Lyme is all around us but I believe we will help many more if we give up on blaming everything on the tick related introduction of more pathogens than we had the day before we are bit.  It is confusing to people, as too often Lyme tests are inconclusive. So let’s rename the condition LIMES (Lowered Immune Metabolic Encephalopathy Syndrome) or LIMNS (for Neuropathy, as in MS like conditions) or LIMAS (Arthropathy when it is more arthritic in presentation), as these names move us closer to seeing the true picture.

It is sad to turn patients away with these devastating symptoms when the Infectious Disease Association guidelines force us to say it is Lyme. I am certain broadening the approach to Food sensitivities, other Infections, Genetics, Heavy metals and Hormones and Toxins would wind up with better results than the low batting average that is reported from long-term IV antibiotics, which are often reported as low as 33% about which Lyme critics point out is the response rate to placebos. If we focus on my F.I.G.H.T. program and do something to help deal with the obvious issues that can be found in almost anyone in any of these categories, we can be more cost effective and actually help more patients, as they will stop looking just for a doctor that will interpret their test as positive for Lyme.

Realize that everyone today will fail the Mount Sinai School of Medicine $4900 test for toxins. So let’s blame the neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors just like we blame the total body burden of infection, as properly tested everyone will have some Chlamydia or CMV or Coxackie or Candida and so on.

No one will pass the test at Harvard for bone lead levels. They have shown that the level in bone is in equilibrium with most other tissues in the body including the eye so there is a direct correlation with how high lead in bones is and how soon you develop a cataract. So there is no one on earth that does not need some lead out and since Lead makes Mercury as much as 100 times more toxic, who needs tons of tests to know what to do in most of the categories my F.I.G.H.T. program acronym represents.

So would it not be better medicine to offer some oral detoxification for the Heavy metals and the Toxins, with ZeoGold and BIOE’NR-G’Y C, Beyond Fiber, and some organic Greens and some Maca and help people eliminate suspect foods for a time. Before letting the outcome of the patient’s intervention with the doctor pass on the results of unreliable negative lab tests for Lyme, because of immune suppression until some treatment is started for awhile and then the test for Lyme often changes to positive. What a waste to not simply realize we are confronted with an epidemic of autoimmune diseases that has so many different presentations that over 100 conditions are now considered to be autoimmune related. These conditions deserve meaningful intervention and my F.I.G.H.T. program protects patients from Johnny One Note health care providers who focus only on one aspect of my program and thus only help a small percentage of patients.

Let’s broaden our approach and help everyone with empowering knowledge. Everyone we see today needs help to optimize every one of the categories in F.I.G.H.T. If we expand the FIGHT concept we would make F stand for FOCUS on positive thinking not just Food and H for hormones and Heavy metals and then really the G is not just Genetics but also the entire new field of Epigenetics where exposures to BISPHENOL A have led to overnight changes in Gene activation. They are permanent until treated with aggressive methylation support, as with the MSM and TMG found in BIOE’NR-G’Y C and the active forms of Folic Acid found in Beyond B12.

We all remember AIDS is acquired immune deficiency so now I recommend that this new epidemic just be renamed LOWERED IMMUNE METABOLIC ENCEPHALOPATHY SYNDROME or LIMES then we can start to be much more cost effective in improving the health of many who suffer without excess reliance on some lab test for Lyme related infections.

This link to MEDSCAPE may help broaden your knowledge regarding some aspects of this new epidemic. By putting LIMES category into a new AUTOIMMUNE RELATED condition it forces us to broaden our approach beyond antibiotics can help our patients who still will not be covered by insurance but at least they will not be turned away without receiving real help and we will not waste time with medical board fights. Patients will be taught something that I am confident for most will help them improve their health more than getting 6 months of IV antibiotics even if it were fully covered by their insurance company. It is not just an antibiotic deficiency we are encountering; read the book BEYOND ANTIBIOTICS!

It is like the old adage TEACH a man to fish or give him a fish; I prefer the teaching approach. Knowledge of what is really wrong with our health can be empowering but to put everything on one infection or one toxin and ignore leaky gut and food sensitivities, etc I feel  means we provide little long-term meaningful help to patients who deserve a broader understanding of what is really going wrong with their health.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Case of Ascending Paralysis: the Signs and Symptoms of Tick Paralysis
Menyoli Malafa, MSII; Veronica Tucci, JD, MS IV; Albert Vincent, PhD; Sajeel Chowdhary, MD
Posted: 03/26/2009; American Academy of Emergency Medicine.
2009;16(1):22, 26, 27 © 2009 American Academy of Emergency Medicine
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/589591

Summary
Tick paralysis (TP), a response to the neurotoxic effects of the salivary secretions produced by attached hard ticks (Ixodidae), is a syndrome that mimics a large number of better known neurological disorders. TP is a sporadic, seasonal, rural disorder in which acute ataxia often develops five to six days following a history of walking in grass or low brush, followed by ascending flaccid paralysis. Recognition and timely removal of the tick usually leads to complete resolution of symptoms, whereas continued feeding can lead to respiratory arrest and death. Follow-up includes species determination and patient surveillance for tick-borne infectious disease.

Discussion
TP is a worldwide disease, occurring in Australia, Europe, South Africa and throughout North America. In the United States, most cases occur in the Rocky Mountain states and the Pacific Northwest, including Washington, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and the northern parts of Arizona, New Mexico and California. However, cases have also been reported in central, southern and eastern states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and New York. In Canada, most cases are encountered in the western part of the country, primarily southern British Columbia.[1,2] More than 60 species of ticks are known to cause paralysis, but only a handful are responsible for most cases. In North America, the disease is associated primarily with six species: Dermacentor andersoni (‘Rocky Mountain wood tick’), D. variabilis (‘American dog tick’), Amblyomma americanum (‘Lone Star tick’), A. maculatum (Gulf Coast tick), Ixodes scapularis (formerly I. dammini, ‘Blacklegged tick’) and I. pacificus (‘Western Black-legged tick’). Peak incidence occurs between April and June when nymphs and mature adults abound in low vegetation and climb upward, questing for their next host by extending their anterior pairs of legs.[1,3,4] Paralysis is a response to a neurotoxin secreted by the salivary glands of the arachnid.[1,5] The biochemistry and pharmacology of the specific paralysis- inducing toxins produced in North American ticks are yet to be fully elucidated, but current evidence points to a mechanism by which the toxins inhibit presynaptic acetylcholine release at the neuromuscular junction.[1,3,6] TP presents more often and more severely in children, suggesting a concentration-dependent relationship between toxin levels and symptom expression.[1,4] Signs and symptoms of TP begin about five to six days after the parasite has attached, when neurotoxin is secreted at its peak levels. These prodromal symptoms include restlessness, irritability, fatigue, nausea, paresthesias and possibly ataxia. Over the next 24-48 hours, the patient develops ascending symmetrical flaccid paralysis and weakness in the lower extremities. Over the course of the next day or two, paralysis and weakness may ascend to involve the trunk, axial and upper limb muscles. Cranial nerves may also become involved in an ascending pattern, resulting in bulbar, facial and/or extraocular paralysis. Patients demonstrate diminished or absent deep tendon and superficial reflexes while, aside from occasional paresthesias, their sensory exam remains normal. Pain and fever are absent. Death ensues following paralysis of the respiratory muscles.[1,5,7,8,9] Atypical presentations reflect variations in the site of tick attachment. There may be ataxia and associated cerebellar deficits without accompanying muscle weakness. The disorder may also present as an isolated facial paralysis without trunk or limb involvement. Another group of atypical presentations is unilateral paralysis and/or weakness, including isolated unilateral facial paralysis.[1,8] Tick paralysis is treated by removal of the tick. Although the site of attachment is most often the head and neck region, the entire body should be scrutinized, including ear canals, nostrils and genitalia. Multiple ticks should be suspected, and all must be removed.[1,4,7,10] Applications of petroleum jelly, nail polish, alcohol, a needle and heat are inappropriate. These measures may result in infection and cause the parasite to salivate or regurgitate more of its bodily fluids.
The tick should be grasped with blunt, angled forceps as close as possible to the skin and to the embedded mouthparts (hypostome). Wearing protective gloves, slowly pull the organism straight outward with a gentle and steady traction, without twisting its body. Do not burst the tick. The hypostome is usually deeply and firmly embedded and should be removed surgically should it come detached. Antiseptic solution is then applied to the wound, and the recovered tick and severed mouthparts may be preserved in 75% ethanol for identification. The patient should be instructed to return in the event of additional illness and educated on protective measures against ticks.
The symptoms of TP, at least those caused by North American species, typically resolve rapidly following removal of all ticks from the patient. Improvement in the condition of the patient subsequent to tick removal is confirmatory for the diagnosis. Species found in some other parts of the world, notably Ixodes holocyclus of Australia, produce a very potent neurotoxin and symptoms may not subside as quickly, even worsening after removal.[5] The prognosis depends on clinical presentation prior to removal. If all ticks were removed prior to the onset of bulbar weakness, the patient often makes a full recovery within the first 24 hours. However, if onset of bulbar symptoms occurs during continued feeding, the likelihood of fatal respiratory paralysis increases to 10%. Therefore, prompt of diagnosis and tick removal are paramount.[1,5,7,8] Because ticks are both vectors and reservoirs for various infectious diseases, it is important to educate the patient about this added risk for possible concurrent illnesses. Table 1 displays the geographical location and infectious diseases associated with North American tick species which are also known to cause TP.[1,8,11,12]

