|
FILARIASIS
TIMELINE
Nematodes
in ticks?
DISCLAIMER
Consult a physician for all
medical advice!
Information on this site
is offered to help further awareness of Lyme
and associated diseases. We hope that the information will help you
to become more familiar with the subject of tick borne illnesses, but the information
on this web site should not be used as a substitute for medical advice,
diagnosis, or treatment. The information on this web site does
not represent endorsement or an official position of Empire
State Lyme Disease Association, Inc. or any of its directors, officers,
advisors or members. Please consult a physician for all
medical advice, including advice on testing, treatment and care of a
patient who has or may have Lyme or any associated tick borne
diseases.
Update
Sept 27, 2010
This
has been revised due to the recent information about the imprisonment of a
person who according to some, has been responsible for saving people with the
protocol he used. This revised information is less complete, with
apologies, but it seems to be the wisest approach considering recent events.
The following is for informational purposes only and the
hope is that it may offer useful information.
( Skip to Timeline)
AUGUST 14, 2010
Obviously, filariasis is not the entire answer. However, recently
we've heard from people across USA and Europe that
treatments for filaria are helping some "chronic Lyme" patients recover.
Contacts that we've known for over ten years are either very
interested or they have their own incredible success stories.
When Ivermectin was first mentioned, one person wrote to say
that we were wrong to mention Ivermectin - perhaps because he had a bad reaction to it years ago but
this was the only negative feedback.
Another person reported that there is a section on the filaria in a new book which will
be released soon.
Note that a patient whose story was told in Under Our Skin, researched all Lyme
doctors for her eventual treatment - she chose a doctor who first cleanses
and de-worms. This patient was reported as recovered after two years.
Under medical supervision, some patients are doing rather unusual protocols and
are
presently off antibiotics and making steady small improvements. There
are cautions with every "protocol" and so, it is up to each
person and his/her doctor to be very careful!
This evidence about filariasis is based the findings in this timeline
are based
on the work of other people who have offered their viewpoints freely.
Note: Food for thought as you read through:
40% of ticks carry nematodes. How many,
or what percent of Lyme patients become chronic and of those, how
many are infected with worms?
1981: Dr Willy Burgdorfer studies ticks from Shelter Island, NY and
discovers the spirochete that causes Lyme disease which is
then named Borrelia burgdorferi, Bb.
* Burgdorfer also found nematodes in the ticks at that time. Nematodes are
round worms, and are classified as Filaria. You may see the word
"microfilaria," because some "worms" are microscopic.
Early 1990's - An expert Lyme doctor tells me that the best medicine for Lyme is Ivermectin.
Ivermectin is an antifilarial drug used for dogs to prevent heartworm.
I asked him to give it to me, but he said he couldn't,
because of "Politics." He said that the reason he used so
many combinations of antibiotics was to replicate the effects of
Ivermectin in our bodies.
2007: Interesting that a Suffolk County Legislator told me, "Lyme
disease could be the biggest cover-up in history."
2008: On the Open Eye Pictures blog about the multi-award-winning film
documentary - Andy Wilson, producer of Under Our Skin and Kris Newby,
science advisor, tell of their interview of Dr Burgdorfer. They write
that Dr Burgdorfer was being watched. In the film Dr Burgdorfer
tells how disgusted he is about what how Lyme disease has become
so political, but at the end of this interview, Burgdorfer tells
Wilson and Newby that he still didn't tell them everything, so there is
still more to the story than what we know. Perhaps he is afraid to
say because he is still being watched at age 91, but he isn't telling all.
2008-9: News that a lot of alternative measures are
helping Lyme patients. People are still sick but many are managing Lyme and their
lives on antibiotics, some with alternatives only, many using both.
2008-9: Pamela Weintraub, prestigious author of the award-winning book Cure
Unknown, Inside The Lyme Epidemic, writes on her blog that Dr
Burgdorfer wrote down the 6 organisms that he found in the Shelter Island
ticks on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She tells two of
them on her blog: Borrelia and nematodes.
2009-2010: Dr Eva Sapi, from the University of New Haven, Connecticut is
doing research on ticks. So far, it appears that she has found worms
in 40% of the ticks she has studied.
2010: After six months of suffering terribly, one patient finally finds
out, via a stool sample, that the problem is Strongoloids, a filarial
infection. After taking Ivermectin as prescribed by the doctor, this
patient is 85% recovered.
