Link: http://www.blaylockreport.com/

Excerpt:

Dr. Blaylock: Body Scanners More Dangerous Than Feds Admit
Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:58 AM
By Dr. Russell Blaylock
 
Dr. Russell Blaylock is a nationally recognized board-certified neurosurgeon, health practitioner, author, lecturer, and editor of The Blaylock Wellness Report. 
 
The growing outrage over the Transportation Security Administrations new policy of backscatter scanning of airline passengers and enhanced pat-downs brings to mind these wise words from President Ronald Reagan: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: Im from the government and Im here to help you. 

So, what is all the concern really about – will these radiation scanners increase your risk of cancer or other diseases? A group of scientists and professors from the University of California at San Francisco voiced their concern to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren in a well-stated letter back in April. 
The group included experts in radiation biology, biophysics, and imaging, who expressed serious concerns about the dangerously high dose of radiation to the skin. 

Radiation increases cancer risk by damaging the DNA and various components within the cells. Much of the damage is caused by high concentrations of free radicals generated by the radiation. Most scientists think that the most damaging radiation types are those that have high penetration, such as gamma-rays, but in fact, some of the most damaging radiation barely penetrates the skin. 

One of the main concerns is that most of the energy from the airport scanners is concentrated on the surface of the skin and a few millimeters into the skin. Some very radiation-sensitive tissues are close to the skin – such as the testes, eyes, and circulating blood cells in the skin. 

This is why defenders using such analogies as the dose being 1,000-times less than a chest X-ray and far less than what passengers are exposed to in-flight are deceptive. Radiation damage depends on the volume of tissue exposed. Chest X-rays and gamma-radiation from outer space is diffused over the entire body so that the dose to the skin is extremely small. Of note, outer space radiation does increase cancer rates in passengers, pilots, and flight attendants. 

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ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The metabolism of amyloid precursor protein
(APP) and beta-amyloid (Abeta) is widely studied in Alzheimer’s
disease, where Abeta deposition and plaque development are
essential components of the pathogenesis.
However, the physiological role of amyloid in the adult nervous
system remains largely unknown. We have previously found altered
cerebral amyloid metabolism in other neuroinflammatory
conditions. To further elucidate this, we investigated amyloid
metabolism in patients with Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB).

METHODS: The
first part of the study was a cross-sectional cohort study in 61
patients with acute facial palsy (19 with LNB and 42 with
idiopathic facial paresis, Bell’s
palsy) and 22 healthy controls. CSF was analysed for the
beta-amyloid peptides Abeta38, Abeta40 and Abeta42, and the
amyloid precursor protein (APP) isoforms alpha-sAPP and
beta-sAPP. CSF total-tau (T-tau), phosphorylated tau (P-tau) and
neurofilament protein (NFL) were measured to monitor neural cell
damage. The second part of the study was a prospective
cohort-study in 26 LNB patients undergoing consecutive lumbar
punctures before and after antibiotic treatment to study
time-dependent dynamics of the biomarkers.

RESULTS: In the cross-sectional
study, LNB patients had lower levels of CSF alpha-sAPP, beta-sAPP
and P-tau, and higher levels of CSF NFL than healthy controls and
patients with Bell’s palsy.
In the prospective study, LNB patients had low levels of CSF
alpha-sAPP, beta-sAPP and P-tau at baseline, which all increased
towards normal at follow-up.

June 17, 2010 — Concern that a new human gamma-retrovirus may be transmissible through blood has led one infectious diseases specialist to recommend new steps to protect the US blood supply against possible infection with the virus.

The transfusion medicine organization AABB has formed a task force to study the transmission potential of xenotropic murine leukemia virus–related virus (XMRV), which has been linked to familial prostate cancer and, more recently, to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Excerpt:

Although the risk of infection with hepatitis and human
immunodeficiency viruses from blood transfusions has been reduced
to negligible levels, emerging infections continue to offer
threats. Such threats occur with any infection that has an
asymptomatic, blood-borne phase. In the past, it was thought that
any emerging transfusion-transmitted disease would have
epidemiologic properties similar to those of AIDS or viral
hepatitis. Over the past 20 years, however, greatest concern has
arisen from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, West Nile virus,
and Babesia. These and other emerging infections are discussed in
the context of blood safety. Copyright (c)  2010 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.

