Dr. Gordon’s Comments: It appears that marijuana is going mainstream! This NY Times article shows that the Federal government is beginning to go with the flow. If the state permits the use of medical marijuana the VA system will no longer refuse to continue to treat the patient.

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

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/health/policy/24veterans.html?_r=1&pagewant

Excerpt:

DENVER — The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years. 

A department directive, expected to take effect next week, resolves the conflict in veterans facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the 14 states that allow medicinal use of the drug, effectively deferring to the states. 

The policy will not permit department doctors to prescribe marijuana. But it will address the concern of many patients who use the drug that they could lose access to their prescription pain medication if caught. 

Under department rules, veterans can be denied pain medications if they are found to be using illegal drugs. Until now, the department had no written exception for medical marijuana. 

This has led many patients to distrust their doctors, veterans say. With doctors and patients pressing the veterans department for formal guidance, agency officials began drafting a policy last fall. 

Excerpt:

A 52-year-old male marathon runner with a past medical history significant for glaucoma presented to the emergency department with a two-week history of increasing fatigue after an episode of syncope.

He initially presented to his primary care doctor’s office complaining of flu like symptoms one week after running a marathon and three weeks prior to admission. He described fever, chills, night sweats, increasing fatigue and body aches. He was noted to be an avid runner who had finished within the top five to ten athletes in prior marathons. He stated that despite training intensely, he only finished in 50th place. During this visit, a chest x-ray was obtained which showed no evidence of pneumonia or other abnormalities. He was diagnosed with a minor viral upper respiratory tract infection and over the following week began to notice improvement of his symptoms.

He returned to the office two weeks after the initial visit with worsening fatigue and decreased exercise tolerance. He had become increasingly short of breath after running more than 2 milles. A serologic test for Lyme disease was performed to rule out Lyme carditis after an EKG showed first-degree heart block.

  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
 

¶ Minnesota health officials last week reported the state’s first death from Rocky Mountain spotted fever, as well as the state’s second-ever case of brain inflammation from the Powassan virus _ similar to West Nile, but spread by ticks instead of mosquitoes.

¶ Officials are also watching to see if the lone star tick, which can spread a Lyme-like disease, establishes itself permanently. The tick until recently wasn’t often found north of southern Iowa, but about a dozen have been identified in Minnesota this year. So far, no infections have been reported.

¶ Scientists aren’t sure why tick populations are expanding, but many suspect one factor could be that subtle changes in the climate are tipping the ticks’ complicated ecosystems toward expansion. The Minnesota Health Department has applied for a grant to study how climate change is affecting the state’s tick population, and Wisconsin is seeking funding for its own study.

¶ “We think about climate change all the time,” said David Neitzel, a Minnesota department expert in insect-borne diseases. With climate change, he said, “There is going to be a change in all the diseases we work on.”

¶ Deer ticks are a well-known threat to infect humans with their bite. Lyme disease, the best known infection spread by ticks, can result in fever, headache, fatigue and rash, and if left untreated can linger and spread damage to joints, the heart and the nervous system.

¶ Rocky Mountain spotted fever is spread by the American dog tick, also called the wood tick. While the tick is common in Minnesota, the bacteria is considered very rare here. Nationally, most cases are in the southeastern U.S. The symptoms include fever, vomiting, severe headache and a distinctive spotted rash.

¶ While none of the Upper Midwest states do a comprehensive tick census, they track the spread of ticks by following up on confirmed disease cases, doing some of their own sampling and identifying ticks sent in by the public.

¶ In Minnesota, deer ticks have expanded to the northwest from the traditional high-risk areas of eastern and central Minnesota. Neitzel said he’s seen it personally on his property in Becker County.

¶ “I’ve been stomping around up there since the early 1970s, but in just the last few years we’re seeing black-legged ticks up there,” he said. Deer ticks are also known as black-legged ticks.

¶ Canadian health officials report a growing deer tick population just north of Minnesota’s northern border, where there were none in the early 1990s. In Wisconsin, the ticks are marching from the northwest to the southeast. And in Iowa, the deer ticks are moving from the northeast toward the southeast and the center of the state.

¶ “We’re watching it, and certainly we’re concerned,” said Dr. Patty Quinlisk, Iowa state epidemiologist.

¶ The number of Lyme disease cases has been climbing in each state since 1993, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of cases more than doubled from 2000 to 2007 in all three states, reaching 1,814 cases in Wisconsin, 1,238 cases in Minnesota and 123 cases in Iowa.

¶ In Canada, government health researcher Nicholas Ogden found that in the early 1990s there was only one area infested by the ticks. Now, there are tick populations all along the northern border of Minnesota and the northeastern United States.

¶ “Recent studies have suggested that the risk of exposure to Lyme disease is emerging in Canada because the range (of the black-legged tick) is expanding, a process that is predicted to accele rate with climate change,” he wrote in a June 2009 article of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

¶ Melissa Kemperman, an expert in tick-borne diseases with the Minnesota Department of Health, said a changing climate can affect many variables for the ticks. “It’s not just the heat and humidity,” she said.

¶ For example, if birds and mammals move into new territory their ticks could hitch a ride. If that new habitat has plenty of food and shelter _ and doesn’t get too cold in the winter _ the ticks could get established year-round, she said.

¶ Also, humans can change tick habitat. To cite just one example, Neitzel said, when timber companies cut down an older section of a forest the new growth is better for ticks. There are more ground-level shrubs to live in and more mice and deer on which to feed.

¶ Public health officials say the changes mean anyone who goes into the woods needs to be extra vigilant. It also means that more doctors need to be on the lookout for tick-borne diseases in their patients.