The Perseus Books Group Message Boards

[Gary M - Author]

Dear "RainbowTom": I hope you were exaggerating when you signed off "having another sad in hell." If you were serious, I sincerely hope that you have fewer such days.

I cannot comment on the delays in commercializing the anti-squalene antibody assay. That is one of those questions that is best answered by Dr. Pamela Asa who is one of the assay's co-inventors. I will ask her to address this.

If you wish to have your sera tested for the antibodies, I recomment that you contact Dr. Asa. Her email is PMBA@aol.com. I believe the scientists at Tulane University Medical Center and Autoimmune Technologies intend to do everything they can to help retired and active duty service members get the answers they seek.

Sincerely,
Gary Matsumoto

[RainbowTom]

Thank You for answering my post.

I'm not in good shape and I'm on a lot of medication ( as if that was some sort of mystery )

Either this board is messed up in it's time reading or you are in the Far East. Because it's 10:00 Tues. in Niles, Ohio

That's all for now. I'll contact Pam and I promise to be civilized.
[img] http://www.rainbowrising.net/[/img]

[Gary M - Author]

Dear "arizroughrider": Dr. Nicolson's remarks, if they were indeed made by Dr. Nicolson, do not address a key issue in this discussion. Namely this: there is no defined Gulf War Syndrome.

Mycoplasma infection is not GWS; it is mycoplasma infection. MS, theoretically induced by squalene injection, is not Gulf War Syndrome; it is multiple sclerosis. Neurological injury allegedly caused by occult cyclosarin/sarin exposure is not Gulf War Syndrome; it is neurological injury—an injury, by the way, that should be capable of being fully characterized by molecular pathology. Finally, a birth defect in a child is not GWS, it is a birth defect.

If Dr. Nicolson is truly the author of the comments you posted, then out of a courtesy to him I hope you secured his permission to make them public before disclosing a personal communication to you in this forum.

As for my remarks on this subject, I am posting them in a public forum, so you are free to share them with anyone you please.

In case you haven't been able to ascertain my views from reading VACCINE A, let be as explicit as possible. I do not believe there is an all-encompassing Gulf War Syndrome. There is no evidence to support its existence.

There is, however, considerable evidence that many, if not most, sick GW veterans are suffering from a physical illness or injury. Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the VA have diagnosed many service members with "somatoform disorder," "somatization disorder" (psychosomatic illness) or PTSD, but these diagnoses are inconsistent with lab reports which confirm autoimmune disease in these same patients.

Pulmonary problems in veterans deployed near Kuwaiti oil fires may be due to smoke inhalation. Chronic fatigue may be due to subclinical mycoplasma infections. Some cancers may have resulted from DU exposure. However, for those service members who developed a fully diagnosed autoimmune disease, post-immunization, there is evidence that injection with an unlicensed vaccine adjuvant caused that disease. For those service members suffering from undiagnosed rheumatological ailments, i.e., fibromyalgia, there are reasons to suspect that these patients might, in fact, have an autoimmune disease. Such a disease may have been induced by administration of an experimental vaccine combined with oil adjuvant.

DR. NICOLSON & MYCOPLASMA
I believe Dr. Garth Nicolson has done veterans a great service. Out of concern and compassion for their welfare, he has proven that many sick veterans had mycoplasma infections and he successfully treated those infections.

There is, however, no evidence to support his earlier theory that sick GW veterans were infected with a specific species of mycoplasma allegedly engineered to carry the HIV-1 envelope gene, gp120.

There is zero evidence for the existence of a chimeric HIV/mycoplasma germ. No published scientific papers or declassified military documents verify the creation of such an organism. Such an organism has never been cultured from sick veterans, or anyone else.

