Over the past thousands of years, humanity has mastered the ability to sail the seas and soar through skies, cultivate plants and plow vast fields, communicate through telegraph, telephone, and computer, and even fly to the Moon and back. But there is one lesson that we never seem to be able to learn: “You can’t fool Mother Nature!”

Every time we try to control the inherent flow and wisdom of nature itself, especially in a dramatic and large-scale way, things always seem to backfire. Inevitably, we find ourselves feverishly trying to repair the damage we have done, often foolishly wreaking even more havoc. And the more severe our intrusion into Gaia’s domain, the more irreparable and severe the consequences have become.

Now that much of humanity is accepting our collective role in creating climate change, it seems like a good time to examine other ways in which we have “messed things up.” What threads do many of these misguided actions have in common, and what can we learn from them? You may not even be aware of some of the examples I’ll be discussing in this article—for instance, the vast harm that conventional approaches to disease may be creating. Soon, however, I believe that these errors will also become clear and obvious to us all.

Let’s begin with some commonly accepted examples of our repeated pattern of “messing with Gaia”. One is the introduction of new species of plants and animals into environments in which they did not naturally evolve. For instance, this occurred when European settlers introduced rabbits into Australia and New Zealand for food and sport purposes. After the rabbits proliferated out of control in Australia, a 2000-mile fence had to be constructed to keep them from spreading! In New Zealand, the introduction of weasels to kill the rabbits led to a decimation of other native animal populations. Oops! Don’t mess with Gaia!

The introduction of various invasive plant species has had similar, sometimes irreparable consequences. In my own backyard (literally), the planting of Eucalyptus trees in Northern California seemed, at one point, like a nice aesthetic idea. But in the California climate, these highly flammable plants grew into unnaturally giant trees that pose a severe fire hazard. Now, there is attempt to get rid of them.

In general, the introduction of non-native animals and plants has been motivated by financial interests, and sometimes by cultural preferences, aesthetics, or convenience. Certainly, financial gain has been the underlying motivation behind misguided polluting practices that are now dooming Earth’s climate, waterways, and oceans. We have barely begun to rectify the damage we have done, and usually our solutions have been mere patches—cleaning up oil spills or reclaiming coastal habitats. And sometimes our “solutions” are really just more of the same—for instance, developing new chemical alternatives that end up being even worse.

Another well-known area of “mistaken behavior” has been agriculture—in particular, the development of monoculture farming, pesticides, and the latest incarnation of greed, GMO organisms. All of these developments were quite unnecessary. As organic farmers all over the world have shown, there are safe ways to raise animals and plants. Humanity could have focused on ways to scale up safe farming practices rather than on lining the pockets of chemical corporations like Monsanto, whose primary motivation has been selling ever more pesticides and cornering the market on seeds. Unfortunately, we are now faced with the loss of species (through GMO contamination), the growth of super-weeds, depletion of soils, pollution of fresh water, rampant deleterious effects on human health, and more. It is unclear how permanent the damage will be, even if we change course immediately.

Remember: for each one of these misguided endeavors, there was an alternative. Australians and New Zealanders could have learned to hunt and eat native animals. People all over the world could have learned to cultivate only native plants. Humanity could have focused on developing non-polluting, sustainable forms of energy, transportation, and manufacturing, especially after we began to recognize the dangerous consequences of older practices. Agricultural methods could have been developed that minimize environmental impact while maximizing yield.

But powerful interests vested in maintaining the status quo, as well as established human living-habits, have been hard to overcome.

A more controversial and less acknowledged area of “messing with Gaia” has been perpetrated by modern medicine. The primary modus operandi of conventional medicine is to either to suppress the body’s natural responses to disease, or to kill viruses, bacteria, cancer, etc. through the introduction of killing or suppressive agents—for example, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, and chemotherapy poisons. Unfortunately, we are finding that profligate use of such medicines can ultimately backfire or be even worse than the original disease itself. Don’t forget: Mother Nature knows how to fight back.

Consider this. The medical world, even if it isn’t talking about it openly, is currently bracing for a firestorm. Overuse of antibiotics—for every cough and cold (even if they are viral and not affected by antibiotics), in hand soaps and other household products, and especially when given prophylactically to animals on large monoculture feedlots (because such farms are perfect breeding grounds for disease)—has led to the evolution of deadly super-bacteria that can no longer be easily controlled. The only solution conventional medicine will have for us will be more of the same: stronger antibiotics. But that will only delay and perhaps even aggravate the inevitable.

