CDC Says “Think Fungus”…For Everything!

We received a late night message from Dr. Greg Emerson this week exclaiming news we thought we’d never hear:  The CDC, in effect, is now touting Doug Kaufmann’s “Think Fungus” philosophy!

No, they didn’t use Doug’s name or even act like it’s a new idea. But this feels like the completion of a journey that I’ve been privileged to join Doug in.

For more than four decades, Doug has tirelessly researched and labored to prove a hunch he had about health and disease after returning from Vietnam. He was sick, and the standard treatments didn’t work.

“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as
self-evident.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

Through a series of events, he was introduced to a germ nobody seemed too interested in: Fungus.

When he did what we now call an “antifungal” approach to recovery, his health turned around, and he couldn’t wait to share it with the world.

At the time, the term “mycotoxin” was brand new. (It still is for most people. Mycotoxins are poisons made by fungi.) He researched to find every detail of how fungi affect human health and discovered that fungal overgrowth can cause symptoms that look and behave like other common diseases.

It can, for example, look like cancer. Fungal disease can look like diabetes. It can cause weight gain or weight loss. Joints can become weakened, and lead a doctor to diagnose it as arthritis. Fungus can affect every area of the body, and the symptoms it causes look identical to diseases you can name by heart.
CDC – Think Fungus: Fungal Disease Awareness Week

As he tested his theories in clinical settings and saw results for real people, he became even more confident in what he called the Fungus Link to disease. His reputation grew as someone who could help patients. A group of physicians recruited him to move from California to Dallas, Texas. They used his diet and antifungal therapies to help patients who spent years suffering from symptoms that standard medicine could not help.

It was through that clinical experience whereby Doug was recruited to share his findings through mass media. At that time, it meant radio, and eventually TV. I joined Doug in the early 2000’s after watching his show, reading his book (he had only one at the time) and the textbooks he referenced on the show. I was a chemotherapy drug rep, but also loved nutrition. I saw the horrible effects of conventional medicine, while simultaneously seeing how Doug’s philosophy helped me overcome lifelong symptoms. What you don’t see when you watch Know The Cause or read Doug’s books is the boldness this man has had to cultivate in order to keep developing and popularizing this message.

~Conventional medicine has been against him.
~ Alternative medicine has fought him.
~ Doctors have lambasted him for daring to suggest their patients need an antifungal approach for anything other than ringworm, jock itch, and vaginal yeast infections.
~ Dieticians have scorned his idea of limiting grains, (something he said LONG before the low-carb, Paleo, and the ketogenic craze).

I’ve sat in rooms with people you’d know who told Doug he was out of his mind.But Doug endured. He knew there was something to this.

So did I. I was the guy who read viewer mail, (back before email was a thing, and before social media existed). Envelopes would pore in each week with testimonies of people who had overcome unthinkable symptoms who, for the first time, found relief in the ideas Doug was sharing for free on television each day. I’d sometimes cry as I read the letters. Doug was patient as I told him the stories, even though he had heard them for 40 years.

Slowly, though, things began changing.

~ Atkin’s Diet came back again.
~ The second revival of the Paleo Diet was born, and a few Paleo thinkers asked Doug about his diet, and if they could borrow some specific things he promoted. (He agreed without asking for any credit.)
~ The non-therapeutic version of the Ketogenic Diet came into being.
~ Gluten-free philosophy caused people to question wheat and other grains.

Today, Doug’s diet doesn’t seem so radical. Everyone is doing it, even if they don’t call it “The Kaufmann Diet”. (NOTE: The Kaufmann Lifestyle and Diet go far beyond the approach you see so often in similar diets. Many people think what they’re doing is one and the same with Kaufmann, but it rarely is. There are specifics that make the Kaufmann Lifestyle so effective, and are missing from similar plans.)

Eventually,  Doug was actually published in a mainstream medical journal. He wrote about the Fungus Link to cancer. I remember how vindicated he felt after decades of being blasted for his theories.

This week, yet another vindication.

 On its website last week, the Centers for Disease Control urged people to consider fungus as the underlying cause of symptoms that don’t improve with conventional therapy. In a short video, the caption reads, “Fungal diseases are often not diagnosed right away because their symptoms can be similar to those of other diseases. ‘Think fungus’ if you have symptoms that don’t get better with treatment. Talk to your doctor about the possibility of a fungal infection.”

Whoa!! This sounds like they are quoting Kaufmann, himself.

I must tell you, this is earth-shaking. After working with Doug for 13 years, it feels like I’ve had a front row seat to a cultural paradigm shift. This is the point at which, as the first quote in this article said, Doug’s maligned theories are now being “accepted as self-evident”.

Other than Dr. Emerson’s gracious alert to Doug and his team, there has been no fanfare over the CDC’s incredible proclamation. So you’ll forgive me if I make a big deal out of this here, with you, Doug’s extended family.

So…if you have symptoms that don’t get better with treatment, think fungus. I’ve said that many times, but for the briefest of moments, I get to have the CDC back me up! God Bless Doug Kaufmann.

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