2010: It was more or less confirmed by a doctor and an NP - that I may
have had organic particles
coming through the skin on my arms after my personal protocol. A physicist
viewed some
of these particles under an electron microscope; they were identified as likely
being a type of worm. Others have had similar experiences.
2010: Seen on the internet: Over a billion people are at risk
and over 120 million people are infected with parasites in more than 80
countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South Americas, and the Pacific
Islands (World Health Organization [WHO], 2000a). (see below re: Merck)
2010: In the literature or from a doctor's theories, it
was said the nematodes can protect the spirochetes from
antibiotic attack.
2010: General
Consensus is that more investigation regarding
filaria in Lyme patients is a good idea! This was a response after
there was a mass emailing asking for feedback.This is the end of this timeline so far, but
some people are emailing with more information, so there may be updates.
Please also see the information about Merck below. But first, so as not to ignore other possibilities for
"why we are
still sick" here is an interesting note: Recently Lyme advocates went
to see their local Town Mayor. He had Lyme and Babesia and
said he only had four weeks of a drug, but then another four weeks of the
drug when his Babesia didn't clear up. When
asked what he took, he wasn't certain, but he said he thinks he was put on
the same medicine they use for AIDS. Did his doctors know about
and/or find the virus - XMRV?
Sadly, others still seem to
be battling "Lyme," and are now trying alternatives, because
after months of antibiotics, they have felt that the antibiotics weren't helping any more.
Some information about
Ivermectin, Merck and the world's worms:
Now the following is from Merck websites (Merck
has a lot of influence with medical practices here
in the US and in Europe):
First note that it seems that the side effects of Ivermectin are said
to be rare, according to the quote below:
Adverse Experience Reporting
While side effects following treatment with MECTIZAN are rare, Merck has developed a rigorous program for monitoring and reporting any adverse
experiences (AEs) in the field. With the help of local NGDOs, all
field-based community distributors are trained in AE reporting; all AEs must be
reported to Merck, which then reports them to drug safety and regulatory
agencies in the United States and internationally. The MECTIZAN Expert Committee,
Ministries of Health and the WHO also play a key role in ensuring
best practices
are applied for surveillance of AEs at the community level. The AE
reporting form itself has been revised several times during the
20-year history of
the program based on feedback from clinicians and public health
administrators in the field.
AND:
____________________________________
MECTIZAN® = (ivermectin)
"To date, the MECTIZAN Donation Program has approved more than
600 million treatments for onchocerciasis to 33 countries in Africa, Latin
America and Yemen and donated more than 2 billion MECTIZAN tablets, at a market
value of US$3 billion. The program currently reaches more than 80
million people each year for the treatment of onchocerciasis; an estimated 40
million treatments of MECTIZAN are also approved each year for lymphatic
filariasis
through Merck's work with the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic
Filariasis."
http://www.merck.com/newsroom/news-release-archive/corporate-responsibility/2008_1112.html
Public Health Officials Announce Progress in Elimination of
Transmission Of the Tropical Disease River Blindness
* Thirty-one percent of affected population
in the Americas no longer at risk of contracting disease
* Milestones reached in Guatemala and
Mexico
* Pan American Health Organization passes
resolution to interrupt transmission of river blindness in Latin America by 2012
WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., U.S.A. and OAXACA, MEXICO, Nov. 12, 2008 -
Public health officials gathering at the 18th Inter-American
Conference on Onchocerciasis (IACO) in Oaxaca, Mexico, announced that transmission
of the tropical disease onchocerciasis (also known as river blindness) has
been halted in areas covering 31 percent of the population in Latin America
formerly at risk of contracting the disease.
Health officials confirmed that in Oaxaca, Mexico and Huehuetenango, Guatemala, onchocerciasis transmission has been interrupted due to the
effectiveness of treatment with MECTIZAN® (ivermectin). This raises
the total population no longer in need of treatment with MECTIZAN to 157,446,
or 31 percent of the 510,947 people in the Americas considered at risk for the
disease.
This accomplishment follows an historic resolution passed on Oct. 7,
2008, by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) calling for the interruption of onchocerciasis transmission throughout the Americas by the
year 2012.
"The continued success towards elimination of onchocerciasis in the
Americas signals improved health for hundreds of thousands of
people," said Dr. Mauricio Sauerbrey, director of the Onchocerciasis Elimination
Program of the Americas (OEPA). "The recent commitment by PAHO to
interrupt transmission of the disease by 2012 will galvanize the resolve of
all the partners involved with this landmark initiative in public health."