References
1.Cunha BA, editor. Tickborne Infectious Diseases Diagnosis and Management. New York: M. Dekker; 2000.
2.Meier J, White J. Handbook of Clinical Toxicology of Animal Venoms and Poisons. STATE: CRC Press; 1995.
3.CDC. Tick paralysis – Washington. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 1996; 45(16): 325-6.
4.Schmitt N, Bowmer EJ, Gregson JD. Tick paralysis in British Columbia. Can Med Assoc J 1969 Mar 1; 100(9): 417-21.
5.Meriggioli MN, Howard JF, Howard Jr. JF, Harper CM, Harper Jr. CM. Neuromuscular Junction Disorders: Diagnosis and Treatment. STATE: Informa Health Care; 2003.
6.Grattan-Smith PJ, Morris JG, Johnston HM, Yiannikas C, Malik R, Russel R, Ouvrier RA. Clinical and neurophysiological features of tick paralysis. Brain 1997 Nov;120(Pt 11):1975-87.
7.CDC. Tick paralysis – Colorado. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2006 Sep 1; 55(34): 933-5.
8.Knoop KJ, Stack LB, Storrow AB. Atlas of Emergency Medicine. STATE: McGraw-Hill Professional; 2002.
9.Biller J. Practical Neurology. STATE: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2002.
10.Gammons M, Salam G. Tick removal. Am Fam Physician 2002 Aug 15; 66(4): 646.
11.Winn WC, Kineman EW, Allen SD, Janda WM, Schreckenberger PC,Procop GW, Woods GL. Koneman´s Color Atlas and Textbook of Diagnostic Microbiology. STATE: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins; 2005.
12.Sonenshine DE, Mather TN. Ecological Dynamics of Tick-borne Zoonoses. STATE: Oxford University Press US; 1994.
13.Greenberg BM. Clinical cases in neurology from John Hopkins. Case 2: acute ascending paralysis in a 4-year-old body. MedGenMed 2003 Apr 9; 5(2): 36.

Remember that a world without cancer is here now!  That is the KOBAYASHI approach proven to work and now modified into what I call my F.I.G.H.T. program. Just get a Cancer Profile Test cancer panel done before you even think you have a lump or bump and when there are any abnormal test results just do the F.I.G.H.T. program and the abnormal becomes normal and the lump or bump never needs to appear!!

I hope this truthful accounting of what really happens in our best cancer treatment centers may save some patients from entering into the gray zone where life is not worth living, suffering with terrible therapies, hoping for a miracle.  They are not happening very often and look at the costs.

Can some patients have a better understanding of their choices? With this one sentence, they need to know that although CAM approaches also fail they do have their share of dramatic successes too. They need to know that with CAM therapies, they still will have at least some semblance of quality of life maintained while being treated and costs do not go into the stratosphere, as they with these up to $50,000 a month new drug therapies.

This one sentence from this powerful article about cancer patients at one of our best Cancer facilities, M.D. ANDERSON is the bottom line:

“But there is still little that can be done for most of those whose cancer has spread. And, Dr. Berry said, “That is a fact that doctors at M. D. Anderson can have a hard time facing, understandably so.”

If patients understood this they would never let the oncologist cut them off the ONLY therapy that always offers real benefits, virtually at any stage, VITAMIN C. Please review my webinar, VITAMIN C and CANCER by going to www.gordonresearch.com and find all of my webinars on the sidebar link.  Also use search both there and on FACT for anything related to Cancer.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/health/research/25anderson.html?pagewanted=5&_r=1&th&emc=th

The New York Times
October 25, 2009
FORTY YEARS’ WAR
A Place Where Cancer Is the Norm
By GINA KOLATA

HOUSTON — M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has a mission statement, and everyone who works there, from the president to the cleaning crews, can state it like a catechism: to “eliminate cancer in Texas, the nation and the world.”  For the nearly 90,000 patients who will go to the center in Houston this year, that mission cannot be fulfilled soon enough. They and their families arrive at the world’s largest freestanding cancer hospital from around the world, often leaving behind jobs and stashing children with relatives for months. Some rent apartments or stay in mobile home parks near the hospital.
They enter through a soaring lobby, with cheery aquariums and exuberant volunteer greeters eager to help in any way. They come looking for hope.
But there is no mistaking what this place is: the front line of the frustrating war on a still largely incurable disease.
Doctors are encouraged to try everything, and when insurers balk, they pick up the phone, repeatedly, hoping to persuade them to pay for what may be unconventional treatments.
The federal government gives more cancer research money to this hospital than to any other, and the hospital has an abundance of specialists in many forms of cancer, including rare ones. Medicare offers more generous reimbursement, and the hospital offers treatments that often go far beyond what can be offered at most other places.
“I tell young physicians who are starting out here that the big limitation is imagination,” said Dr. Martin Raber, an oncologist — and a cancer patient himself — at Anderson. “If you are good at what you do and you have great ideas, we will help you find the resources you need to make them happen.”
But like a modern version of the tuberculosis sanatorium in Thomas Mann’s “Magic Mountain,” Anderson is a world where the best that medicine has to offer is often far from enough. The odds are still grim, and while there are exhilarating recoveries, the exhausting, dispiriting road traveled by many patients comes into sharp relief.
They are patients like 35-year-old Mindy Lanoux of San Antonio, who has melanoma that has spread to her liver and lungs, her odds of surviving in the single digits. She has been to the hospital 16 times in nine months, spending a week there each time for treatments so debilitating she wanted to give up. But she keeps returning, smearing peppermint oil under her nose when she walks in the medical center’s door to hide the odor.
“The smell gets to me,” Ms. Lanoux said. “It smells like cleaning products and the sickness and the medicines. It takes your brave edge off.”
Then she and her father go to her room and start putting her things away. “We don’t talk,” Ms. Lanoux said. “There is no polite conversation. It is like an army setting up to do battle.”

