solomon—who’d just completed more than a decade in Israel’s special forces, during which time he got a BS in physics and an MS in electrical engineering—traveled to Boston to enroll at the Harvard Business School. While he studied for his MBA, Jonathan kept thinking about the phage his mother had investigated and its potential to treat terrible diseases like Alzheimer’s. At Harvard, he met many brilliant would-be entrepreneurs, including the Swiss-educated Hampus Hillerstrom, who, after studying at the University of St. Gallen near Zurich, had worked for a European biotech venture capital firm called HealthCap.

Following the first year of business school, both students won summer internships: Solomon at the medical device manufacturer Medtronic and Hillerstrom at the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. But as Hillerstrom recalls, they returned to Harvard wanting more: “We had both spent…I would call them ‘weird summers’ in large companies, and we said to each other, ‘Well, we have to do something more dynamic and more interesting.’ ”

In their second year of the MBA, Solomon and Hillerstrom took a class together in which students were tasked with creating a new company on paper. The class, Solomon says, “was called a field study, and the idea was you explore a technology or a new business idea by yourself while being mentored by a Harvard Business School professor. So, I raised the idea with Hampus of starting a new company around the M13 phage as a class project. At the end of that semester, we developed a mini business plan. And we got on so well that we decided that it was worth a shot to do this for real.”

In 2007, with $150,000 in seed money contributed by family members, a new venture, NeuroPhage Pharmaceuticals, was born. After negotiating a license with the University of Tel Aviv to explore M13’s therapeutic properties, Solomon and Hillerstrom reached out to investors willing to bet on M13’s potential therapeutic powers. By January 2008, they had raised over $7 million and started hiring staff.

Their first employee—NeuroPhage’s chief scientific officer—was Richard Fisher, a veteran of five biotech start-ups. Fisher recalls feeling unconvinced when he first heard about the miraculous phage. “But the way it’s been in my life is that it’s really all about the people, and so first I met Jonathan and Hampus and I really liked them. And I thought that within a year or so we could probably figure out if it was an artifact or whether there was something really to it, but I was extremely skeptical.”

Fisher set out to repeat Beka Solomon’s mouse experiments and found that with some difficulty he was able to show the M13 phage dissolved amyloid-beta plaques when the phage was delivered through the rodents’ nasal passages. Over the next two years, Fisher and his colleagues then discovered something totally unexpected: that the humble M13 virus could also dissolve other amyloid aggregates—the tau tangles found in Alzheimer’s and also the amyloid plaques associated with other diseases, including alpha-synuclein (Parkinson’s), huntingtin (Huntington’s disease), and superoxide dismutase (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). The phage even worked against the amyloids in prion diseases (a class that includes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). Fisher and his colleagues demonstrated this first in test tubes and then in a series of animal experiments. Astonishingly, the simple M13 virus appeared in principle to possess the properties of a “pan therapy,” a universal elixir of the kind the chemist Chris Dobson had imagined.

This phage’s unique capacity to attack multiple targets attracted new investors in a second round of financing in 2010. Solomon recalls feeling a mix of exuberance and doubt: “We had something interesting that attacks multiple targets, and that was exciting. On the other hand, we had no idea how the phage worked.”

The Key

That wasn’t their only problem. Their therapeutic product, a live virus, it turned out, was very difficult to manufacture. It was also not clear how sufficient quantities of viral particles could be delivered to human beings. The methods used in animal experiments—inhaled through the nose or injected directly into the brain—were unacceptable, so the best option available appeared to be a so-called intrathecal injection into the spinal canal. As Hillerstrom says, “It was similar to an epidural; this was the route we had decided to deliver our virus with.”

While Solomon and Hillerstrom worried about finding an acceptable route of administration, Fisher spent long hours trying to figure out the phage’s underlying mechanism of action. “Why would a phage do this to amyloid fibers? And we really didn’t have a very good idea, except that under an electron microscope the phage looked a lot like an amyloid fiber; it had the same dimensions.”

Boston is a town with enormous scientific resources. Less than a mile away from NeuroPhage’s offices was MIT, a world center of science and technology. In 2010, Fisher recruited Rajaraman Krishnan—an Indian postdoctoral student working in an MIT laboratory devoted to protein misfolding—to investigate the M13 puzzle. Krishnan says he was immediately intrigued. The young scientist set about developing some new biochemical tools to investigate how the virus worked and also devoured the scientific literature about phages. It turned out that scientists knew quite a lot about the lowly M13 phage. Virologists had even created libraries of mutant forms of M13. By running a series of experiments to test which mutants bound to the amyloid and which ones didn’t, Krishnan was able to figure out that the phage’s special abilities involved a set of proteins displayed on the tip of the virus, called GP3. “We tested the different variants for examples of phages with or without tip proteins, and we found that every time we messed around with the tip proteins, it lowered the phage’s ability to attach to amyloids,” Krishnan says.

Virologists, it turned out, had also visualized the phage’s structure using X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. Based on this analysis, those microbiologists had predicted that the phage’s normal mode of operation in nature was to deploy the tip proteins as molecular keys; the keys in effect enabled the parasite to “unlock” E. coli bacteria and inject its DNA. Sometime in 2011, Krishnan became convinced that the phage was doing something similar when it bound to toxic amyloid aggregates. The secret of the phage’s extraordinary powers, he surmised, lay entirely in the GP3 protein.

As Fisher notes, this is serendipitous. Just by “sheer luck, M13’s keys not only unlock E. coli; they also work on clumps of misfolded proteins.” The odds of this happening by chance, Fisher says, are very small. “Viruses have exquisite specificity in their molecular mechanisms, because they’re competing with each other…and you need to have everything right, and the two locks need to work exactly the way they are designed. And this one way of getting into bacteria also works for binding to the amyloid plaques that cause many chronic diseases of our day.”

