Lethal and toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide, benzene, and methalene chloride are floating in the air over the oil spill. There’s a very high probability that residents exposed to the air surrounding the spill will suffer a direct hit to their health status such as debilitating diseases or various birth deformities and cancer as a long-term result. But first what these people will see is flu-like symptoms, which, like in the flu, are symptoms of intolerable amounts of foreign toxins, chemicals and heavy metals in the tissues dumping into the bloodstream.
 
     Even a small amount of benzene exposure can cause temporary nervous system disorders, immune system depression and anemia. Short-term affects include skin, eye, and respiratory tract irritation, headache, stomach irritation, drowsiness and dizziness. High levels of exposure can result in a rapid heart rate, excessive bleeding, tremors, vomiting, unconsciousness and death. Benzene can cause harmful effects on bone marrow and a decrease in red blood cells leading to myelofibrosis and myelodysplastic syndrome.
 
     That’s how it starts. Chemical exposure symptoms feel like a flu. Professor I.M. Trakhtenberg of Russia gives us a big hint when he says, “Chronic mercury exposure is also a threat to our health and makes us especially vulnerable to flu infections. It has been shown that “prolongedexposure of mammals (white mice) to low mercury concentrations (0.008 – 0.02mg/m3) leads to a significant increase in the susceptibility of mice topathological influenza virus strains.” For contemporary medicine to respond in an appropriate and humane way to the oil disaster it will have to leap out of the quagmire of its present paradigm an into one that understands the ‘terrain’ of human physiology and how that terrain is being overrun by chemical toxicity and heavy metals. WE DO NOT NEED TO BE ATTACKED BY AN INFLUENZA VIRUS STRAIN TO GET THE FLU. When we are attacked with nasty chemicals we are as likely to get the flu as when we are run over by viruses, which are more potent at driving health officials mad as at causing pandemics.
 
     “Blood elements such as WBCs, RBCs, hemoglobin, and bone marrow are adversely affected. With tissue proteins there is alteration of biological properties and protein synthesis. Enzyme; hormone; and endocrine functions of pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, ovaries, and testes are altered. There are pathological effects on the heart, liver, immune system, central nervous system, lungs, kidneys, and spleen.” continues Dr. Trakhtenberg.
 
     Thiol poisons react with SH groups of proteins, which leads to lowering the activity of various enzymes containing these proteins. This produces a series of disruptionsin the functional activity of many organs and tissues and this is the mechanism and pathological pathway of poisons that run us right into the ground. A toxic storm is gathering in the Gulf of Mexico and it contains devastating chemicals that can and will poison and destroy proteins with sulfur bonds.
 
Associated Illnesses
 
     According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, between 175,000 and 210,000 – or about 25 percent – of the living veterans of the 1991 Gulf War are currently afflicted by a debilitating, chronic, multi-symptom, multi-system disease commonly known as Gulf War Illness or Gulf War Syndrome. The Environmental Illness Resource , (http://imva.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=25b08cc8b5ebaf472984d04d0&id=f7a015aaa4&e=a053e43583) tells us that more than 110,000 cases had been reported by 1999, according to official government sources. There is even a report relating to military personnel in Kansas developing flu-like symptoms and chemical sensitivities after handling archived documents returned from the Gulf. In the UK, veterans of the 2003 conflict began reporting symptoms identical to those reported by the first war shortly after they returned from duty.
 
     The symptoms reported by veterans include:
 
Fatigue
Persistent Headaches
Muscle Aches/Pains
Neurological Symptoms, e.g. tingling and numbness in limbs
Cognitive Dysfunction – short-term memory loss, poor concentration, inability to take in information
Mood and Sleep Disturbances – Depression, Anxiety, Insomnia
Dermatological Symptoms – Skin Rashes, Unusual Hair Loss
Respiratory Symptoms – Persistent Coughing, Bronchitis, Asthma
Chemical Sensitivities
Gastrointestinal Symptoms – Diarrhea, Constipation, Nausea, Bloating
Cardiovascular Symptoms
Menstrual Symptoms
 
     These symptoms are similar to those attributed to chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivities and other environmental illnesses. This similarity hasn’t gone unnoticed, which is why many people, including healthcare professionals and researchers, are coming to the conclusion that all these illnesses share common causes and etiologies. Gulf War vets have developed ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, at twice the rate of vets who did not serve in the Gulf War. Some veterans returned seemingly well, yet developed severe illnesses months or years later. The lag time between cause and effect makes understanding these illnesses more difficult.
 
     Coalition troops were constantly exposed to chemicals (and vaccines) whose use is considered safe by people and organizations that do not know a safe substance from a dangerous one. The retreating Iraqi army ignited approximately 600 oil wells in February 1991, which burned for about nine months. These fires produced massive amounts of thick smoke that sometimes drifted to ground level causing increased exposure to ground troops. When this occurred the air pollution was far greater than would be experienced in the average traffic congested western city.
 
     Questionnaires filled in by US troops indicated higher rates of eye and upper respiratory tract irritation, shortness of breath, cough, rashes, and fatigue than unexposed troops. The smoke from oil well fires contained a cocktail of chemicals, notably benzene, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide as well as quantities of particulate matter.
 
Read The Full Article
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
Director International Medical Veritas Association
http://publications.imva.info
http://blog.imva.info
 

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.