According to Juan Arredondo Jimenez, head of the National Center of Disease Surveillance and Control of the Mexican Ministry of Health,
"In Mexico there were only three affected areas: one in Oaxaca and two in
Chiapas.
In Oaxaca, with some 45,000 people, there are no more cases of
blindness due to this disease and transmission has been interrupted. Therefore, OEPA
recommends stopping treatment in 2009, followed by epidemiological
surveillance
through 2011. This follows the program's success in North
Chiapas, leaving only South Chiapas for further treatment and, hopefully, elimination
of the disease very soon as well."
Onchocerciasis, a leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, is transmitted through the bite of black flies and can cause intense itching,
disfiguring dermatitis, eye lesions and over time, blindness. It is hyper-endemic in 34 countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and
isolated areas of the Americas and Yemen. In October 1987, Merck announced it
would donate MECTIZAN - the only well-tolerated drug known to halt the
development of onchocerciasis - to all who need it for as long as necessary until
Onchocerciasis is eliminated as a public health problem.
Announcements Give Hope to Other Countries
The Ministries of Health of Mexico and Guatemala made today's
announcement based on epidemiological studies conducted by their national onchocerciasis program and
OEPA, a program of the Carter Center, which
showed that onchocerciasis infection levels had been maintained at a level low
enough to effectively break the cycle of transmission. The program
attributed the results to the strategy of twice annual mass treatment with MECTIZAN.
Based on
these findings, experts from the Program Coordinating Committee of
OEPA recommended that treatment with MECTIZAN should be suspended in
Oaxaca, Mexico and Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
"In 2007, Colombia became the first country in the world to interrupt
Onchocerciasis transmission on a countrywide basis. Today's
announcement continues the expectation that onchocerciasis can be eliminated by
2012 from all affected countries in the Americas," said Dr. Adrian
Hopkins, director of the MECTIZAN Donation Program.
Since 1989, more than 8 million treatments with MECTIZAN have been approved for distribution in Latin America by community health workers and
non-governmental organizations. Treatment programs currently exist
in Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela. Partners in the
MECTIZAN Donation Program in Latin America include Merck & Co., Inc.,
OEPA, The
Carter Center,
Lions Clubs International Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, the WHO/PAHO and Ministries of Health of the affected countries.
About the MECTIZAN Donation Program
To date, the MECTIZAN Donation Program has approved more than 600
million treatments for onchocerciasis to 33 countries in Africa, Latin
America and Yemen and donated more than 2 billion MECTIZAN tablets, at a market
value of US$3 billion. The program currently reaches more than 80 million
people each year for the treatment of onchocerciasis; an estimated 40 million
treatments of MECTIZAN are also approved each year for lymphatic
filariasis
through Merck's work with the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic
Filariasis. To ensure the appropriate infrastructure,
distribution and support for the donation, Merck established in 1988 the MECTIZAN Donation
Program, working through a unique, multisectoral partnership, involving the
WHO, the World Bank, UNICEF, ministries of health, non-governmental
development
organizations and local communities. The MECTIZAN Donation Program
Secretariat is housed at the Taskforce for Child Survival and Development in
Atlanta, Ga., U.S.A. For more information,
visit_www.mectizan.org_
( http://www.mectizan.org/)
.
About OEPA
The Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas (OEPA) is the
technical and coordinating body of a multinational, multi-agency
coalition working to end illness and transmission of onchocerciasis in Brazil,
Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela. The Carter Center is the
sponsoring agency for OEPA, whose partnership includes the
ministries of health of the six affected countries in Latin America,
PAHO, the Centers for
Disease
Control and Prevention, academic institutions and independent
organizations. For more information, visit_www.oepa.net_ ( http://www.oepa.net/)
.
About Merck
Merck & Co., Inc., is a global research-driven pharmaceutical
company dedicated to putting patients first. Established in 1891, Merck
discovers, develops, manufactures and markets vaccines and medicines to address
unmet medical needs. The Company devotes extensive efforts to increase
access to medicines through far-reaching programs that not only donate Merck
medicines
but help deliver them to the people who need them. Merck also
publishes unbiased health information as a not-for-profit service. For
more information,
visit_www.merck.com_ ( http://www.merck.com/)
.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains "forward-looking statements"
as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These statements are based on management's current expectations and
involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause results to differ materially from those set
forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding product development, product potential or financial
performance. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed, and actual
results may differ materially from those projected. Merck undertakes no
obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result
of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements
in this press release should be evaluated together with the many
uncertainties that affect Merck's business, particularly those mentioned in the
risk factors and cautionary statements in Item 1A of Merck's Form 10-K for the
year
ended Dec. 31, 2007, and in its periodic reports on Form 10-Q and
Form 8-K, which the Company incorporates by reference.
