Hello fellow WAPF members, and hello also to lots of you who are not yet actual members!

So, what the heck are we going to do about the FCLO debacle?? I have a few personal comments to make on it, but we see things from our own world view, so feel free to disagree!

A big problem I see with the whole debate is that it is such a technical subject that I’m sure only a small number of scientists are in a position to debate the ins and outs of it with any real authority. We, the figurative proletariat, can but watch and wait and see what happens.
It’s both cool and unfortunate that we find ourselves at the cutting edge of this highly technical issue – but life on the cutting edge is far from certain, and I strongly believe that we need to be ok with uncertainty if we are to have any decent quality of life. If we are too fixed in our thinking and can’t handle uncertainty we will be smashed off the rocks by the waves of public opinion! Like good thick dairy cream, the truth often takes a while to rise to the surface.

We can’t hope to figure this one out on our own, but in the mean time we have to make decisions – do we keep taking the stuff, or do we stop?

The original research promoting the benefits of taking Cod Liver Oil comes from a different time.  Since then food safety and a litigious society have changed the landscape of food production resulting in a mountain of ‘safe’ processed foods. Cod liver oil was no exception, and it became a fact that all of it at one point was processed. This bothered natural health advocates including Sally and many others on the WAPF board. Her writings make this clear.

So it was almost with relief that Green Pastures showed up with the only real raw CLO on the market. It was wholeheartedly embraced, and the ‘fermenting’ aspect of it found its own place amongst the conversation. It is this fermenting aspect that is now causing the furore, and since no one else is making it, it is a de-facto ‘leading edge’ kind of product, for better or worse! Luckily in the mean time other players have shown up with great offerings. Rosita sell a raw CLO and Yukon Pure sell raw salmon head oil which contains some natural A & D.

Some people call the frontier at the leading edge of technological development ‘the Bleeding edge’.  As a group of truth seekers, we are bleeding now!  I’m going to bet there will be a mix of decisions amongst us. Some will go with their gut and if they’ve had a good experience they will keep taking it and if they’ve had a bad experience they will stop. Others will sense fear of uncertainty and go with that, others I reckon will perceive this as yet one more straw on an already tired back.  I genuinely suggest to anyone struggling with this issue to deliberately allow themselves a look at the other side and indeed a third side of the story. In other words find a valid way to get a different perspective on it all.  It is after all only a product, and but one more twist and turn in the journey of health that we have to navigate.

To be sure though there is much to reject in this whole debacle. In publicity terms it’s a veritable train wreck. WAPF Munster hosted David Wetzel at the conference last February and interest in the product has been steadily growing.

The tone of Kaayla Daniel’s article suggests a deep distrust of David Wetzel, yet the lab reports often show conflicting opinions on the same measurements. If indeed there is no consensus on what it all means even amongst different lab scientists then one wonders where the distrust is coming from.

If David turned out to be a charlatan it would make a lot of us very angry, but as things stand, despite Kaayla’s tone, she repeatedly asserts that the evidence in no way shows he is acting dishonestly. Confused maybe, biased perhaps, but not a bad guy. It is cases like this that force court judges to insist jury members put all previous publicity out of their minds and vote only on the facts of a case! Makes sense, but it’s hard to do here – it takes a flexible mind!

It seems the debate would have been much more professionally served behind closed doors and let the facts speak for themselves, and then they could all emerge with the agreed story and let us all know. Yet this may not have been possible given the leading edge nature of this stuff insofar as scientists may just choose to see the same facts in a different light – who knows!

All the same I think we’d be fools to blindly believe that an organisation the size of WAPF could possibly exist in a vacuum from interpersonal conflict and issues. Our egos are real, they do get in the way often, but I’d like to believe that in the cold light of day all interested parties would have the integrity and fortitude to admit if they got something wrong. Indeed the truth may lie somewhere in the middle of all the talk, maybe they are all right and all wrong at the same time.  Living with uncertainty is definitely not easy!

We’d probably do well to recognise that cod liver oil is a tool – indeed a wonder tool for many seeking health – but it’s just one tool in an arsenal of dietary tools available to us. Basically it makes it much easier to get to the higher levels of fat soluble vitamins recommended by Price’s research. But let’s be fair, it’s not absolutely necessary for health, it just helps a lot on the journey, so if you are affected by the fallout of this work-in-progress debate, then fear not – you have many options!

If some of you feel you must relinquish your current stocks of FCLO as a precautionary action, it may help to do it in the knowledge that you didn’t make any mistakes here, life has thrown a small curveball at you. We can’t check out everything we eat to the nth degree.  We have to trust someone sometime otherwise we’d never get anything done.
If you choose to keep taking your FCLO, the same principle applies – we are all responsible for our own decisions. Clearly if you have been using it for years and things have only gotten better then it’s probably very good for you.
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger! Sort of I guess…

We wait with bated breath on this one; it may yet turn into a mud fight! But in the mean time – watch this space for an upcoming announcement!!

Yours in health

Brendan O’Brien and the WAPF Munster team