Planet Cancer
With more than 17,000 employees and warrens of color-coded hallways so vast that even employees get lost, M. D. Anderson is its own parallel universe, where nothing matters but cancer. Patients sit in the lobbies and compare notes.
“Everyone in the waiting room talks about ‘How did you find yours?’ ” said June Toland, 71, of Harlingen, Tex., who is being treated for sarcoma, a cancer of connective tissue.
Every patient at Anderson has cancer. Every family member sitting anxiously in the lounges or lingering at a bedside or sleeping in a Murphy bed in a patient’s room has had the life-changing experience of being touched by cancer.
“It feels sometimes like the entire world has cancer,” said Cindy Davis, a nurse in the breast cancer clinic who has breast cancer herself.
Anderson is a quiet place. No loud pagers. The walls are decorated with vivid photographs of serene scenes, like water views. The muted colors in the hallways, soft cranberry and dull green, are meant to be soothing. There is a special room, Kim’s Place, for young people only, cancer patients and their friends ages 15 to 30, giving them a place to gather. There is a library and a cybercafe. It is a place meant to give hope.
Sometimes, as happened with Frances Anderson of Shreveport, La., that hope is realized. She discovered three years ago that she had a brain tumor, but it did not start in her brain. In fact, it is not clear where it started. After being told by a doctor elsewhere that she had four to seven months to live, she ended up at Dr. Raber’s clinic, one of the few that specialize in treating patients with cancer throughout their bodies but with no obvious source for the tumors.
At 66, wearing pressed jeans, her short blond hair carefully styled, Ms. Anderson has vision problems from the surgery to remove the brain tumor, and she gets tired. She still has cancer, but she exercises every day and is living with her disease, returning to Anderson every six months for checkups and scans.
Others are not so fortunate. One morning last month, Joe Maxwell, 52, sat in a chair next to his hospital bed, a compression bandage around his now-useless swollen left arm, a large bandage over his left shoulder. He was going home to sit on his deck in Kerrville, Tex., a four-hour drive. He had tried everything Anderson had to offer and decided that, with an estimated two weeks left, he would go home to die.
Mr. Maxwell came to Anderson in January after his doctor told him a bump on his shoulder was a rare tumor, Merkel cell carcinoma, and added, “If you have a rare tumor, you need to go where tumors are not rare.”
At Anderson, doctors tried everything they could think of — surgery, round after round of chemotherapy, a clinical trial of an experimental drug. Nothing worked. Finally, the doctors suggested yet another drug.
“We spent a lot of time praying about it and just discussing it,” Mr. Maxwell said. “I wanted to go home; I was tired. They gave me a short amount of time and said, ‘If you want to go home, now is the time.’ ”
But leaving late last month was bittersweet. The doctors and nurses “have become our friends and our family,” his wife, Kathleen Maxwell, said. Anderson, she added, “has been our life for nine months.”
He died 10 days later, early in the morning of Oct. 8.
Even those who finish their treatments and live cancer-free are forever changed by the experience.
Mrs. Toland learned that lesson from her son, George Toland. Twenty-four years ago, when he was 21, he was a sarcoma patient at Anderson. One day he looked at his mother and said, “My life will never be the same.”
His mother tried to reassure him, telling him that he would be fine, that he would go on to a perfectly normal life.
But he demurred, saying, “You know, Mother, it’s a loss of innocence.”
Mrs. Toland knew he was right.
She told him: “Most people lose their innocence in little doses as they go through life. You lost yours all at once.”

Battling the Odds
Donald Berry, a statistician who is head of the division of quantitative sciences at Anderson, says part of his role at the cancer center is to provide a reality check.
Yes, it is true, as doctors and nurses there repeatedly say, that treatment has improved. Anti-nausea drugs have all but eliminated the constant vomiting that once accompanied chemotherapy. New drugs are attacking genes that go awry in cancer. Most cancer patients come and go over a period of years, for checkups, scans, treatment if the cancer is still there. In between they go on with their lives.
But there is still little that can be done for most of those whose cancer has spread. And, Dr. Berry said, “that is a fact that doctors at M. D. Anderson can have a hard time facing, understandably so.”
Dr. Russell Harris, an associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina and a member of a board that evaluates cancer therapies for the National Institutes of Health, said the temptation at major cancer centers like Anderson was to try treatment after treatment.
“Everyone is totally immersed in the idea that death is the enemy,” Dr. Harris said. Such a no-holds-barred stance, he added, is spurring a growing debate in the cancer community.
“There is a lot of concern within the oncology community right now, and appropriately so, that people don’t completely understand what they are getting into,” Dr. Harris said.
An aggressive — and expensive — course of treatment can place a huge burden on patients. Ms. Lanoux knows that all too well. She came hoping for a cure for her advanced melanoma, but got her first dose of reality the day she walked into the main lobby.
She saw patients in wheelchairs, their heads sunken on their chests. She saw patients who had lost their hair, patients wearing sky-blue masks to protect them from infections. And there were the children. She had to avert her eyes. “I still can’t look at the kids,” Ms. Lanoux said.
“I think we were all trying to be very brave,” she said. “But it was like walking into a coffin.”
Ms. Lanoux, a small blond English teacher, lives in San Antonio with her husband, also a teacher, a 19-month-old daughter, an 8-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. The day she arrived at Anderson, Feb. 9, was the beginning of a difficult journey at the cancer center. She has been coming about every three weeks since, staying for a week at a time.
Her problems began in August 2008 on the way to a beach vacation. She started coughing. Her doctor was not concerned, telling her he thought she had acid reflux because she had had it when she was pregnant. He gave her Nexium. She returned in November at a friend’s urging, and her doctor prescribed cough drops and steroids. But she kept coughing.
Finally, in January, when she still could not catch her breath, her doctor ordered a chest X-ray to see if she had bronchitis. The next week, she returned to learn the result. Her husband wanted to go with her, but she told him not to bother, it was probably just bronchitis.
The doctor “came in and said, ‘This is the part I hate most about being a doctor,’ ” Ms. Lanoux recalled. There was a spot on her lung. A CT scan also revealed spots on her liver. And a biopsy of the spots on her liver revealed what it was. Melanoma. It had spread from an initial lesion — no one could ever find where it started — and was now threatening her life.
Ms. Lanoux’s doctor in San Antonio told her to go to Anderson. “She very honestly told me, ‘I don’t want to try treating you,’ ” Ms. Lanoux said.
“I think I was in denial until last month,” she said. “I had a 10 percent chance to survive five years, and I was going to do it.”
She has tried everything. Immunological therapy with side effects so severe it has to be administered in the intensive care unit. It did not work. Then she started biochemotherapy — a combination of three chemotherapy drugs and two immune system hormones to stimulate her body to attack her tumors. It is a controversial treatment, said her doctor, Patrick Hwu, but some patients had lasting remissions.
Not Ms. Lanoux. At least not yet. On a recent sunny fall afternoon, she lay in her hospital bed on the 10th floor, wearing striped pajamas, blinking away tears as she told her story. She had just finished her sixth biochemotherapy treatment. Once again, she said, the therapy had made her feel “barely human.”
The effects hit her hard after the second treatment.
“I got home and ordered a wheelchair, a shower seat, a walker,” she said. “I am 35 years old and I have a wheelchair, a shower seat, a walker.” Just a few years ago she had run a marathon.
“My husband was helping me take a shower,” Ms. Lanoux said. “Of course it was awful. You’re cold, you can’t get enough water on you. I told him I don’t want to do this again. Call Dr. Hwu. I’m not going back.”
But she relented. Now Dr. Hwu wants her to try an experimental drug that takes the brakes off the immune system and might allow her body to destroy her cancer.
But the drug has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is not available. Dr. Hwu knows it can have serious side effects and may not help Ms. Lanoux. But some who took the drug defied the odds, living for years. Maybe Ms. Lanoux could be one of those survivors, Dr. Hwu thinks.
And how about surgery, he asked her last month. “You can live with half a lung,” he said. But she probably would have to have her entire lung removed, he learned. And a surgeon would also have to take out the tumors on her liver. It may not be feasible, Dr. Hwu said, but, he added, “It’s definitely something I’m thinking about.”
Dr. Hwu struggles with the grim statistics — 8 percent of patients like Ms. Lanoux survive five years. The median survival rate is one year.
“It’s hard to see most patients die,” Dr. Hwu said. “You look at patients and see yourself and your family. We have to keep focusing on making these treatments better.”
On Wednesday, Ms. Lanoux was admitted for her eighth cycle of biochemotherapy. Dr. Hwu was worried.
“I don’t think her body will tolerate many more cycles,” he said. Already he has had to reduce the doses of some of the drugs and eliminate others.
In the meantime, he makes calls nearly every day, trying to get the experimental drug for Ms. Lanoux.
“We’re on the front lines,” he said. “We need armor.”
“I need this drug, and I need to be able to offer it to her.”