Once again, there was another way. Instead of achieving health by killing disease organisms, we could have focused on enhancing the human body’s natural immune defenses and its innate ability to heal. We also could have reserved antibiotics for especially serious cases. After all, humans and animals can recover from bacterial infections. Humanity would never have survived up until the 20^th century (when antibiotics were first developed) if that weren’t true.

There are also much safer medical alternatives available to us: herbalism, homeopathy, and other systems that can heal serious infectious diseases, whether conventional medicine wants to accept it or not. Hundreds of years of successful experience with these medical alternatives, all over the world, has proven their efficacy. In fact, these medicines may end up saving humanity—if we allow them to coexist and thrive. Not only do they generally work with the bodyand help to enhance its ability to fight disease naturally, but they also do not lead to bacterial or viral mutation and resistance.

Unfortunately, there is one more looming “mistake” brewing on the medical horizon: our ever-increasing use of vaccines. Just as the indiscriminate use of antibiotics was considered perfectly harmless for most of the past century, vaccines are currently considered by most of the general public (thanks to very effective media campaigns) as no more dangerous than candies, to be applied liberally and without consequence. The truth, however, may surprise you.

The vaccine schedule has exploded in the past 60 years and continues to grow. In the 1950s, children received 7 doses of vaccines in the first 6 years of life. Children today receive 49 doses of 14 vaccines by the time they are 6 years old, and 69 doses of 16 vaccines by the time they are 18! And hundreds of new vaccines are currently in the development pipeline.

The real avalanche of vaccines upon our children was triggered in 1986, when federal legislation indemnified vaccine manufacturers and doctors from any liability from vaccine injury. Ever since that time, the vaccine schedule started expanding and the rates of autoimmune disease and neurological disorders among children skyrocketed.

When I was a child in the United States in the 1950s, every child experienced the so-called “childhood diseases”: measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. In general, these were considered rites of passage and no big deal in the United States, where there was good sanitation, good nutrition, and good health care. Mothers even took their children to the homes of the infected so that they could contract these diseases while they were young. In fact, the childhood diseases were considered by pediatricians to bolster the immune system and to lead to healthy cognitive development. And they were generally benign if experienced while a child was in grade school. Indeed, by the end of the 1950s, complications were exceedingly rare. By experiencing these diseases, individuals were conferred lifelong immunity, and this immunity could be passed on to infants when they nursed from their naturally-immune mothers. Vaccines in those days were confined to those for polio, smallpox, diptheria, pertussis, and tetanus.

All of that changed with the introduction of the childhood disease vaccinations in the 1960s. First it was measles, then MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), and eventually, in the 1990s, chickenpox. Now, thanks to indemnification of the vaccine manufacturers, children are routinely immunized against many more diseases than most people realize:

• hepatitis B (including vaccination on the first day of life, right after birth)
• hepatitis A
• pneumococcal virus (PCV)
• haemophilus influenza B (HiB)
• human papillomavirus (HPV)
• meningococcal disease
• influenza (yearly)
• rotavirus

The 69 doses of disease agents given to our children are directly injected into the body, instead of entering the body in the manner in which our bodies evolved to deal with them. And inside each these injections are toxic adjuvants like mercury and aluminum, which have to be there in order for the vaccines to work. While most people believe that such practices are wondrous and completely benign (just as they believed that GMOs, pesticides, and antibiotics were), once again humanity is messing with Gaia, and the negative effects are slowly beginning to be seen and felt. In the end, these effects will only grow and ultimately explode in our faces.

Consider the following. Even doctors admit that the immunity conferred by vaccines is imperfect; between 10 to 20 percent of the immunized do not develop any immunity at all. Moreover, the effect of a vaccination is always temporary. As a result, susceptibility to and the threat of experiencing a childhood disease (like measles) has now been deferred to adulthood, when it poses a much greater health risk.

Perhaps even more frightening, however, is the fact that the form of immunity conferred by vaccines is not effectively transmitted through breast milk. Consequently, infants who are breastfed by mothers that were immunized against a childhood disease (instead of experiencing it) are now susceptible to the childhood diseases at much younger and more vulnerable ages. In other words, the two populations that have the most to fear from the childhood diseases—adults and infants—are now increasingly prey to them, whereas before, they were naturally immune or protected by nursing.

Next, consider this disturbing fact: those who have been recently vaccinated can “shed” the disease unknowingly to those around them. That is why cancer wards post signs forbidding those who have been recently vaccinated from entering. If someone is actually experiencing the measles, they will appear sick. But a person who has been recently vaccinated for the measles won’t even know they may be spreading it to everyone around them.

