Letter from the Publisher

The Postchelation Urinary Toxic Element Screen

One of the disheartening aspects of practicing integrative medicine is the occasional incident of a medical board’s disciplining a physician. At the end of March 2016, our local Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission ordered a practitioner to cease treating patients for heavy metal toxicity with chelation therapy following a disciplinary action by the Oregon Medical Board. The doctor had been under investigation in Oregon for treating patients who were diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity. Oregon’s administrative board stipulated that “according to the American College of Medical Technology a diagnosis of metal toxicity based on provocative urine testing … has not been scientifically validated, has no demonstrated benefit, and may be harmful when applied in the assessment and treatment of patients in whom there is concern for metal poisoning.” Unfortunately, the aforementioned practitioner is not the only physician being disciplined for diagnosing heavy metal toxicity. Approximately 10 doctors in different states are being sanctioned for using provocative urinary toxic element testing. Clearly this diagnostic approach poses a risk for the integrative practitioner.

The laboratory testing is straightforward. A urine specimen is collected following administration of oral or parenteral chelation. The urine is assessed for levels of lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and other toxic elements. Unfortunately, while toxic levels for these elements have been established for an unprovoked urine collection, there are no accepted standards for postchelation toxic levels. Compared with unprovoked urine specimens, essentially all postchelation specimens will demonstrate increased toxic elements. Based on arbitrary standards post-chelation urine samples reveal very high, moderately high, or slightly elevated levels of toxic elements. However, there is generally a poor correlation between blood levels and postchelation urinary toxic elements. Hence, it is not unusual for a patient to have a normal blood lead and mercury level while having elevated postchelation urinary levels. In this scenario can one make the diagnosis of lead and mercury toxicity? No. What about a diagnosis of lead and mercury burden? Yes. Lead and mercury are measurable and exert toxic effects on the body. However, the diagnosis of toxicity should not be made or coded on insurance statements.

Oregon is stipulating that patients should not be treated for metal poisoning if blood testing does not confirm toxicity. However, patients would benefit by diminishing their toxic element burdens. Hence, practitioners should not be sanctioned for recommending patients undertake chelation for increased toxic elements diagnosed by provocative urine testing.

Holistic Doctor Deaths

Over the past 15 months, a number of natural health writers have made the case that an inordinate number of holistic doctors have died under suspicious circumstances. The doctors share a commonality of practicing some form of alternative medicine, be it medicine, osteopathy, dentistry, chiropractic, naturopathy, nutrition counseling, physical therapy, and more. Many of the doctors were found dead in circumstances that appear to involve foul play. Others were deemed to have died from natural causes but the circumstances remains suspicious. Perhaps the writer who has devoted the most efforts to listing and following the holistic doctor deaths is Erin Elizabeth, editor of the Health Nut News.¹ The following is a partial listing of doctors who have died:

Jeffrey Bradstreet, an integrative doctor who was vocally opposed to vaccinating children, was found dead in a river from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound” on June 19, 2015. On June 21, two chiropractors, Dr. Hendendal, DC, PhD and Dr. Holt DC were found dead with no specified causes. On June 29^th Theresa Sievers MD was found murdered. Also on that date, Jeffey Whiteside MD, a pulmonologist, has vanished. On July 3 Patrick Fitzpatrick MD also went missing and has not been found. On July 10 Lisa Riley, DO was murdered; her husband was charged with the homicide. On July 19 Ron Schwartz, MD, a gynecologist, was found shot to death, an apparent murder.

Included on Elizabeth’s list is Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, integrative cancer physician, who died suddenly on July 21, 2015 of an apparent heart attack, but he was of good health and no autopsy confirmed causes of death. Coincidentally on July 21, Dr. Abdul Karim, DDS, died following a heart attack while practicing for an upcoming marathon. On July 23 Dr. Jeffrey Whiteside’s body was found and later deemed a suicide. On August 12^th, Mary Bovier, DO was found “slain” but no one has been charged.

On Sept. 16, 2015 Dr. Mitch Gaynor, MD, author and holistic MD, committed suicide. On Oct. 11, Dr. Marie Pass was found dead following a suicide. On Oct. 29 Jerome Block, MD died after jumping from his New York City apartment window. On Dec. 28, cancer researcher Alan Clarke, MD “accidentally died” despite his body found hanging from a tree.

On Jan. 15, 2016 Ron Floyd, DC was found dead. On Jan. 23 John Marshall MD was found dead in a river. On Feb. 1 Paige Adams, FNP was also found dead. On Feb. 14^th, HIV researcher, Cheryl Deboer, PhD was found dead with a plastic bag covering her head. On March 23, 2016 Dr. Henry Han and his family were all murdered. On April 6, Dr. Harsh, MD was killed while riding her bicycle. On May 16, Dr. Suutari, a holistic doctor, took his own life. On June 17, 2016 Tiejun Huang MD, PhD was killed by an assailant.