There are other possible explanations for Nicolson's HIV-1 envelope gene finding, and I discussed them in another posting in this message string. It is worth noting, I think, that mycoplasma infections are common among immuno-compromised people, including HIV-positive patients. This association has been documented, for instance, with the species, M. penetrans:

Antonio Yáñez,* Lilia Cedillo,† Olivier Neyrolles,‡ Encarnación Alonso,* Marie-Christine Prévost,‡ Jorge Rojas,* Harold L. Watson,§ Alain Blanchard,‡ and Gail H. Cassell, Mycoplasma penetrans Bacteremia and Primary Antiphospholipid Syndrome1, 1Presented in part at the 11th International Congress of the International Organization for Mycoplasmology. July 14–19, 1996. Orlando, FL, USA), Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 5, No. 1, January - March 1999.

Here is the link:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no1/yanez.htm

As for Dr. Nicolson's proposal for a novel, mycoplasma-induced autoimmune disease, there is, thus far, no data to support this hypothesis. Is it possible? Yes. But this theory is inconsistent with the existing body of published scientific literature on mycoplasma, and on autoimmunity. Dr. Nicolson, however, may be proven right.

With squalene, on the other hand, there are more than 20 published scientific papers on its ability to induce a variety of autoimmune diseases in a variety of animals. Tulane's anti-squalene antibody data in sick military personnel is consistent the observed autoimmune pathology in animals. It is also consistent with published papers showing the Army's effort to develop a new anthrax vaccine containing squalene, and existing DOD/DHHS policy to test investigational new drugs and IND vaccines in service members, sometimes without informed consent.

If I have offended Dr. Nicolson, then I apologize to him. That was not my intent.

There is no shame in the fact that some aspects of his original hypotheses have not been borne out by existing laboratory analyses. That's science. Striking down a hypothesis is as much a part of the science process as confirming it.

So he has clearly proven that a significant number of sick service members that he has tested suffered from mycoplasma infections. He has successfully treated those infections. He has not proven that these patients were infected with a genetically engineered gp120/mycoplasma, or that any mycoplasma infection can cause autoimmune diseases like MS and lupus in animals or humans.

Does Dr. Nicolson deserve applause and thanks? Yes.

Sincerely,
Gary Matsumoto

[Gary M - Author]

Dear Gale: There is, I believe, an inherently flawed assumption in your thinking; specifically, that the assertions made in a recent publication are more valid than those in a not-so-recent publication.

For example, sometime in the years 1665-1666, Sir Isaac Newton said he first conceived the Universal Law of Gravitation. Nearly 340 years later, Newton's law of gravity is no less true. If someone were to publish a study in 2005, concluding, without compelling data, that Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation was invalid, I would dispute that conclusion based on the large body of scientific literature to the contrary, and my own empirical observation of what happens if I dropped my own apple from the window of my New York city apartment. Because of the law of gravity, it would fall and smash on the pavement below. Hence, mere currency does not bestow validity.

Similarly, Louis Pasteur's demonstration at Pouilly le-Fort in 1881 that an attenuated live-spore anthrax vaccine provides comprehensive protection against anthrax in livestock was no less true in 1981, when scientsists at Fort Detrick demonstated this same finding in mice and guinea pigs. It is no less true when French scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris showed, in 2001, that adding killed anthrax spores to the protective antigen (PA) protein, which is the main pharmaceutically active ingredient in the licensed U.S. and British vaccines, provides better protection for mice than just PA alone.

Here is that citation:
Brossier F, Levy M, Mock M, Anthrax Spores Make an Essential Contribution to Vaccine Efficacy, Infection and Immunity, February 2002, pg. 661-64.

Thus, the conclusion, reached by Defence Intelligence Agency DIA) analysts in 1993, that the ailments afflicting Gulf War troops could not be attributed to nerve agent exposure, and the DIA's reasons for concluding this, are no less true today.

Many sick veterans were no where near the areas where they could have been exposed to Kuwaiti oil fire smoke, occult and unverified low doses of nerve agent, or depleted uranium residue. They were deployed far from the front lines on ships, in planes or in the southeastern region of the Saudi peninsula. Some were deplyed in other countries like Egypt and Bahrain. Some never left American shores.

