Fungal Meningitis – Let the Education Begin

Why did this occur? When manufacturing any injectable medication, sterile manufacturing procedures must be strictly adhered to. One hypothesis on how fungus got into the steroids is that sterility was breached simply because fungus is in the air. That small amount of fungus somehow dropped into the master batch of the medication being mixed and was dispensed into many bottles. In 1928, a similar event occurred in the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Fleming, but the airborne fungus in that situation did not kill people. It was later identified as penicillium. It didn’t kill humans, but it did kill another living organism in his laboratory Petri dishes – bacteria. A poisonous byproduct of penicillium, called penicillin, became a life-saving drug. Unfortunately, other similar fungi, even in small doses are capable of having the reverse effect on humans, as our doctors are now beginning to learn.

These deaths beg so many questions for me, so I can just imagine how physicians, who have no education in mycology (study of fungus), must feel. Shortly after this event became news, a physician friend sent me an email highlighting a conversation between a news reporter and a physician. One of the questions had to do with how well doctors were prepared to prescribe the recommended intravenous anti-fungal drugs called amphotericin B and voriconazole for these patients. The physician responded by stating that the average physician knew very little about the drugs, although they learned about them in medical school and had never used them since. That one sentence should frighten all of us. I believe that fungal infections are common, and I’m no longer alone. That our physicians are ignorant of how to use anti-fungal drugs is incomprehensible. And if they knew that their oft-prescribed antibiotics might actually cause fungal infections, they’d be shocked!

As many of you know, decades ago I discovered a diet that literally starved living fungal parasites. Through the years, several physicians asked me to nutritionally counsel some of their sickest and most non-responsive (to their medications or treatments) patients, and I had the opportunity to really witness this diet in action. By simply changing their diet and therefore starving these fungi, so many people recovered. I was thrilled, the patients were grateful and the doctors were dumbfounded. One doctor told me, “This was never taught in medical school!” It should not surprise us that doctors aren’t using anti-fungal diets or anti-fungal medications today anymore than it should shock us that 4 out of 5 doctors smoked Camels in 1950! They simply weren’t taught about the dangers of cigarette smoking, or the importance of nutrition or mycology in medical school. Life’s most valuable lessons, however, rarely come in book form.

But diet alone couldn’t fix all of their patients. Little did I know that my career would take an interesting turn as I learned about the power of prescriptive anti-fungal drugs. I would form a broad opinion that most drugs physician prescribed were not safe, and as I learned more about this fungal-starving diet, I felt that the drugs they would prescribe were unnecessary, because they offered only temporary fixes. When the drugs stopped, the symptoms started again. If I was correct in my hypothesis that fungus was the cause of many of our health problems, then anti-fungal drugs were useful for short periods of time, especially when used with a fungal-starving diet. Anti-fungal drugs could finally accurately diagnose many health problems! Why erase high cholesterol or the symptoms of gout for 6 hours at a time with drugs with dangerous side effects if a diet and anti-fungal drugs would reverse them? Wouldn’t that prove that “the cause” was fungus? Of course, I would later learn that fungus makes uric acid, which causes the inflammation seen in gout, and cholesterol-lowering drugs were actually anti-fungal drugs. Colchicine (for gout) and Lipitor (for cholesterol lowering) are currently prescribed to erase underlying fungal symptoms like inflammation for a few hours at a time. Why not fix these “diseases” with diet?

The anti-fungal drugs Diflucan and Nystatin were prescribed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times by the doctors, whose trust I had gained. Symptoms of unknown origin were soon treated with the Kaufmann 1 diet and these two anti-fungal drugs. How I wish every reader could have been present for the follow-up consultation with these doctors’ patients 14 days later. You’d have thought we scored the winning touchdown in the final minute of the game! One doctor here in Dallas, TX told his nurses that he wanted a fresh box of Kleenex in each exam room, specifically for these patients. 14 days ago they thought that they had to live a lifetime of misery. Now, they were crying tears of joy.

Which brings me back to the topic of fungal meningitis and the 14,000 patients who took the steroid injection to control their pain. Inflammation causes pain as the nerves become compressed by the swelling. There is speculation that those who have died from the fungal infestation so quickly might have had the medication get into the brain very quickly. A newspaper has sadly reported that some of these deaths may have been due to a needle breach into the covering of the spinal cord (spinal dura). In other words, inadvertently the needle may have gone into the spinal cord, thus allowing the fungus-tainted medication direct access to the brain. Fungi would thrive in this environment and quickly grow in the spinal fluid and brain. Pathologists will never be able to confirm this breach, however, because autopsies cannot determine past micro-spinal dura needle marks.

If I were one of the remaining 14,000 patients who received steroid shots from these tainted vials, here is what I would do. Mind you, I am not a physician. For this reason, please talk openly with your doctor before ever trying these recommendations. Please share this entire article with him/her.

1. Begin taking prophylactic doses of oral Diflucan and oral Nystatin. Whereas one of these prescriptive medications kills fungus in the bloodstream, the other helps kill it in the intestines. I’d rotate systemic anti-fungal drugs for 2-3 weeks for several months. Your doctor may want to draw a small tube of blood on occasion to check your liver enzymes.

2. Change my diet with the understanding that fungi thrive in the presence of carbohydrates. Grains, including sugar and corn are commonly contaminated with fungi. I would avoid yeast products and mushrooms.

3. Begin sitting in a far infrared sauna every other evening for 15-20 minutes.

4. Take chlorophyll drops or capsules throughout the day, and also take supplemental anti-fungals like olive leaf, caprylic acid, and a host of others. I’d also take immune system supporting supplements like beta glucan regularly

5. Contact others who were injected and assist them in learning. There is power in numbers.

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!

As a postscript to this article, it is important that you “know this”; a New York man, previously diagnosed with prostate and breast cancer, and newly diagnosed with brain cancer, had brain symptoms that just didn’t seem to add up to the diagnosis of brain cancer. But with a history of cancer, his doctors did diagnose him with brain cancer and told him to get his affairs in order. Enter Shenhong Wu, a physician who saw the symptoms differently. Dr. Wu did some tests that had not been done and… you guessed it, diagnosed brain “fungus”! After rounds of anti-fungal drugs, his brain “cancer” was cured! I’m left to wonder if the prostate and breast “cancers” were accurately diagnosed.

As I age, it is so wonderful to see the very medical community who boldly fought me on my belief that fungal infections are common and that many are deadly to humans begin to learn about this. Most readers would see this as vindication, but the story surrounding their new fungal education is just so tragic there is no room for pats on the back. I’ve fought for prophylactic anti-fungal drugs for cancer patients for decades and have been laughed at. This is no laughing matter as one man, who was told that he had a few months left to live, can now attest. The experts were just plain wrong and their errors would have cost him his life if not for Dr. Wu. These experts are just now learning what I have been teaching for decades and that makes me feel good, and it makes you safer as this knowledge expands. As I’ve always said, “Let them be wrong, but don’t let them be dead wrong!”

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