A View From Both Sides
As a breast cancer nurse, Cindy Davis thought she knew what her patients were going through. Until she went through it herself.
The first time she had a mammogram, it found cancer. She was 43. But after a lumpectomy, radiation and hormonal treatment with the drug tamoxifen, she was cancer free. The statistics were with her. She had every reason to think the cancer would not come back.
And that helped because she had taken a nursing job in the breast cancer clinic at Anderson, working with many patients pretty much like her — their cancer had been caught early, they would be fine.
Then, last April, nine years after the diagnosis, her cancer came back in a pelvic bone.
“You never think it is going to happen to you,” Mrs. Davis said. “I look at the risk factors, and I have none of them. It’s like, ‘Wait — I did everything right.’ ”
“I did the denial thing, 100 percent,” she said. “And I was angry. No, no, it can’t be that. And I was in shock — you’ve got to be kidding.”
As a nurse, she knew all too well there is no cure for breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast. Two-thirds with advanced disease are dead within five years.
“When you know what I know, it’s very scary,” Mrs. Davis said.
Her chemotherapy began a few days after she learned that her cancer had spread.
“I was scared; I was very scared,” Mrs. Davis said. “I know all the possible things that can go wrong.”
To her surprise, it was uneventful. Three weeks later, she and her husband went on a cruise. Just before it was over, her hair fell out.
“I got out of the shower and started combing my hair and it was coming out,” she said. “I started crying. Everyone says, ‘It’s just hair. It will grow back.’ But as women, that’s a big thing to us.”
Devastated, she got a wig and, feeling very self-conscious, went back to work. She has been working ever since, taking most of the week off after each chemotherapy treatment to recover from nausea and overwhelming fatigue. So far she has had 17 treatments, with more to come.
She is a nurse by day in the fifth-floor breast cancer clinic, and a patient in the evening, going to the eighth floor for chemotherapy. There she sees many of the women who were in the clinic earlier.
“It’s like a club,” Mrs. Davis said. The women talk about side effects — mouth sores and damage to the nerves of their feet — and the nausea and the anticipatory nausea.
“I have patients who say, ‘I just see a hospital gown and I feel nauseated,’ ” Mrs. Davis said. “I didn’t understand it before.”
She also asks patients for help, turning to those who learned they had advanced breast cancer two, three, four years ago.
“I say, ‘How do you do it?’ ” Mrs. Davis said. “They say they pray a lot and they just do it. They get through it one day at a time.”
Working at Anderson while being a patient there means cancer is always on her mind.
“You are around it all the time,” she said. “It’s just so hard to shut it off when you go home. Now I find myself thinking more and more about patients. I pray for them, and they hug me and say they are praying for me.”
She ran into a patient’s mother recently. The patient, a young woman, had advanced breast cancer and was terrified. Mrs. Davis told her she had advanced breast cancer, too, and she would help. “I am your nurse,” she told the young woman.
The mother came up to Mrs. Davis and said: “You have no idea how you have impacted this family. You gave my daughter hope that she could get through this.”
An Opponent That Won’t Quit
Dr. Raber used to think he understood when his patients told him that their appetite was good or that they were feeling more energetic.
But now, a cancer patient himself, he talks to patients in a very different way.
In the old days, if a patient said she had a good appetite, he would interpret that to mean her appetite was the same as his. Now he asks different questions.
“What did you have for lunch?”
“Crackers and soup.”
“What did you have for dinner?”
“Crackers and soup.”
“What did you have for breakfast?”
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“Patients who say their appetite is fine often are saying it is better than it was,” Dr. Raber said. “They are not saying it is anything like the appetite of a healthy person.”
The same goes for energy level.
“When I came home from the hospital when I had been really, really sick, I was able to walk down the stairs once a day and up the stairs once a day. After I had been home for a couple of weeks, I could walk up and down maybe twice. If a doctor had asked how was my energy level, I would say, ‘Great, much better,’ ” Dr. Raber said. “The doctor would assume it was the same energy level as his.”
Dr. Raber’s journey as a cancer patient began in 1996, when he was 48 and physician-in-chief at Anderson. “I was at the top of my game,” he said.
A routine exam showed abnormalities in liver function tests. He thought it was nothing, waited six weeks, and had the test again.
The results were still abnormal. His internist suggested a CT scan, but neither Dr. Raber nor his doctor was concerned.
While Dr. Raber was on the table, the radiologist came in and said, “You have a problem.” There was a mass near his liver.
“This is serious,” he thought. “I figured, ‘This is early November. I could be dead by Christmas.’ ”
His doctor scheduled a biopsy for later that day.
That afternoon, after the biopsy, the pathologist told Dr. Raber he thought it was melanoma.
“I said to myself, melanoma. I could be dead by Thanksgiving,” Dr. Raber said.
It turned out to be lymphoma, a tumor of the lymphoid cells of the immune system, which is easier to treat and even cure than liver cancer or melanoma.
But treatment, with chemotherapy and radiation, made it impossible for Dr. Raber to work full time. At best, he could manage a few hours a day. He was ill, he was tired, and, he said, “My brain was scrambled.”
He stepped down as physician-in-chief. He no longer saw patients.
Two years later the cancer was back, in the same place. Once again he had aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. Two years after that, his kidneys failed. He spent time in the intensive care unit.
He did not work for a year, spending most of his time on the sofa. His lower body filled with fluid. His 32-inch waist ballooned to 52 inches. His size 9 ½ foot became a 12. All he could wear was a sweatsuit and slippers.
Finally, he went back to work for an hour, two or three times a week. And he went back not as an administrator but as a doctor and a teacher, “an earlier iteration of myself.”
In February, he got another cancer, melanoma.
By now he has gotten used to living with cancer.
“It just becomes your life,” Dr. Raber said. “You come in, you have tests, you go home, you do your thing, you come back again for treatment.
“I tell patients, ‘It used to be that you had cancer, you got treated, you died or you were cured,’ ” he said. “Now, for most of us, it’s a chronic illness. It’s not a question of being psyched up: I will have this surgery and then I will be cured. The disease comes back.”
He works part time, seeing patients on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and spending a day a week working at a clinic in the county hospital.
“A common question people would ask is ‘Are you a better doctor since you’ve been sick?’ ” Dr. Raber said. “My first answer is that I thought I was a good doctor before. I was worried about being a worse doctor. Having lived through these biopsies and all these tests, would I be hesitant to order all these things patients need because I had experienced them and knew they were not pleasant?
“Then I realized I am not better, but I am a different doctor,” he said. “I talk to patients differently. I understand more of what their situation might be.
“My life was very different than it was before that day in the CT scanner,” Dr. Raber said. “It’s not the life I thought I would have. But my life is still really good.
“My son is fond of saying, ‘It is what it is.’ That’s true. This is my life. I enjoy it a lot. It works out well for me.”
As for winning the war on cancer, Dr. Raber, on the front lines, has his own thoughts. “We are making a lot of progress,” he noted.
But “are we there yet?” he asked.
“Not even close.”

This is very interesting research that would cause you to want to take exposure to flu more seriously!  First, let’s stay healthy so we do not get flu or colds with all that I discuss from Immuni-T 2 and 3 to long term detoxification, as in FIGHT program. Then since for many that is too rigorous a requirement, so let’s have an EMERGENCY SUPPORT PACKAGE in the homes of anyone that realizes who important this new research is!  Have BioE’nR-G’y C, ACS 200, and high dose D AND A available to immediately begin at the first sign of active infections.

What if their vaccines turn out to be as wrong for stopping H1N1, as MMR has been shown to be for compromised children? After MMR in autistic kids the live virus from the vaccination later has been shown to be growing in the CSF of these children.  Will the current testing of the new swine flu vaccines even attempt to look for how many receiving the vaccines actually wind up being infected with the virus instead of being protected against the virus, as they are not able to launch an immune response to the vaccine?