What is the net effect of all of this?

Those who are naturally immune to the childhood diseases are now over 55 and beyond childbearing age. As a result, we are currently experiencing the first generation of children born to mothers who were vaccinated against the childhood diseases and whose nursing infants are thus not afforded natural protection. Soon our entire society will be completely filled with individuals who never experienced and recovered from many diseases naturally. And when the vaccines for these diseases don’t work or wear off, more and more outbreaks will occur, often as a result of shedding from the recently vaccinated.

So far, these outbreaks have been blamed on the unvaccinated, even though a great deal of evidence shows this not to be true. For example, there have been outbreaks among populations who are 100% vaccinated. So this blame-game will probably only be sustainable for so long. Already people are beginning to balk at the annual flu vaccine campaigns, because many notice that getting the vaccine can actually trigger the disease, or that it leaves them even more susceptible to the flu if the vaccine strain was not correct. There are now signs that some of the childhood diseases are beginning to mutate too, rendering older vaccinations ineffective. The writing is on the wall, and the cash cow of vaccines for the pharmaceutical industry may soon dry up. Their solution? Eke out as much money as possible while the getting is good.

Right now, the medical and political establishments, funded by the vaccine manufacturers, are mounting vast media campaigns, in a desperate attempt to force every child (and perhaps, eventually, every adult) into 100% vaccine compliance, despite the fact that vaccine injury data demonstrate that some people are susceptible to severe reactions and death from vaccination. In fact, as the vaccine schedule has increased in size, so have the number of serious injuries (see the vaccine injury charts at the end of this article).

Ultimately, however, I believe that our overreliance on vaccination to achieve health will fail, just as surely as the overuse of antibiotics has failed. Because the only way to stay healthy is to work with the natural functions of the body, not to trick or subjugate them. You can’t fool Mother Nature!

Although the practice of vaccination may seem as if it is mimicking a natural body process, it is not. Vaccines provide a poor imitation of true immunity that is incomplete and never permanent. Here is something that most people do not realize: the practice of vaccination over-stimulates one part of the immune system (humoral immunity—which triggers a response to a specific disease antigen), while leaving another part of the immune system unexercised (cell-mediated immunity—which provides a generalized mechanism that fights all disease). As a result, our immune systems are becoming unnaturally skewed and exaggerated in one direction, while becoming weaker in the other. That is why people are developing more and more autoimmune diseases (overstimulation of humoral immunity), and have become less and less able to naturally fight disease in general. The result has been widespread chronic disease among the young and old—including diseases like diabetes, asthma, autism, and cancer that were unheard of or extremely rare among children in the 1950s.

Once again, let me reiterate that we could have developed a different medical response to disease. We could have used the practice of vaccination sparingly and wisely. We could have made use of alternative medical systems and holistic practices that naturally enhance our immunity and cure many of these diseases without any side effects. Is it too late? I’m not sure. But I am sure that injecting more and more vaccines into our children is not the answer, just as developing stronger and stronger antibiotics is not an answer. Nor will such a strategy ultimately improve our children’s health.

I’m sure that many who read this article will rankle at what I am saying. Many people accept that humanity has triggered climate change and acknowledge the danger of pesticides, but scoff at those who point to the dangers of GMOs and vaccines. Others accept the dangers of vaccines, but think that climate change is a hoax.

But consider this: all of these problems are the result of humans trying to control or work against Mother Nature instead of cooperating with her. In the end, such misguided efforts are futile, because we are not outside of nature—we are part of it. We are all part of the body of Gaia—a living system that is larger than all of us put together, and that has many feedback loops and corrective mechanisms. If we mess things up too much, we may find ourselves thrown out of the system, eaten up like so many microbes devoured by a horde of white blood cells. Hopefully, Gaia isn’t terminally ill and humanity can finally learn its lesson: that we must cooperate with our fellow organisms and learn to coexist in a state of sustainable health.

Appendix: Vaccine Injury Data.

Note: The following data is extracted from the CDC’s vaccine injury database—the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). While there are around half a million vaccine injury cases in this database, the charts below are focused on only a subset of injuries: serious injuries occurring in children who reacted to a CDC-recommended vaccine. A “serious” injury is defined as one or more of the following: death, permanent disability, hospitalization, or life threatening. Note that the number of serious injuries to children is increasing, and that 2014 data may not yet be complete.