Note: If 40% of ticks carry nematodes, then how many chronic Lyme patients
are infected with worms?
Back
To Top
Nematode
Spirochete Farmers
NEMATODE
BACTERIA
SYMBIOSIS
Ten
Questions For Scientists
Nematode
Spirochete Farmers
1/3/2011
In
2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that
over a billion people are at risk for parasitic worm
infections (filaria).
120 million people are infected with parasites in
more than 80 countries (Africa, Asia, Central and South
Americas, and the Pacific Islands). Of those infected, 44
million suffer filariasis symptoms.
Nematodes
are parasitic worms which receive nourishment and/or
shelter from hosts. There is a theory that nematodes
‘farm’ smaller organisms like the Lyme Borrelia
spirochetes, similar to the way we humans farm cows or
chickens, feeding and protecting them so we can later eat
them. Nematodes may live symbiotically with
spirochetes in humans!
Ticks
and other vectors harbor numerous parasites: large ones
referred to as worms (filaria) and microscopic bacteria,
viruses, protozoa, fungi and microfilaria. Ticks in
Connecticut and New York do carry nematodes according to
Doctors Willy Burgdorfer, Eva Sapi, and Richard Ostfeld.
Can
worms destroy American health, as in WHO’s reported 80
countries, or as in our American pets?
The answer to the question, “Can nematodes wreak
havoc as human parasites?” is supposedly unknown, at
least in the USA. Well,
can nematodes prevent recovery from “chronic” Lyme and
tick-borne diseases? Puppies
are de-wormed soon after they are born.
Dogs typically and quickly
recover from Lyme disease after antibiotics, perhaps
because of their early-life and subsequent regular
de-worming; there are no nematodes harvesting spirochetes
in their canine bodies.
If
nematodes work against antibiotics by protecting and
increasing spirochete population, then antibiotic therapy
may eradicate ‘loose’ spirochetes but not those under
nematode farmers’ protection.
If a nematode-Borrelia symbiotic relationship
exists, Borrelia can screw its way out, escape the
nematode farm, free to wreak havoc on us.
If
nematodes are present, then a huge amount of antibiotics
over a long period of time may only suppress bacterial
growth. Symptoms
will be somewhat relieved, a modicum of health will be
maintained, but there is no cure while nematodes live to
raise new spirochetes.
So for
the duration, surviving nematodes will keep on farming.
Can this proposed process explain the cyclical
nature of Lyme in certain cases?
Antibiotics destroy spirochetes, some nematodes
starve and die, but survivor nematodes still farm.
A human host might suffer a relapse or flare-up if
a bountiful harvest releases excess spirochetes into the
body.
Antibiotics
relieve our symptoms by killing spirochetes.
Antibiotics also decrease the nematode’s food
supply resulting in nematode starvation and death.
If enough spirochetes are destroyed and enough
nematodes die of starvation, eventually there might be no
one left to run the farm.
A patient recovers.
However
if nematode filaria causes some chronic Lyme, it might be
more prudent to stop the farmer.
Ivermectin causes starvation and death of nematodes
by interfering with their ability to eat/digest.
Although antibiotics have been our primary defense,
a doctor once told me Ivermectin was the best medicine for
Lyme disease. Interesting
to note that since 1982, filariasis victims in WHO’s
reported 80 countries were given millions of free doses of
Ivermectin as part of a Global Health Initiative, but in
the USA and Europe, it is typically not prescribed.
A surging idea is that all we need is to live
healthy and take vitamins and supplements but I suspect
that what would CURE chronic Lyme would be a remedy for
the cause!
Other causes may be virulent Borrelia, Mycoplasma,
Morgellons, Candida, other Fungi, Molds, XMRV, (Xenotropic
Murine Retrovirus) and/or other microbes or filaria.
The
average chronic Lyme patient suffers a gradual decline
into poverty and a lifetime of pain and debilitation.
Find the cause, treat and have compassion.
Eva
Haughie
EMPIRE STATE LYME DISEASE ASSOCIATION, INC
http://www.empirestatelymediseaseassociation.org/filaria/filariasis.htm
Back
To Top
Ten
Questions For Scientists 1-19-2011
1.
Do nematodes have symbiotic relationships with spirochetes and/or
with with other microbes, such as rickettsia, other bacteria,
viruses, fungi, protozoa, or even microfilaria?
