Archive for the ‘research’ Category

Gulf War Illness, Vaccines, MSIDS, & Brain Damage

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/20/research-ties-gulf-war-illness-to-brain-damage/1982817/  There is now physical proof that Gulf War Illness is caused by damage to the brain.  http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0058493  

Gulf War Illness affects more than 250,000 vets and causes black-outs, cysts on scalp, inability to concentrate, chronic headaches, liver damage, Tourette’s syndrome, chronic fatigue, lesions on the brain, heart and lungs, skin rashes, thyroid cancer, paralysis of the stomach, respiratory problems, vertigo, autoimmune disorders, liver damage, chronic fatigue, allergies, pain, and more.

 

Until now most cannot get benefits or treatment, and to add insult to injury vets are accused of faking it or suffering from post traumatic stress.  James Baraniuk, senior author and professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, regarding doctors, states,

“If it doesn’t fall within their small world of known diseases, then the patient is nuts.”

Using fMRI (functional MRI) machines, researchers saw anomalies in the bundle of nerve fibers that interpret pain signals in the brain in 31 Gulf War veterans. The research appears to correlate with previous research on Gulf War Illness, including a major study showing problems in involuntary function, as well as a study showing as many as 100,000 troops may have been doused with Sarin gas when the U.S. Air Force bombed a munitions factory during the war.

The good news about a fMRI (functional MRI) is it allows doctors to diagnose Gulf War Illness quickly, and while most hospitals are equipped with MRI equipment they may need to install fMRI software and be trained to use it.

Researchers suspect environmental factors such as Sarin gas, ACHL-inhibitors found in nerve agents, anti-nerve-agent pills, pesticides, and vaccines, particularly the Anthrax Vaccine which is a 6-shot regimen adjuvanted by aluminum hydroxide, and squalene.

The military calls Gulf War Syndrome an emotional ailment. Refusing the vaccine has ended in dishonorable discharge, fines, and prison. Malcom Hopper M.D. Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at a University in Britain, and the chief advisor to the Gulf War Veterans in the UK states that those who have received the vaccine have horrific pain in their sexual organs such as burning semen syndrome. The number of infants born without eye sockets has sky-rocketed following Executive Order 13139. Over 1,000,000 military personnel have adverse side effects to the Anthrax Vaccine (RAC-GWVI Government report 2008). Today 35,000 new soldiers receive the Anthrax Vaccine each month (RAC-GWVI Government Report 2014).   https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/25/vaccines-revealed-6-please-share-with-all-military-members/

Baraniuk states the research is important because it shows that Gulf War Illness is NOT psychological.  He also states:

“If 30% of Congress got sick, or 30% of Manhattan got sick, there would have been an outcry.” Also, “The guys who were robust and leading the charge on this 10 years ago are now using canes.”

Many military members also suffer from Lyme/MSIDS, including Mycoplasma.  

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2017/03/21/military-veterans-suicide-and-lymemsids/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15694687/  Owen DC. Med Hypothesis.  2005.

Abstract

Symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome and chronic Lyme disease are very similar. Lyme disease is a condition which can be difficult to diagnose since one of the main features of the condition, the erythema migrans rash, may be absent or overlooked and serological testing for Lyme disease may be falsely negative. Symptoms of Lyme disease may not became apparent until years after exposure to the causative organism. Military personnel during training in the field are at risk of tick bites and it may be that those who developed Gulf War Syndrome entered the conflict with latent Lyme disease. There has been no systematic examination of Gulf War Syndrome sufferers for chronic Lyme disease and it is hypothesized that chronic Lyme disease has been overlooked as a cause of Gulf War Syndrome. To address this it is suggested that sufferers of Gulf War Syndrome or similar illnesses should be examined by physicians who have experience diagnosing and treating large numbers of patients with Lyme disease.

https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2015/08/12/connecting-dots-mycoplasma/

 

 

Category:

Activism, Lyme, Mycoplasma, research, vaccines

LymeSeq – New Lyme/MSIDS Test Explained

http://www.azpbs.org/arizonahorizon/play.php?vidId=10327

Arizona PBS

Airdate: March 21, 2017

Lyme Disease is spread by ticks and can be difficult to diagnose because symptoms mimic other illnesses. The group Focus on Lyme is funding research at the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix to increase the speed and accuracy of Lyme Disease diagnosis with a test called LymeSeq.

Tammy Crawford, the executive director of Focus on Lyme, explains the new test.

Listen to interview in link above.

Category:

Babesia, Bartonella, Lyme, Mycoplasma, research, Rickettsia, Testing

Sulfa Drugs Against Stationary Phase Bb in Vitro

http://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/6/1/10

Jie Feng, Shuo Zhang, Wanliang Shi and Ying Zhang *
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Academic Editor: Christopher C. Butler
Received: 19 January 2017 / Revised: 7 March 2017 / Accepted: 14 March 2017 / Published: 22 March 2017

Abstract

Lyme disease is a most common vector-borne disease in the US. Although the majority of Lyme patients can be cured with the standard two- to four-week antibiotic treatment, at least 10%–20% of patients continue to suffer from prolonged post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). While the cause for this is unclear, one possibility is that persisting organisms are not killed by current Lyme antibiotics.