If you actually read VACCINE A, or even perused its 57 pages of references, you would know that the evidence reported in my book that challenges the case for a single, all-encompassing Gulf War Syndrome. You would also know that I do not assert that vaccine experiments with an unlicensed oil adjuvant account for every illness suffered by GW veterans or service members who became ill following their anthrax immunizations from 1998 forward.

There is, however, clinical evidence that military pseronnel suffering from fully diagnosed autoimmune diseases—that occured after immunization with anthrax vaccine lots tainted with squalene—have, in fact, an illness resulting from injection with this oil. The appearance of that clinical evidence coincides with the Army's work on a new anthrax vaccine containing squalene, in addition to changes in federal regulations that justifies and makes permissable experiments on troops without informed consent.

Based on this evidence, there are reasons to investigate whether undiagnosed rheumatological illnesses in troops may be related to this phenomenon.

Sincerely yours,
Gary Matsumoto

[Gary M - Author]

P.S. to "arizroughrider": In addition to Kuwaiti oil fire smoke, pulmonary disease in GW troops also could have resulted from mycoplasma infection (M. pneumonaie), infection from other organisms or from autoimmune inflammation. Clinical testing would be required to determine which.

The Merck Manual does not say M. fermentans infection can resolve without treatment. It says M. pneumonaie infection can resolve without treatment.

Sincerely,
Gary Matsumoto

[Gary M - Author]

P.S. I want to make a few more points in rebuttal to your repeated assumption, which I dispute, that a document's currency enhances its validity.

For reasons that I have already stated, I do not believe the information in a recently published document automatically supercedes that which was published in a not-so-recent document.

The information in any given document cannot be taken at face value. Each piece of evidence must be evaluated for its consistency or inconsistency with a plethora of other evidence. In this particular case, that evidence may include medical records, scientific papers on the effects of nerve agent intoxication, Army Chemical School manuals, and the observed clinical sequelae of nerve agent poisoning in Iranian and Japanese victims during the Iran-Iraq War and the Aum Shin Rikyo attacks, respectively.

Thus, the facts reported in the 1993 DIA report—specifically the absence of Gulf War-related illness in most other populations in the region at that time, and a pathology in GW veterans inconsistent with nerve agent intoxication—still militate against the 2004 Rand Corporation conclusion that Gulf veterans suffer from neurological injury probably due to nerve agent poisoning

Weighed against other evidence, Rand was only half right. Many chronically ill Gulf War veterans have suffered verified neurological injury. The cause of those injuries is undetermined, and speculation that they are due to low dose exposure to nerve agents or organophosphates is unsupported by a wide range of other evidence, not the least of which is the fact that veterans who never left these shores suffered the same neurological injuries. The only thing they have in common with their deployed counterparts is immunization.

Similarly, the December 2004 assertion by the Department of Defense that U.S. military forces face a "heightened risk" of anthrax attack does not supercede a stark finding in 2003—invading U.S. forces failed to recover any anthrax weapons in Iraq. In 2002, invading U.S. forces failed to find anthrax weapons in Afghanistan. The inability to find anthrax weapons is consistent with the U.N. inspections in Iraq through the 90s—and the CIA-run inspections after the fall of Baghdad—that all failed to turn up so much as a single dried anthrax spore. Not one spore. So from whence comes this "heightened risk" to U.S. military forces in December 2004 of an anthrax attack?

Yet that is the most recent DOD intelligence estimate. U.S. military forces face a "heightened risk." By your reasoning, then, this 2004 conclusion trumps the 2003 failure to find anthrax weapons in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the failure of all UNSCOM inspections in the 1990s to find them. Why? Because the 2004 estimate is the latest estimate?

I disagree.

Why do I disagree? Because the latest estimate of a "heightened risk" of an anthrax attack to U.S. forces is inconsistent with a plethora of other evidence—specifically, our inability to find anthax weapons in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is also inconsistent with the fact that although the North Koreans are believed to have anthrax weapons, yet they have never, as far as the public is aware, used them or even threatened to use them. The U.S. military has maintained a presence on the Korean peninsula for over half a century, and during that time, the North Koreans have never mounted an anthrax attack, or even threatened one.