The ability of the thymus to generate a population of T cells that is, for the most part, self-restricted and self-tolerant depends to a great extent on the Ags encountered during differentiation. We recently showed that mycobacteria disseminate to the thymus, which raised the questions of how mycobacteria within the thymus influence T cell differentiation and whether such an effect impacts host-pathogen interactions. Athymic nude mice were reconstituted with thymic grafts from Mycobacterium avium-infected or control noninfected donors. T cells generated from thymi of infected donors seemed generally normal, because they retained the ability to reconstitute the periphery and to respond to unspecific stimuli in vitro as well as to antigenic stimulation with third-party Ags, such as OVA, upon in vivo immunization. However, these cells were unable to mount a protective immune response against a challenge with M. avium. The observation that thymic infection interferes with T cell differentiation, generating T cells that are tolerant to pathogen-specific Ags, is of relevance to understand the immune response during chronic persistent infections. In addition, it has potential implications for the repertoire of T cells generated in patients with a mycobacterial infection recovering from severe lymphopenia, such as patients coinfected with HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy.

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Acupuncture, which is based on the theory that inserting and manipulating fine needles at specific acupuncture points located in a network of meridians will promote the harmonious flow of “Qi,” is one of the most widely practised modalities of alternative medicine. Because needles are inserted up to several centimetres beneath the skin, acupuncture may pose risks to patients. One of the most important complications is transmission of pathogenic micro-organisms, from environment to patient or from one patient to another.

In the 1970s and 1980s most infections associated with acupuncture were sporadic cases involving pyogenic bacteria.1 So far, more than 50 cases have been described globally. In most cases, pyogenic bacteria were transmitted from the patient’s skin flora or the environment because of inadequate skin disinfection before acupuncture. In localised infections, meridian specific and acupuncture point specific lesions were typical. About 70% of patients had musculoskeletal or skin infections, usually in the form of abscesses or septic arthritis, corresponding to the site of insertion of the acupuncture needles.1 2 A minority had infective endocarditis, meningitis, endophthalmitis, cervical spondylitis, retroperitoneal abscess, intra-abdominal abscess, or thoracic empyema.3 4

Full article: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/mar18_1/c1268

Excerpt:

Acupuncture, which is based on the theory that inserting and manipulating fine needles at specific acupuncture points located in a network of meridians will promote the harmonious flow of “Qi,” is one of the most widely practiced modalities of alternative medicine. Because needles are inserted up to several centimetres beneath the skin, acupuncture may pose risks to patients. One of the most important complications is transmission of pathogenic micro-organisms, from environment to patient or from one patient to another.

In the 1970s and 1980s most infections associated with acupuncture were sporadic cases involving pyogenic bacteria.1 So far, more than 50 cases have been described globally. In most cases, pyogenic bacteria were transmitted from the patient’s skin flora or the environment because of inadequate skin disinfection before acupuncture. In localised infections, meridian specific and acupuncture point specific lesions were typical. About 70% of patients had musculoskeletal or skin infections, usually in the form of abscesses or septic arthritis, corresponding to the site of insertion of the acupuncture needles.1 2 A minority had infective endocarditis, meningitis, endophthalmitis, cervical spondylitis, retroperitoneal abscess, intra-abdominal abscess, or thoracic empyema.3 4

Excerpt:

Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) is a recently discovered gammaretrovirus that has been linked to prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome. This virus is therefore an important potential human pathogen and, as such, it is essential to understand its host cell tropism. Intriguingly, infectious virus has been recovered from patient-derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells. These cells express several antiviral restriction factors that are capable of inhibiting the replication of a wide range of retroviruses, including other gamma retroviruses. This raises the possibility that, similar to HIV, XMRV may have acquired resistance to restriction. We therefore investigated the susceptibility of XMRV to a panel of different restriction factors. We found that both human APOBEC3 and tetherin proteins are able to block XMRV replication. Expression of human TRIM5alpha, however, had no effect on viral infectivity. There was no evidence that XMRV expressed countermeasures to overcome restriction. In addition, the virus was inhibited by factors from nonhuman species, including mouse Apobec3, tetherin, and Fv1 proteins. These results have important implications for predicting the natural target cells for XMRV replication, for relating infection to viral pathogenicity and pathology, and for the design of model systems with which to study XMRV-related diseases.

Videos from the Conference:
http://www.ifarablo g.org/

http://www.medpaget oday.com/ MeetingCoverage/ CROI/18610
CROI: Secrets of Novel Retrovirus Unfolding

By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: February 21, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – The mystery surrounding a retrovirus recently implicated
in prostate cancer and possibly chronic fatigue syndrome is beginning to
yield clues.