2.
Do bacteria and other microbes live in worms?
3.
Do spirochetes create biofilms or do their nematode farmers create
biofilms, as a nurturing protective 'farmland' to produce an
optimum harvest?
4.
Do other worms have symbiotic relationships with microbes?
5.
We worry about heartworm in our pets, but does heartworm cause
heart attacks in humans?
6.
What are the symptoms of Filarial worms other than river
blindness?
7.
Do the symptoms of Filaria overlap symptoms of Lyme disease,
in other words could Filaria be a Third Great Imitator?
8.
Do populations in other countries suffer from the same plethora of
autoimmune diseases written down in our medical books and do other
places have an overwhelming number of diagnosed cases as we have
in the USA?
9.
If they can manipulate genetics to produce 'helpful' nematodes,
can or have they manipulated genetics to produce harmful
nematodes?
10.
WHY . . . . . . . ? In a doctor's office where they
treat Lyme disease, one medical professional tells a patient that
Ivermectin is the best medicine for Lyme disease, but then refuses
to prescribe it for a reason stated as 'I can't because of
politics.' Then almost twenty years later, a second medical
professional from the very same office admits to the patient that
they did prescribe Ivermectin to patients, in fact, they did use
it. Then WHY . . . . . . . ?
Some tiny parasitic nematodes have
evolved a remarkable skill: they farm bacteria for
food, using the body (larva) of their parasitized
insect host as the “soil” in which to cultivate
the bacteria. The bacteria feed on the larva, killing
it, and the nematodes feed on the bacteria. The
bacteria are both symbionts and food and have never
been found apart from their nematode hosts.
The larval body is preserved from
invasion by other bacteria by antibacterial compounds
produced by the nematodes, to which its own symbiotic
bacteria are resistant.
When the nematodes reproduce,
thousands of juveniles leave to locate new larval
hosts, carrying some of the bacteria in their own gut.
The ability of these nematodes to kill
insect larvae has not been overlooked by the global
agricultural community (12,
13).
Species from 2 genera of insect-parasitic nematodes, Steinernema
and Heterorhabditis, are sprayed on crops
around the world to control the larvae of plant-eating
insects and are valued as natural biological
pesticides.
Proc
(Bayl Univ Med Cent).
2000
July; 13(3):
217–226. MPMID:
MPMID: PMC1317043
|
2000, Baylor University Medical Center
Evolving
together: the biology of symbiosis, part 1 Gregory
G. Dimijian, MD1
1From
the Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.
Symbioses, prolonged
associations between organisms often widely
separated phylogenetically, are more common in
biology than we once thought and have been
neglected as a phenomenon worthy of study on its
own merits. Extending along a dynamic continuum
from antagonistic to cooperative and often
involving elements of both antagonism and
mutualism, symbioses involve pathogens,
commensals, and mutualists interacting in myriad
ways over the evolutionary history of the
involved “partners.” In this first of 2
parts, some remarkable examples of symbiosis
will be explored, from the coral-algal symbiosis
and nitrogen fixation to the great diversity of
dietary specializations enabled by the
gastrointestinal microbiota of animals.
Derived from the Greek word
for living together, symbiosis refers to
a close and prolonged association between 2 or
more organisms of different species that
may last for the lifetime of 1 or all
“partners.” The definition of symbiosis is not
universally agreed upon; in this review, it will
be considered in its broadest sense, encompassing
associations varying widely in intimacy and types
of interaction. Symbioses can be mutualistic (all
partners benefiting), commensalistic (one
benefiting and the others unharmed), or parasitic,
although many symbiotic associations are complex
or poorly understood and do not fit neatly into 1
category (1).
A continuum can be envisioned that spans a dynamic
bridge from antagonism to cooperation.
Relationships may shift gradually or abruptly
along the continuum (Figure
).
DISCLAIMER
Consult a physician for all
medical advice!
Information on this site
is offered to help further awareness of Lyme
and associated diseases. We hope that the information will help you
to become more familiar with the subject of tick borne illnesses, but the information
on this web site should not be used as a substitute for medical advice,
diagnosis, or treatment. The information on this web site does
not represent endorsement or an official position of Empire
State Lyme Disease Association, Inc. or any of its directors, officers,
advisors or members. Please consult a physician for all
medical advice, including advice on testing, treatment and care of a
patient who has or may have Lyme or any associated tick borne
diseases.
|
EMPIRE STATE LYME DISEASE
ASSOCIATION