Mold at Ground Zero for CFS

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Mold Warriors by Dr Ritchie Shoemaker
Gateway Press 2005

Chapt. 23
Mold at Ground Zero for CFS
 

The history of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) begins in Incline Village, Nevada in 1985. In the medical history of CFS, each of the concepts applies--failed theories and failed criticism.
One victim, Erik Johnson, told everyone who would listen that mold was a cause of CFS. He came up with his theory at the wrong time in the politics of medical opinion, as a unknown viral cause was blamed instead. Johnson tried repeatedly to get the attention of leading CFS researchers then and now to look at what he knew about mold sensitivity. None of the heralded CFS researchers would listen.

Johnson tried to tell all that mold avoidance helped him return to a normal life after repeated bouts with mold illness. No one in an authoritative role listened.

We now know the mold connection to CFS is incredibly strong. The resistance to that idea is also incredibly strong, as the longstanding idea about CFS said often enough and loud enough and supported by the CDC, are believed by many, And if there's a tragedy of the CFS story, it's that Erik was right from the start. No one listened.

Mold hurts us. Until now, few have listened.

Two practicing physicians, Drs Dan Peterson and Paul Cheney saw something completely new in their practice in Nevada in 1985. Suddenly they were seeing numerous people with multiple health symptomss, expecially a strange "bone-crushing, devastating fatigue," but there was no obvious cause. They felt that an infectious disease, a virus, was responsible for the outbreak. Just look at all the people made ill in one area. It had to be infection (I wonder if they discounted the possibility of exposure to a toxin, or just didn't even think of the possibility?)
At first, an epidemic of Epstein-Barr virus infection was blamed, leading to the "chronic mono," and "Yuppie Flu" concepts. As Peterson and Cheney pursued an academic basis for CFS they discovered significant clues in esoteric biochemical research that suggested an unknown virus was responsible for the chronic symptoms experienced by sufferers of CFS.

If only those caring physicians had listened to one sufferer, vocal proponent of mold as the source of the CFS epidemic, how would medical history have been changed? As you'll see, biotoxin exposure, especially to mold, was a gigantic player in the development of CFS and continues to be so to this day. But with the viral source of CFS eventually accepted as plausible by much of organized medicine, who'd listen to alternative theories? No one.
 
Erik remains bitter that his correct insights about mold and CFS were ignored for 20 years. But like so many people in medical history who were right but ignored, he must be content that his ideas are now validated. We will have many more years of clinical research to follow 2005, beginning by educating the "CFS establishment." That will take swimming upstream against the CDC once again but Mold Warriors will offer a new set of ideas and data for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome experts.
That is, if they read it.

http://www.survivingmold.com/
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Re: Is ME infectious?

 

Postby Erik Johnson on Fri Aug 16, 2013 3:14 pm

 

 

 

I'm a survivor of the 1985 Lake Tahoe epidemic, a graduate of Truckee High School, and a Holmes et al "CFS definition patient-study group" participant as a prototype for the new syndrome of "CFS"

 

 

 

We have had a few more minor outbreaks since then, but nothing like the huge "Mystery Illness" incident that sickened thousands of people.

 

 

 

This strange illness is full of bizarre contradictions.

 

At times spreading like wildfire through groups of closely associated people, yet with people from these very groups seemingly unable to transmit it to anyone else.

 

 

 

I saw a pattern immediately. A strange "exception to the rules" in which the flu-like illness turned from noninfectious to wildly contagious.

 

 

 

The contagion occurred when people in the early "shedding phase" of viral illness were all in the presence of moldy buildings, particularly ones with Stachybotrys Chartarum.

 

Only then, was the disease easily passed from one to another.

 

 

 

The Truckee "teachers lounge" incident that caused Dr Peterson to call the CDC, starting the path to the new syndrome, is a very well described example of this process.

 

I contacted the teachers at Elk Grove, and they found the very same "toxic mold" that we in Truckee did.

 

 

 

The clues are right there. Simply ask yourself, "If this were a purely viral illness, then why did the one teacher who made the effort to get out of that lounge manage to avoid becoming ill?"

 

 

 

-Erik Johnson

 

 

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8148452

 

Clin Infect Dis. 1994 Jan;18 Suppl 1:S43-8.

 

Concurrent sick building syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome: epidemic neuromyasthenia revisited.

 

Chester AC, Levine PH.

 

Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

 

Sick building syndrome (SBS) is usually characterized by upper respiratory complaints, headache, and mild fatigue. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is an illness with defined criteria including extreme fatigue, sore throat, headache, and neurological symptoms. We investigated three apparent outbreaks of SBS and observed another more serious illness (or illnesses), characterized predominantly by severe fatigue, that was noted by 9 (90%) of the 10 teachers who frequently used a single conference room at a high school in Truckee, California; 5 (23%) of the 22 responding teachers in the J wing of a high school in Elk Grove, California; and 9 (10%) of the 93 responding workers from an office building in Washington, D.C. In those individuals with severe fatigue, symptoms of mucous membrane irritation that are characteristic of SBS were noted but also noted were neurological complaints not typical of SBS but quite characteristic of CFS. We conclude that CFS is often associated with SBS.

 

PMID: 8148452 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW0x9_Q8qbo&feature=related 

 

 

 

"This seemed to be evolving, before our eyes, from a flu-like illness into something else"

 

-Dr Paul Cheney

 

 

 

"... and it seemed to be spreading. Through the local hotel and casino, two area high schools, members of a girls basketball team."

 

-Dr Nancy Snyderman

 

 

 

"That's when we wondered, Hey, maybe we ought to call somebody. This is really unusual."

-Dr Paul Cheney