Having proved the virus’s secret lay in a few proteins at the tip, Fisher, Krishnan, and their colleagues wondered if they could capture the phage’s amyloid-busting power in a more patient friendly medicine that did not have to be delivered by epidural. So over the next two years, NeuroPhage’s scientists engineered a new antibody (a so-called fusion protein because it is made up of genetic material from different sources) that displayed the critical GP3 protein on its surface so that, like the phage, it could dissolve amyloid plaques. Fisher hoped this novel manufactured product would stick to toxic aggregates just like the phage.

By 2013, NeuroPhage’s researchers had tested the new compound, which they called NPT088, in test tubes and in animals, including nonhuman primates. It performed spectacularly, simultaneously targeting multiple misfolded proteins such as amyloid beta, tau, and alpha-synuclein at various stages of amyloid assembly. According to Fisher, NPT088 didn’t stick to normally folded individual proteins; it left normal alpha-synuclein alone. It stuck only to misfolded proteins, not just dissolving them directly, but also blocking their prion-like transmission from cell to cell: “It targets small aggregates, those oligomers, which some scientists consider to be toxic. And it targets amyloid fibers that form aggregates. But it doesn’t stick to normally folded individual proteins.” And as a bonus, it could be delivered by intravenous infusion.

The Trials

There was a buzz of excitement in the air when I visited NeuroPhage’s offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the summer of 2014. The 18 staff, including Solomon, Hillerstrom, Fisher, and Krishnan, were hopeful that their new discovery, which they called the general amyloid interaction motif, or GAIM, platform, might change history. A decade after his mother had made her serendipitous discovery, Jonathan Solomon was finalizing a plan to get the product into the clinic. As Solomon says, “We now potentially have a drug that does everything that the phage could do, which can be delivered systemically and is easy to manufacture.”

Will it work in humans? While NPT088, being made up of large molecules, is relatively poor at penetrating the blood-brain barrier, the medicine persists in the body for several weeks, and so Fisher estimates that over time enough gets into the brain to effectively take out plaques. The concept is that this antibody could be administered to patients once or twice a month by intravenous infusion for as long as necessary.

NeuroPhage must now navigate the FDA’s regulatory system and demonstrate that its product is safe and effective. So far, NPT088 has proved safe in nonhuman primates. But the big test will be the phase 1A trial expected to be under way this year. This first human study proposed is a single-dose trial to look for any adverse effects in healthy volunteers. If all goes well, NeuroPhage will launch a phase 1B study involving some 50 patients with Alzheimer’s to demonstrate proof of the drug’s activity. Patients will have their brains imaged at the start to determine the amount of amyloid-beta and tau. Then, after taking the drug for six months, they will be reimaged to see if the drug has reduced the aggregates below the baseline.

“If our drug works, we will see it working in this trial,” Hillerstrom says. “And then we may be able to go straight to phase 2 trials for both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.” There is as yet no imaging test for alpha-synuclein, but because their drug simultaneously lowers amyloid-beta, tau, and alpha-synuclein levels in animals, a successful phase 1B test in Alzheimer’s may be acceptable to the FDA. “In mice, the same drug lowers amyloid beta, tau, and alpha-synuclein,” Hillerstrom says. “Therefore, we can say if we can reduce in humans the tau and amyloid-beta, then based on the animal data, we can expect to see a reduction in humans in alpha-synuclein as well.”

Along the way, the company will have to prove its GAIM system is superior to the competition. Currently, there are several drug and biotech companies testing products in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease, against both amyloid-beta (Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis, and Genentech) and tau (TauRx) and also corporations with products against alpha-synuclein for Parkinson’s disease (AFFiRiS and Prothena/Roche). But Solomon and Hillerstrom think they have two advantages: multi-target flexibility (their product is the only one that can target multiple amyloids at once) and potency (they believe that NPT088 eliminates more toxic aggregates than their competitors’ products). Potency is a big issue. PET imaging has shown that existing Alzheimer’s drugs like crenezumab reduce amyloid loads only modestly, by around 10%. “One weakness of existing products,” Solomon says, “is that they tend to only prevent new aggregates. You need a product potent enough to dissolve existing aggregates as well. You need a potent product because there’s a lot of pathology in the brain and a relatively short space of time in which to treat it.”

Future Targets

NeuroPhage’s rise is an extraordinary example of scientific entrepreneurship. While I am rooting for Solomon, Hillerstrom, and their colleagues, and would be happy to volunteer for one of their trials (I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2011), there are still many reasons why NeuroPhage has a challenging road ahead. Biotech is a brutally risky business. At the end of the day, NPT088 may prove unsafe. And it may still not be potent enough. Even if NPT088 significantly reduces amyloid beta, tau, and alpha-synuclein, it’s possible that this may not lead to measurable clinical benefits in human patients, as it has done in animal models.

But if it works, then, according to Solomon, this medicine will indeed change the world: “A single compound that effectively treats Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s could be a twenty billion-dollar-a-year blockbuster drug.” And in the future, a modified version might also work for Huntington’s, ALS, prion diseases like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and more.

I asked Jonathan about his mother, who launched this remarkable story in 2004. According to him, she has gone on to other things. “My mother, Beka Solomon, remains a true scientist. Having made the exciting scientific discovery, she was happy to leave the less interesting stuff—the engineering and marketing things for bringing it to the clinic—to us. She is off looking for the next big discovery.”

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/phage-alzheimers-cure/