Finally, this "heightened risk" assessment, the most recent one, is also inconsistent with the fact that the only anthrax attacks ever perpetrated against Americans are believed to have been committed against civilians by a domestic terrorist.

So I dispute your new trumps old, or recent trumps no-so-recent assumptions.

Also, I note that the VA document you quote omits autoimmune diseases from its list of pathologies in GW veterans. That is a rather conspicuous omission given the number of GW veterans that I have interviewed who have MS or lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

Does the fact that my book was released in Britain, Australia and New Zealand in January 2005 mean that it automatically trumps a VA document of slightly older vintage? No, it does not. But the fact that the plethora of evidence in my book documents the occurence of autoimmune disease in an unusual patient population for this pathology—young men—is, taken together, a challenge to the comprehensiveness, if not the validity of that VA document.

Sincerely,
Gary Matsumoto

[arizroughrider]

Gary,
I would like to reitterate that I am greatful for you having the courage and intelligence to write your book. I am not trying to offend anyone. I am just trying to sift through any and all data pertaining to what happenend while I was in the military. Because of your book I now know I received three squalene positve anthrax immunizations. Here is what I know for sure:
1. My son is dead from a rare birth defect.
2. My ex-wife has numerous female problems that she developed AFTER we were together.
3. I have had numerous medical probles since returning from Desert Storm.
4. I have taken several cycles of doxycycline with positive results.
Sincerely,
Rodney

[Gary M - Author]

Dear "arizroughrider" or Rodney, whichever you prefer: No offense taken. You lost your son. I am deeply sorry to hear that. I can't even begin to contemplate the profoundness of such a loss. You are ill. And something happened to your ex-wife after you came back from Desert Storm. You have more questions than you have answers. So when you ask me questions, I'm going to try my best to answer them.

I'm glad to hear that multiple courses of doxycycline, prescribed by your doctor I presume, have helped you achieve "positive results."

Exactly what do you mean by "positive results?" Did anyone diagnose your illness? Are you cured?

Sincerely,
Gary Matsumoto

[arizroughrider]

Gary,
I am willing to go into detail on this issue, but would prefer to do it offline. If you send me your email address I will respond.
Respectfully Submitted,
Rodney
arizroughrider@yahoo.com

P.S. Here is what I am willing to share. While in the military I wrote a letter to my elected representative, Ed Pastur (AZ), about the death of my son and the medical problems I have experienced since returning from Desert Storm. I sent him copies of my medical records of the major issues and these all had the dates of treatment on them. My son died in 1996. A majority of the records I sent him were dated BEFORE 1996. The official response by my command was that ALL of my medical problems were caused by the stress of losing my son. My response to them was how an event that occured in 1996 could have caused medical problems before that time? I received no response on that question.

[Mark Anderson]

The VA is about nothing except flu shots, tetanus shots, prozac, haldol, and steroids.

I have avoided the VA for several years, and I have actually found help outside of orthodox medicine. My chronic eczema has been dramatically mitigated by using colostrum. Look into colostrum. Also, look into the properties of aloe vera, and if used in tonics what effect that would have on helping to re-regulate the immune system.

Posterior to receiving the anthrax shots, I have had skin lesions. Some of them turned cancerous, and I even came across - believe it or not - an effective cure for skin cancer. It is truly amazing stuff, and I do not even wish to try to belabor it right, but you can run a search on bloodroot salves. Harry Hoxsey was no quack! So, depending on what symptoms your husband has, you may wish to try one of the bloodroot salves for any skin lesions, melanomas, etc.

Good detoxification program should include dandelion extract, milk thistle, etc. You can look up liverite and "dermal detox."

Health restoration is something that starts from within, and doctors - who are responsible for things like vaccine injuries to begin with - are most likely going to curtail the process. It also needs to be done a plurality of levels - i.e., physical and spiritual. God is good, and I could not recommend more strongly complete and total submission to the Lord Jesus Christ.