It appears that the virus accesses the neuron through the axons in the GI tract and lung. This sets the stage then for loss of Dopamine secreting cells over time.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recent studies have suggested that the currently circulating strain of avian influenza has similar pathology to the 1918 flu. Though the subtypes of the viruses are different (Spanish flu shares the H1N1 subtype with the current H1N1 swine flu, whereas avian influenza has an H5N1 subtype), both viruses appear to enter the central nervous system (CNS) and can cause encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain.

Highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus can enter the central nervous system and induce neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/07/0900096106.abstract

1.       Haeman Janga,b,
2.       David Boltzc,
3.       Katharine Sturm-Ramirezc,1,
4.       Kennie R. Shepherda,2,
5.       Yun Jiaoa,
6.       Robert Websterc and
7.       Richard J. Smeynea,3

+Author Affiliations
1.       Departments of aDevelopmental Neurobiology and
2.       cInfectious Diseases/Virology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,
262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105-3678; and
3.       bIntegrated Program in Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee
Health Science Center, Memphis, TN 38163
1.      1Present address: Fogarty International Center, National Institutes
of   Health, 16 Center Drive, Room 202, Bethesda, MD 20892.
2.      2Present address: Department of Environmental and Occupational
Health, Rollins School of Public Health and Center for
neurodegenerative Disease, Emory University, Whitehead Biomedical
Research Building, 5th Floor, Room 575.1, Atlanta, GA, 30322.

Abstract
One of the greatest influenza pandemic threats at this time is posed by the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza viruses. To date, 61% of the 433 known human cases of H5N1 infection have proved fatal. Animals infected by H5N1 viruses have demonstrated acute neurological signs ranging from mild encephalitis to motor disturbances to coma. However, no studies have examined the longer-term neurologic consequences of H5N1 infection among surviving hosts. Using the C57BL/6J mouse, a mouse strain that can be infected by the A/Vietnam/1203/04 H5N1 virus without adaptation, we show that this virus travels from the peripheral nervous system into the CNS to higher levels of the neuroaxis. In regions infected by H5N1 virus, we observe activation of microglia and alpha-synuclein phosphorylation and aggregation that persists long after resolution of the infection. We also observe a significant loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta 60 days after infection. Our results suggest that a pandemic H5N1 pathogen, or other neurotropic influenza virus, could initiate CNS dis

I cannot say it more succinctly than he has here!  Get IODINE into patients! Lugols is cheap and not that bad tasting even 10 drops. Of course, any breast abnormality on Thermography needs to be painted and the Iodine will all absorb in a few hours and the red color disappears and with it often the lump!

I favor erring on the side of caution. I tend to give most people some iodine for at least awhile, as there is Bromine like PBDE (i.e. flame retardants) in almost every living thing on the planet today, so use my motto and F.I.G.H.T. BACK!!

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Date: 10/8/2009
Are Sea Vegetables the Cure for the Iodine Deficiency Epidemic?
Author: Joseph Pizzorno, ND
Source: Vitamin Retailer Magazine, November 2009
http://www.nhiondemand.com/AskDrJoe/ADJArticle.aspx?id=5&utm_source=Health+Studies+Journal+-+Professional&utm_campaign=e8a8915890-ADJ_SeaVegetables_Oct8th_2009&utm_medium=email

Iodine deficiency epidemic
Although most of us believe we are not deficient in iodine since the fortification of salt with iodine, the fact is most people are deficient and don’t know it. Due to changes in food intake, eating patterns and food production methods, iodine intake has been decreasing in the U.S. since the early 70’s. Even worse, we are exposed to increasing levels of environmental toxins that either block the absorption of iodine or block its actions in the body.
According to the National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES), 24-hour urine levels of iodine have decreased from average levels of 320 mcg/L during 1971-1974 to 165 mcg/L in 2001-2002 – a drop of almost 50%.1,2 NHANES (2003-2004) found a urinary iodine level of <50 mcg/L in 12% of the U.S. population, indicating severe deficiency (<100 mcg/L is indicative of deficiency).3 Iodine levels in the breast milk of nursing mothers in Boston showed that only 47% contained sufficient amounts of iodine to meet infant requirements.4 This dramatic drop in iodine intake is made worse by an increasing level of iodine uptake inhibitors – perchlorate, nitrate, and thiocyanate – in the food supply and environment.

Why has this happened?
Iodized salt is very effective in normalizing iodine intake. The problem is we eat less iodized salt. This has occurred for 2 reasons: first, we’ve all been told to decrease salt intake because excess consumption can elevate blood pressure. However, the more important cause is that almost everyone now eats more processed foods and meals at restaurants—most of these do not use iodized salt! This is made worse by the fact that the iodized salt sold for home use often contains less iodine than stated on the label and two other good sources of iodine, bread and milk products, now contain very little due to changes in how they are produced.
Dairy products used to contain a significant amount of iodine since it was used to disinfect cow udders and dairy processing equipment. Now, however, antibiotics and other methods are used instead. In addition, less iodine is used in feed supplements. With these changes, the average iodine content of U.S. whole cow’s milk had decreased from 602 mcg/L in 1978 to 155 mcg/L in 1990. A 2002 study found as little as 88 mcg/L, less than 15% of those measured in 1978.5 This is worsened by the substitution of soft drinks for milk by children, adolescents and adults so we drink less milk which has less iodine.6,7,8 Another significant source of iodine in the past was bread since iodate-based bread conditioners were used to prolong shelf life. Today, most commercial bakeries are using bromate-based conditioners instead.
Iodized salt may have less than we think because it evaporates over time from salt containers and shakers.9 The rate of evaporation is increased by humidity and heat. In the summer in humid areas of the country, the half life of iodine in salt can be as little as one week! Many in the natural products field use sea salt as a supposed better alternative to regular salt. Unfortunately, it is not iodized.

What happens when iodine levels are too low?
Everyone is aware that iodine is required to produce thyroid hormones, so if levels are too low people suffer hypothyroidism. This is one reason the incidence of clinical and subclinical hypothyroidism affects 10-15% of the population, especially women. Probably more prevalent are the other problems found in people with low to marginal levels of iodine. It is well known that low iodine levels in fetuses and children leads to impaired mental development and research has now shown an increased incidence of fibrocystic breast disease and breast cancer.10,11 Some research has also shown that iodine deficiency may contribute to obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), psychiatric disorders, and fibromyalgia.

Are sea vegetables a good source of iodine?
Although sea vegetables, i.e., seaweed, are common in many traditional diets – especially the Japanese, they are not commonly consumed in the U.S. Most people think of sea vegetables as a food source for iodine. Some are, but many aren’t, and you have to eat more than just a few sprinkles. Also, some may be contaminated with toxic metals.
As the table below shows, the amount of iodine in seaweed varies greatly.12 Just as sea vegetables have a high affinity for iodine, they also have a high affinity for toxic metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury.13 So be sure to only use those which are certified organic and preferably with an analysis of iodine and toxic metal content.

Conclusion
Iodine deficiency is a common and growing problem in North America. Fortunately, eating enough of the right kind of seaweed will replenish iodine supplies.