The virus, known as XMRV, has been confirmed to replicate primarily in
reproductive organs and lymphoid tissue, according to a primate study
reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

A second study found markers that could be the key to developing an
assay for the large scale epidemiologic studies needed to determine how
widely the virus has penetrated in the population, and what effect it has.

“We’re at a very, very early stage working with this virus,” said
conference vice-chair John Coffin, PhD, of Tufts University in
Boston.Action Points
Note that these studies were published as abstracts and presented at a
conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be
preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
He likened it to the early days of HIV research, when scientists
scrambled to make sense of the virus, but cautioned that has yet to be
any clear evidence linking it to disease.

XMRV burst onto the scene four years ago when researchers doing a broad
sweep for viruses in prostate cancer samples turned up evidence of a
retrovirus that resembled the murine leukemia virus, earning it the
abbreviation xenotropic murine leukemia-related virus (XMRV).

“The similarity [in genetic sequence] is so striking that although we
don’t know the details we have to assume it’s coming from mice,” Stephen
Goff, PhD, of Columbia University in New York City, told MedPage Today.

The genetic sequence of all XMRV isolates tested across the country, and
across diseases, show so little divergence that the virus must have only
recently jumped to humans — likely from a point source and with limited
numbers of replication cycles during transmission, Goff said in a
plenary lecture on XMRV at the conference.

This implies that a vaccine might be much easier to develop than for
HIV, he explained at a press conference.

However, while this class of retroviruses appears to be characterized by
lifelong infection that cannot be cleared by the immune system, there’s
no clear proof yet that XMRV causes illness or the diseases it’s been
linked to, he emphasized.

Even the links to prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome are
controversial, with centers reporting anywhere from 0% to 23% and 0% to
67% prevalence in tested cases, respectively, Goff noted.

To learn more about how the virus might interact with the human immune
system, scientists at the Cleveland Clinic, Yerkes National Primate
Research Center at Emory University, and Abbott Diagnostics collaborated
on an animal model.

Prachi Sharma, PhD, of Emory, presented part of the results involving
monkeys.

She reported that acutely infected monkeys tested positive for virus
replicating in a number of tissues.

Chronic infection, though, appeared largely limited to CD4+ T cells in
lymphoid organs — spleen, lymph nodes, and GI tract — as well as in
reproductive organs, including prostate, testes, ovaries, vagina, and
cervix.

Other experimental lab studies have shown the virus to be androgen and
hormone responsive, which bears on the cell types in which it will be
found, Goff said.

It was notable that the monkeys exhibited no visible symptoms or fever
when infected, said John Hackett, Jr., PhD, of Abbott Diagnostics in
Abbott Park, Ill.

He reported the group’s efforts to develop assays to detect XMRV infections.

In the monkeys, antibodies to gag p30, env gp70 and env p15E were observed.

The researchers were also able to show, for the first time, the
existence of antibodies to multiple XMRV proteins in humans.

However, they occured in only three of 2,851 human blood samples.

Detection in humans has proven challenging, but whether this reflects
the virus’ life cycle, a combination of viral properties and the length
of time between infection and disease, or some other factor is unclear,
Hackett said.

“Part of it is the ability to identify it to begin with,” Hackett told
MedPage Today. “You could argue we haven’t been looking for it.”

Sharma’s study was supported by Abbott Diagnostics and a grant from the
National Institutes of Health.

Hackett reported conflicts of interest with Abbott Diagnostics.

Goff reported support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the
Department of Defense Prostate Program.

Primary source: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections

Source reference:
Goff S “Mouse to Man? XMRV and Human Disease” CROI 2010; Abstract 132.

Additional source: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections
Source reference:
Qui X, et al “XMRV: Examination of Viral Kinetics, Tissue Tropism, and
Serological Markers of Infection” CROI 2010; Abstract 151.

Additional source: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections
Source reference:
Sharma P, et al “Organ and Cell Lineage Dissemination of XMRV in Rhesus
Macaques during Acute and Chronic Infection” CROI 2010; Abstract 150 LB.

Excerpt:

Now, researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, UCLA, Harvard University, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Cornell University have teamed up to develop and test a broad-spectrum antiviral compound capable of stopping a wide range of highly dangerous viruses, including Ebola, HIV, hepatitis C virus, West Nile virus, Rift Valley fever virus and yellow fever virus, among others.