In our previous studies, we screened an FDA drug library and an NCI compound library on B. burgdorferi and found some drug hits including sulfa drugs as having good activity against B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells. In this study, we evaluated the relative activity of three commonly used sulfa drugs, sulfamethoxazole (Smx), dapsone (Dps), sulfachlorpyridazine (Scp), and also trimethoprim (Tmp), and assessed their combinations with the commonly prescribed Lyme antibiotics for activities against B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells.

Using the same molarity concentration, dapsone, sulfachlorpyridazine and trimethoprim showed very similar activity against stationary phase B. burgdorferi enriched in persisters; however, sulfamethoxazole was the least active drug among the three sulfa drugs tested. Interestingly, contrary to other bacterial systems, Tmp did not show synergy in drug combinations with the three sulfa drugs at their clinically relevant serum concentrations against B. burgdorferi.

We found that sulfa drugs combined with other antibiotics were more active than their respective single drugs and that four-drug combinations were more active than three-drug combinations. Four-drug combinations dapsone + minocycline + cefuroxime + azithromycin and dapsone + minocycline + cefuroxime + rifampin showed the best activity against stationary phase B. burgdorferi in these sulfa drug combinations.

However, these four-sulfa-drug–containing combinations still had considerably less activity against B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells than the Daptomycin + cefuroxime + doxycycline used as a positive control which completely eradicated B. burgdorferi stationary phase cells. Future studies are needed to evaluate and optimize the sulfa drug combinations in vitro and also in animal models.

Category:

Lyme, research, Treatment

Rickettsiae in Northern CA

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877959X17301103

Nicole Stephenson, Alexandra Blaney, Deana Clifford, Mourad Gabriel, Greta Wengerta, Patrick Foleyd, Richard N. Browne, Mark Higley, Sarah Buckenberger-Mantovani, Janet Foley
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA

Abstract

Far northern California forests are highly biodiverse in wildlife reservoirs and arthropod vectors that may propagate rickettsial pathogens in nature. The proximity of small rural communities to these forests puts people and domestic animals at risk of vector-borne infection due to spillover from wildlife. The current study was conducted to document exposure to rickettsial pathogens in people and domestic animals in a rural community, and identify which rickettsiae are present in sylvatic and peri-domestic environments near this community. Blood samples from people, domestic animals (dogs, cats, and horses) and wild carnivores were tested for Rickettsia spp. antibodies and DNA (people and domestic animals only) by serology and real time (RT)-PCR, respectively. Ectoparasites were collected from dogs, wild carnivores and from vegetation by flagging, and tested for Rickettsia spp. DNA by RT-PCR. DNA sequencing of the rickettsial 17 kDa protein gene or the ompA gene was used for species identification. Despite a seroprevalence of 3% in people, 42% in dogs, 79% in cats, 33% in gray foxes, and 83% in bobcats, RT-PCR on blood was consistently negative, likely because the sensitivity of this test is low, as Rickettsia spp. do not often circulate in high numbers in the blood. Rickettsia spp. DNA was found in four flea species collected from bobcats and Ctenocephalides felis collected from domestic dogs. All amplicons sequenced from fleas were R. felis. Ixodes pacificus collected by flagging were commonly infected with a Rickettsia sp. endosymbiont. Rickettsia rhipicephali DNA was found in Dermacentor variabilis from dogs, black bears, a gray fox, and a D. occidentalis collected by flagging. Dermacentor variabilis from dogs and black bears also contained R. montanensis DNA. Multiple Rickettsia spp. (including species with zoonotic and pathogenic potential) were found among human biting arthropod vectors of both wild and domestic carnivores and on flags. Knowledge of the diversity of Rickettsia spp. that are present within arthropod vectors to which people and domestic animals are exposed is an essential first step is making an accurate diagnosis and in better understanding the epidemiology of these potential pathogens. Within-host and vector interaction among these species may play a role in spillover into human and domestic animals.

Category:

research, Rickettsia

White-footed Mice Competent Reservoir of Ehrlichia Muris-like Agent

http://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-017-1980-4

Experimental evaluation of Peromyscus leucopus as a reservoir host of the Ehrlichia muris-like agent

Geoffrey E. LynnEmail author, Jonathan D. Oliver, Ingrid Cornax, M. Gerard O’Sullivan and Ulrike G. Munderloh
Parasites & Vectors  201710:48
DOI: 10.1186/s13071-017-1980-4© The Author(s). 2017
Received: 4 October 2016Accepted: 12 January 2017Published: 28 January 2017

Abstract

Background
The Ehrlichia muris-like agent (EMLA) is a newly recognized human pathogen in the North Central United States. Although blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) have been identified as capable vectors, wild reservoirs have not yet been established for EMLA. As key hosts for I. scapularis, white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) are important reservoirs for various tick-borne pathogens, and potentially, for EMLA. The objective of this study was to evaluate reservoir competence in P. leucopus using a natural vector.

Results
Mice acquired EMLA infection from feeding ticks and were able to transmit infection to naïve ticks. Transmission between simultaneously feeding tick life stages was also demonstrated. Infections in mice were acute and severe, with systemic dissemination. Limited host survival and clearance of infection among survivors resulted in a narrow interval where EMLA could be acquired by feeding ticks.

Conclusions
Peromyscus leucopus is a competent reservoir of EMLA and likely to play a role in its enzootic transmission cycle. The duration and severity of EMLA infection in these hosts suggests that tick phenology is a critical factor determining the geographic distribution of EMLA in North America.

Category:

Lyme, research, Ticks