References
1 Hollowell JG, Staehling NW, Hannon WH, et al. 1998 Iodine nutrition in the United States: trends and public health implications: iodine excretion data from the National Health and Nutrition Surveys I and III (1971–1974 and 1988–1994). J Clin Endocrinol Metab. Oct1998;83(10):3401-8
2 Caldwell KL, Jones R, Hollowell JG. Urinary iodine concentration: United States National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey 2001-2002. Thyroid. Jul2005;15(7):692-9
3 Caldwell KL, Miller GA, Wang RY, et al,. Iodine status of the U.S. population, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004. Thyroid. Nov2008;18(11):1207-14
4 Pearce EN, Leung AM, Blount BC, et al. Breast milk iodine and perchlorate concentrations in lactating Boston-area women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2007;92:1673-1677
5 Pearce EN, Pino S, He X, et al. Sources of dietary iodine: bread, cows’ milk, and infant formula in the Boston area. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. Jul2004;89(7):3421-4
6 Keller KL, Kirzner J, Pietrobelli A, et al. Increased sweetened beverage intake is associated with reduced milk and calcium intake in 3- to 7-year-old children at multi-item laboratory lunches. J Am Diet Assoc. Mar2009;109(3):497-501
7 Rampersaud GC, Bailey LB, Kauwell GP. National survey beverage consumption data for children and adolescents indicate the need to encourage a shift toward more nutritive beverages. J Am Diet Assoc. Jan2003;103(1):97-100
8 Bleich SN, Wang YC, Wang Y, et al. Increasing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages among US adults: 1988-1994 to 1999-2004. Am J Clin Nutr. Jan2009;89(1):372-81
9 Dasgupta PK, Liu Y, Dyke JV. Iodine nutrition: iodine content of iodized salt in the United States. Environ Sci Technol. Feb2008;42(4):1315-23 10 Patrick L. Iodine: deficiency and therapeutic considerations. Altern Med Rev. Jun2008;13(2):116-27
11 Aceves C, Anguiano B, Delgado G. Is iodine a gatekeeper of the integrity of the mammary gland? J Mammary Gland Biol Neoplasia. Apr2005;10(2):189-96
12 Teas J, Pino S Critchley A and Braverman LE. Variability of Iodine Content in Common Commercially Available Edible Seaweeds. THYROID 2004;14:836-41
13 van Netten C, Hoption Cann SA, Morley DR, van Netten JP. Elemental and radioactive analysis of commercially available seaweed. Sci Total Environ. Jun2000;255(1-3):169-75 Dr. Joe Pizzorno is the founding president of Bastyr University and editor-in-chief of Integrative Medicine, A Clinician’s Journal. He is the co-author of seven books including the internationally acclaimed Textbook of Natural Medicine and the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, which has sold over a million copies and been translated into six languages.

Why is FDA so afraid to alert consumers to the possibility that amalgams contribute to total body mercury levels and that combined with eating fish, which they refuse to require adequate labeling there also, means that consumers have no knowledge why they have so many health issues in their family.

It seems that the experts will disagree, as to how much mercury in our body is from coal burning for power plants that settles in oceans and comes up in the food chain vs. how much is in the particulates we breath, which in one study in San Francisco was shown to be over 30% of all the total body burden of mercury. Breathing particulates carrying mercury is the major contributor or merely the second largest contributor may vary from research paper to research paper and be somewhat related to environmental circumstances of the patient group being studied.

We are very confident, however, that there is no safe level for lead or mercury and that there are serious synergies in their toxic effects on our health. It will come to pass someday that patients will know how much is in vaccines, amalgams, fish, and air they breathe and or water they bath in and in all of the many contributors to our body burdens of lead and mercury, which becomes complex as when we are born we are already loaded with them so there is no easy way out.

So I believe the day will come that everyone will consume oral chelators or improved Zeolite products daily and they will be as available as salt and pepper wherever we eat.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FDA’s Mercury Ruling Defies ALL Scientific Reasoning
by Dr. Mercola
August 22 2009
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/22/FDA-has-the-Audacity-to-Claim-Mercury-is-Completely-Harmless.aspx

In the video above I speak with Charles Brown, legal counsel for the Consumers for Dental Choice, which is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to educate the public about the health and environmental dangers of mercury fillings, and to ensure more effective government oversight on amalgam. Charles discusses the processes he’s been undertaking for the last 10 years to get dangerous mercury fillings removed from the market, and brings you up to speed on where we are today with the FDA’s most recent, atrocious ruling.
The U.S. FDA has issued a final regulation classifying dental amalgam without calling for stringent precautions for pregnant women and children — even though last June a court settlement filed by the Consumers for Dental Choice required the FDA to withdraw claims of mercury amalgam’s safety from its Web site and issue an advisory indicating:
“Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses.”
Instead, the FDA has classified the fillings as class II devices, meaning the agency is claiming that they are completely harmless. This stands in direct contradiction of the conclusions of the FDA’s own panel of scientific experts, and the findings of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT).
In fact, mercury dental fillings contribute 2 to 3 times as much mercury to the human body as all dietary and environmental sources combined. IAOMT is urging the FDA to change the ruling, ban dental amalgam from commerce and issue a mandatory recall on the product.

Charles Brown says:
“FDA broke its contract and broke its word that it would put warnings for children and unborn children for neurological damage. Bowing to the dental products industry, FDA for the first time in its history pulled a warning about neurological harm to children.”
“This contemptuous attitude toward children and the unborn will not go unanswered,” said Brown.  “We will see FDA in court.”
Vapors from dental mercury go into the human body. Due to mercury waste, amalgam is also increasingly targeted by environmentalists. Amalgam has also become controversial because the middle-class has largely moved to non-toxic alternatives while the poor, minorities, and institutional recipients, such as soldiers and prisoners, still get mercury amalgam.

Sources:

Medical News Today July 29, 2009

International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology Press Release (PDF)

International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology Position Paper on Dental Amalgam (PDF)

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: INTEGRATIVE MEDICAL-CONSULTING

School drinking water contains toxins
By GARANCE BURKE,Associated Press Writer

CUTLER, Calif. – Over the last decade, the drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain unsafe levels of lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins.

An Associated Press investigation found that contaminants have surfaced at public and private schools in all 50 states — in small towns and inner cities alike.

But the problem has gone largely unmonitored by the federal government, even as the number of water safety violations has multiplied.

“It’s an outrage,” said Marc Edwards, an engineer at Virginia Tech who has been honored for his work on water quality. “If a landlord doesn’t tell a tenant about lead paint in an apartment, he can go to jail. But we have no system to make people follow the rules to keep school children safe?”

The contamination is most apparent at schools with wells, which represent 8 to 11 percent of the nation’s schools. Roughly one of every five schools with its own water supply violated the Safe Drinking Water Act in the past decade, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed by the AP.
In California’s farm belt, wells at some schools are so tainted with pesticides that students have taken to stuffing their backpacks with bottled water for fear of getting sick from the drinking fountain.

Experts and children’s advocates complain that responsibility for drinking water is spread among too many local, state and federal agencies, and that risks are going unreported. Finding a solution, they say, would require a costly new national strategy for monitoring water in schools.

Schools with unsafe water represent only a small percentage of the nation’s 132,500 schools. And the EPA says the number of violations spiked over the last decade largely because the government has gradually adopted stricter standards for contaminants such as arsenic and some disinfectants.
Many of the same toxins could also be found in water at homes, offices and businesses. But the contaminants are especially dangerous to children, who drink more water per pound than adults and are more vulnerable to the effects of many hazardous substances.

“There’s a different risk for kids,” said Cynthia Dougherty, head of the EPA’s Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water.
Still, the EPA does not have the authority to require testing for all schools and can only provide guidance on environmental practices.
In recent years, students at a Minnesota elementary school fell ill after drinking tainted water. A young girl in Seattle got sick, too.
The AP analyzed a database showing federal drinking water violations from 1998 to 2008 in schools with their own water supplies. The findings:
• Water in about 100 school districts and 2,250 schools breached federal safety standards.
• Those schools and districts racked up more than 5,550 separate violations. In 2008, the EPA recorded 577 violations, up from 59 in 1998 — an increase that officials attribute mainly to tougher rules.
• California, which has the most schools of any state, also recorded the most violations with 612, followed by Ohio (451), Maine (417), Connecticut (318) and Indiana (289).
• Nearly half the violators in California were repeat offenders. One elementary school in Tulare County, in the farm country of the Central Valley, broke safe-water laws 20 times.
• The most frequently cited contaminant was coliform bacteria, followed by lead and copper, arsenic and nitrates.

The AP analysis has “clearly identified the tip of an iceberg,” said Gina Solomon, a San Francisco physician who serves on an EPA drinking water advisory board. “This tells me there is a widespread problem that needs to be fixed because there are ongoing water quality problems in small and large utilities, as well.”

Schools with wells are required to test their water and report any problems to the state, which is supposed to send all violations to the federal government.

But EPA officials acknowledge the agency’s database of violations is plagued with errors and omissions. And the agency does not specifically monitor incoming state data on school water quality.
Critics say those practices prevent the government from reliably identifying the worst offenders — and carrying out enforcement.

Scientists say the testing requirements fail to detect dangerous toxins such as lead, which can wreak havoc on major organs and may retard children’s learning abilities.

“There is just no excuse for this. Period,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. “We want to make sure that we fix this problem in a way that it will never happen again, and we can ensure parents that their children will be safe.”

The problem goes beyond schools that use wells. Schools that draw water from public utilities showed contamination, too, especially older buildings where lead can concentrate at higher levels than in most homes.
In schools with lead-soldered pipes, the metal sometimes flakes off into drinking water. Lead levels can also build up as water sits stagnant over weekends and holidays.

Schools that get water from local utilities are not required to test for toxins because the EPA already regulates water providers. That means there is no way to ensure detection of contaminants caused by schools’ own plumbing.

But voluntary tests in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Seattle and Los Angeles have found dangerous levels of lead in recent years. And experts warn the real risk to schoolchildren is going unreported.

“I really suspect the level of exposure to lead and other metals at schools is undere stimated,” said Michael Schock, a corrosion expert with the EPA in Cincinnati. “You just don’t know what is going on in the places you don’t sample.”

Since 2004, the agency has been asking states to increase lead monitoring. As of 2006, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found nearly half of all schools nationwide do not test their water for lead.

Because contaminant levels in water can vary from drinking fountain to drinking fountain, and different children drink different amounts of water, epidemiologists often have trouble measuring the potential threats to children’s health.

But children have suffered health problems attributed to school water:
• In 2001, 28 children at a Worthington, Minn., elementary school experienced severe stomach aches and nausea after drinking water tainted with lead and copper, the result of a poorly installed treatment system.
• In Seattle several years ago, a 6-year-old girl suffered stomach aches and became disoriented and easily exhausted. The girl’s mother asked her daughter’s school to test its water, and also tested a strand of her daughter’s hair. Tests showed high levels of copper and lead, which figured into state health officials’ decision to phase-in rules requiring schools to test their water for both contaminants.
Many school officials say buying bottled water is less expensive than fixing old pipes. Baltimore, for instance, has spent more than $2.5 million on bottled water over the last six years.
After wrestling with unsafe levels of arsenic for almost two years, administrators in Sterling, Ohio, southeast of Cincinnati, finally bought water coolers for elementary school students last fall. Now they plan to move students to a new building.
In California, the Department of Public Health has given out more than $4 million in recent years to help districts overhaul their water systems.
But school administrators in the farmworker town of Cutler cannot fix chronic water problems at Lovell High School because funding is frozen due to the state’s budget crisis.
Signs posted above the kitchen sink warn students not to drink from the tap because the water is tainted with nitrates, a potential carcinogen, and DBCP, a pesticide scientists say may cause male sterility.
As gym class ended one morning, thirsty basketball players crowded around a five-gallon cooler, the only safe place to get a drink on campus.
“The teachers always remind us to go to the classroom and get a cup of water from the cooler,” said sophomore Israel Aguila. “But the bathroom sinks still work, so sometimes you kind of forget you can’t drink out of them.”

Why not read the new Dr Tom Levy Vitamin C book, CURING THE INCURABLE, and keep a copy in your waiting room. Patients will see that you are an environmentally aware physician and that affordable approaches to even incurable diseases are available. Let your patients review a copy of this book and they will learn about how all infections and most toxins are proven to be more effectively handled with high levels of vitamin C.

Since, in testing of thousands now, I have found virtually everyone can handle 5-15,000 mg a day of BIOE’NR-G’Y C when taken in divided doses of 2 grams in 2-3 ounces of fluid every 2-4 hours during the day. This means that the research about Vitamin C Dr Levy writes about and supports with over 1200 published references can empower your patients not to visit an emergency room and to have healthier babies.

Remember there is no pregnant woman on the planet that does not have measurable levels of toxins and pathogens that are greater than what is in their and their baby’s best interest. If they have never heard about Zeolite, at least most have heard about vitamin C.

Now you have in one convenient book, Curing the Incurable, the way to educate your staff and patients and help stop the epidemic of Autism.

And with BIOE’NR-G’Y C and Vitamin C Stix you can educate your patients that they can conveniently maintain the highest levels of vitamin C in their blood and prove it by maintaining a yellow color on the test strip for Vitamin C urine excretion, which is called the BRIGHT SPOT so that they and their child will have a bright life.

Many inferior products will never be tolerated well enough to permit the excretion of high levels in the urine around the clock 24/7, which is needed to continuously remove the toxins we all eat, breath, and drink. Without excreting these toxins they will bioaccumulate in the baby and even lead and mercury levels in humans can be lowered with high dose C. That at least helps even if they are not up to adding Zeolite to their daily protection program.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vitamin C May Boost Babies’ Brain Health
Tuesday September 22, 2009
http://altmedicine.about.com/b/2009/09/22/vitamin-c-may-boost-babies-brain-health.htm

New research shows that running low on vitamin C may hamper mental development in newborn babies.
In experiments on newborn guinea pigs, scientists discovered that animals with a moderate vitamin C deficiency had significantly worse spatial memory than guinea pigs fed a normal diet. What’s more, the C-deficient animals had 30 percent fewer neurons (nerve cells) in the hippocampus (a region of the brain involved in forming, sorting, and storing memories).
About five to 10 percent of newborns in Western countries may suffer from vitamin C deficiency, the study’s authors estimate. Since vitamin C deficiency may play a role in the development of learning disabilities, the authors add, it may be advisable for high-risk pregnant women to take a vitamin C supplement.
An antioxidant abundant in citrus fruits and juices, strawberries, tomatoes, and leafy greens, vitamin C has also been found to protect against gum disease and the common cold in previous studies.

In the past, I have sent you emails about HEPARIN and I mentioned consulting with ww.thrombocare.com in Texas. I am sorry to report that their director Rodger Bick MD PhD, hematologist, Pathologist from University of Texas is deceased and their lab is closed. I believe that he was one of the leading authorities in the world about coagulation related issues, and that, as he said, 2 million die each year from blood clots that are usually called MI’s strokes or pulmonary emboli, so we need to provide a better answer than Coumadin, Plavix etc. That is 2 million deaths that I find are largely avoidable with the right blood viscosity lowering approach!

Patients contact me daily about how Coumadin is wrecking their life. Now then, I have for years believed in the INFORMED CONSENT approach in which a fully informed patient is free to decide for themselves what treatment to follow. Once a patient has read my informed consent approach to Coumadin (see www.gordonresearch.com  and use search and type in Coumadin and do the same SEARCH on FACT to learn more and find my Informed Consent).

Then I believe that  anyone is  entitled to accept full personal responsibility for not using mainstream drugs for their clot prevention, or to augment the effect of their standard meds with alternatives like BC-I, with or without Boluoke. That is my standard MINIMUM alternative approach. However, we have patients with serious histories of obvious coagulopathies and they deserve the best lab tests to try to understand the predicament in which they find themselves. Big Labs like Quest and LAB Core charge $1200 for their panels but there is always more to learn about how to interpret the tests and which tests to use.

I inform all my patients that there is no established test to provide the assurance that they are adequately lowering platelet adhesiveness or getting enough anticoagulant benefit. There is one patient that has gone to the extreme and is using Essential Daily Defense, Boluoke, Endokinase, BC-I and extra OMEGA 3, all in large quantities but is able to keep his INR in the ranges he was accustomed to on Coumadin, which he could not tolerate.

Clearly there is still a great deal to learn about all of this and I have just discussed this with DAVID BERG formerly lab director of HEMEX labs. He has formed ARIZONA COAGULATION CONSULTANTS in PHOENIX at 602 793 4361 and his email is davidberg@azrf.org.  He charges a minimum of $50 for any consultation with health professionals and $100 per hour for more lengthy consultations.

He is not a MD but he has extensive experience in this area that I believe may be helpful when you are contacted by a patient with a history that could be a genetic linked coag defect, as in LEIDEN 5, which is found in 5% of our population or may have chronic infections that have led to ANTIPHOSPHOLIPID SYNDROME. He is not going to tell patients that my suggestions above are adequate or recommend therapy but I see that the need is to help patients QUANTIFY the extent of their RISK.

That means more patients over time will need tests and most have no idea of what is covered and which labs to use and what tests could cost them, which is information that I believe David Berg can offer assistance with for your problem patients with histories of clot related problems. The more you learn, the more things will be seen to relate to increased blood viscosity and/or hypercoagulability.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

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#1
Dear Dr. Gordon:

In 2004 you helped me start to get off the drug coumadin by introducing me to the Longevity Plus EDD capsules that have EDTA in them and garlic. We found that three EDD caps every four hours during my waking hours would duplicate coumadin. My INR was almost 2.0 without any coumadin which has major negative side effects. I have a one inch St. Jude mechanical aortic heart valve.

For years I also took nattokinase. You recently introduced me to Boluoke which lasts longer and works better.

I had to quit one of the finest jobs I ever had due to temporary strokes during the day. I went to leading top neurologists and they said the problem was blood clots caused by my mechanical aortic heart valve. They had no solution but you did: EDD capsules and nattokinase. (Now Boluoke.)

Here is my current daily EDD and Boluoke schedule:

7:00 AM One capsule Boluoke, three EDD capsules, and one 1000mg. Carlson fish oil capsule.
11:00 AM One fish oil cap and three EDD caps.
3:30 PM One fish oil caps and three EDD caps.
6:30 PM One fish oil cap and three EDD caps.
7:00 One Boluoke cap. (Evening dosage.)
10:00PM Just before bedtime, to cover me all night, I take three EDD caps and one fish oil cap.

God Bless and keep you safe,
JT
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#2
Dear Dr. Gordon,

Eight years ago, I had my first heart attack. I was stented emergently in my LAD coronary artery, and later stented electively in my right coronary artery.

After recovery, I did all the recommended things like taking the cardiac rehab course offered by the hospital, taking my post op drugs like blood thinners, ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, and a statin. Then I found your web site and your publications.

Soon, I was off all drugs, getting all my necessary metabolic needs via diet, and supplements, and your package, Beyond Chelation Improved. I was doing all the right things, promoting your BCI, and feeling very good. This got me eight years of life with absolutely no symptoms. Two weeks ago, I had a second heart attack.

I had a feeling when I was again transported to the hospital that the problem wasn’t diffuse disease but a narrowing stent lumen which indeed was exactly the case. All distal arteries were open and clear of any detectable disease but the old stent had fibrosed to 99% occlusion. The fibrotic section was cleaned out and a new stent was placed inside the old stent. (If your work would be enhanced by images of the before and after arteriogram please let me know and I will forward you images of the scans.)

Bottom line, I feel great and judging from the arteriogram, it appears that the supplement program and the BCI did as advertised and kept my heart arteries clean and clear, without the side effects of all the big-pharma recommended drugs with all their attendant side effects. I did agree to take Plavix for a while, (the cardiologist said for at least a year, however, I think I will ease off this and substitute nattokinase).

Anyway, here is my present question: is there something I could have done and could now do that would have prevented the stent from the fibrosis? It seems to me that there should be some natural substance that might have minimized the risk of fibrosis or from the foreign body reaction that occurred in my stent. FYI, my original stent was not the “medicated” type since at the time, there was no medicated stent on-hand large enough for my coronary artery (5mm).

I am convinced that the BCI works but for those like myself who have stents, is there another therapy that I can use to prevent a recurrence? FYI, I am not your average ‘civilian’ heart patient. For eight years, I was a cardiopulmonary perfusionist, the person that operates the heart lung machine during heart surgery.

Thanks in advance,
MS
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Dear MS:
Thanks for sharing your important information! I am sorry that you had the second heart attack. I expect, however, that you can regain high functioning although for awhile you may want to consider use of CO-Q, Carnitine, Ribose, Testosterone, and other things I write about continually to the 2000 health professional members of FACT.

I think it is really important for us to let others hear of your story. Everyone with a stent then ideally needs to be on Beyond Chelation-Improved AND either Nattokinase or Boluoke. I believe you are right; you definitely have great alternatives to Plavix that offer better protection with less side effect. I would replace it or Coumadin with Nattokinase (Endokinase) or Boluoke taken twice a day.

As you read up on both, you will see that they have slightly different mechanisms of action and it appears that Boluoke is a bit stronger. Since Boluoke is also more expensive I have some patients use one of each (ie take the Nattokinase each AM and the Boluoke each PM).

The question is to save money would short term use of the enzyme as for several months be sufficient?  I am afraid to gamble. You could use more aggressive doses for a couple of months in an effort to reduce some blockages but I feel that we all have excessive clotting tendencies for many reasons today, and I would recommend LIFE TIME protection with one of those enzymes for you. I believe today with the toxins and pathogens we find in all of us, that my future recommendations are going to HAVE to include Boluoke or Nattokinase for everyone with a history of a heart attack and certainly for anyone that has a stent.

BC-I clearly continues to keep people alive around the world all by itself so it continues to prove its usefulness, but with the increasing pollution, and the presence of a foreign material like a stent, in a patient with a history of a prior heart attack, it is clear that adding one of those enzymes is necessary for optimal protection.
Sincerely,

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Whatever the chronic neurologic disease condition you are treating, the probability of a chronic infection contributing to the disease is extremely high! Garth Nicolson PhD has presented this information to ACAM and other organizations and was the first one to identify the infection component of Gulf War Syndrome.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

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LABMEDICINE
Volume 39 Number 5
May 2008

Chronic Bacterial and Viral Infections in Neurodegenerative and Neurobehavioral Diseases

Garth L. Nicolson, PhD
(Department of Molecular Pathology, The Institute for Molecular Medicine, Huntington Beach, CA)

DOI: 10.1309/96M3BWYP42L11BFU/

Abstract

Often, patients with neurodegenerative or neurobehavioral diseases have chronic, neuropathic infections that could be important in disease inception, disease progression, or increasing the types or severities of signs and symptoms. Although controversial, the majority of patients with various neurodegenerative or neurobehavioral conditions, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and autistic spectrum disorders, show evidence of central nervous system or systemic bacterial and viral infections. For example, using serology or polymerase chain reaction evidence of Chlamydia pneumoniae, Borrelia burgdorferi, Mycoplasma species, human herpesvirus-1 and -6, and other bacterial and viral infections revealed high infection rates that were not found in control subjects. Although chronic infections were not found in some studies, and the specific role of chronic infections in neurological disease pathogenesis has not been determined or is inconclusive, the data suggest that chronic bacterial or viral infections could be common features of progressive neurodegenerative and neurobehavioral diseases.

Full Text by clicking the link: http://tinyurl.com/5vn768 and scroll down the page

With a full career in the military this poor guy was shot full of vaccines!!  How dirty were those vaccines.  Many say that vaccines can and has given patients, especially military personnel.

Lord knows the foods he was fed no doubt were GMO foods?

Bottom-line, we NEED to stop labeling everything with the word “Lyme”!  We need to focus on detoxing environmental toxins, and the poisons in GMO foods.   Plus, if we get word of the work “Lyme” no doubt more insurance companies would pay for treatments.  After all, Lyme symptoms can and are labeled with Fibro, Arthritis, Alzheimers, etc., etc., etc.

Keep your thinking caps on folks, there is more than one way to win this war against the diseases we are dealing with today!!

Angel Huggzz

Linda

Drwal drops election bid due to conditions
Medical issues related to service in military
BY JENNIFER BOOTON Staff Writer

Drwal, a 24-year veteran of the U.S. Army who retired as a lieutenant colonel after serving in various regions around the world, has been dealing with military-related injuries for over a decade.

“I had a couple of injuries when I was in the military,” he said. “I suffered injuries to both of my legs, which caused walking problems, and I suffered some neurological problems that affected speech and balance.”

Drwal, a member of the Disabled American Veterans Chapter 67, also suffered from a tick-related disease while he was abroad, although the symptoms did not surface until years later.

“Last year I got really sick, and it turns out I had Lyme disease, and they are finding more and more troops that have been stationed in Europe have been coming down with it,” he said. “It just came on last year, attacking my joints and my neurological system.”

Full article: http://suburban.gmnews.com/news/2009/0917/front_page/003.html