Elizabeth makes the case that too many holistic and integrative doctors are dying. She suggests that many of the deaths deemed as suicides involved foul play and were possibly murders. Elizabeth thinks that these deaths are not being investigated satisfactorily. Moreover, she suspects that most of these deaths involve doctors who had been targeted. However, there is no definitive evidence to substantiate that the doctor deaths are part of a conspiracy against holistic doctors. The murders appear to be typical of all murders – a jilted relationship, a bad business deal, domestic violence, or a psychopath’s delusional behavior. The suicides frequently follow similar scenarios including financial loss, divorce, or serious illness.

Holistic doctors and practitioners are not immune from the turmoil and tragedies of life and frequently act out in irrational ways, including taking their own lives. The fact that the aforementioned individuals died from suicide, murder, and other natural causes does not mean that there is a conspiracy afoot. It means that holistic doctors are human and die for the same reasons that befall all humans. Elizabeth and other similar-minded writers need to provide the evidence for whom these actors are in this evil-doing conspiracy and what exactly they are doing. Until she does, this holistic doctor death series is simply a listing of holistic doctor who coincidentally died – nothing more.

The Cure for Alcoholism?

While the government and media have focused much of their attention this year on the epidemic of opioid abuse and addiction, alcoholism remains a major concern in the US and internationally. The illicit use of alcohol by high school students is not a new trend, but despite greater police scrutiny of stores illegally selling to minors, underage alcohol use continues to escalate. College campuses have become a venue for 21-year-olds (and younger peers) to drink without limits; students routinely engage in marathon drinking sessions, not infrequently becoming drunk and then passing out from alcohol excess. It is little wonder that among young adults, alcoholism is considered acceptable behavior as long as the drinking starts after work and individuals are sober before the start of the workday. Of course, it is a little questionable whether these individuals are truly sober in the a.m., and not a few are already drinking with their lunch meals. Despite the fact that many manage to curtail their drinking to having only a few evening drinks, a large number maintain heavy daily drinking and are unable to lessen their consumption. Among those drinking heavily, many become unable to control their alcoholic behavior, interfering with their marital and family lives and work performance. Alcoholism is additionally the precursor to liver and pancreatic disease as well as a factor complicating other health problems.

Many alcoholics would like to bring their alcohol habit under control but are unable to manage long-term reduction of their drinking. Despite the fact that authorities frequently punish them after driving under the influence, alcoholics are generally unable to stop consumption. Twelve-Step programs, as offered by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), are very helpful and provide insight that the alcoholic is not “the cause of his alcoholism,” nor can he/she “control or cure the alcoholism.” AA contends that only a higher power can intervene in the alcoholism and that the alcoholic must let the higher power change the addiction. For many alcoholics and their families, these words provide great encouragement, and together with treatment plans, the alcoholic not only may become sober but also maintain sobriety. However, not a few alcoholics are unable to maintain sobriety despite adherence to a Twelve-Step program and undergoing recovery treatment. The problem is that for many alcoholics, willpower and camaraderie at AA meetings is not sufficient to overcome the intensive urges to drink again, to just have that one little drink. The lack of willpower is not because the alcoholic is too feeble to master his cravings – it is because his/her neurochemistry has not been appropriately “deaddicted” from alcohol.

In the book The Cure for Alcoholism, by Roy Eskapa, PhD, the Sinclair method for deaddiction to alcohol and other addictions is explained.² In a nutshell, alcoholics physiologically enforce their habitual drinking by the endogenous production of endorphins with each drink of alcohol. Before the individual developed an alcoholic habit, there would be a limited stimulation of opioid receptors by drinking alcohol. As the individual consumed greater quantities of alcohol, opioid receptors would dramatically increase in activity, providing a tremendous release of endorphins with alcohol consumption. When an alcoholic becomes sober, the neurochemistry has not yet changed and opioid receptor activity remains overactive, signaling the need to consume alcohol. That signaling is very strong and eventually overcomes the thinking to not drink. In the Sinclair method, a drug agent, naltrexone, is administered prior to drinking alcohol. As an opioid receptor antagonist, naltrexone dampens the positive feedback that the alcoholic experiences when drinking alcohol. Less endorphins are produced. As days and weeks proceed, with continuing use of naltrexone taken within 1 hour of drinking, the opioid receptor activity is inhibited to a great degree, and the positive reinforcement that an alcoholic experiences with drinking alcohol is partially if not completely eliminated. Eventually through ongoing use of naltrexone when drinking, the alcoholic has deaddicted from his habit – the craving to drink alcohol disappears chemically. Willpower is no longer required to remain sober.

Is this just a great hypothesis? Hardly. Eskapa provides an extensive review of the clinical studies of naltrexone (or similar agents) used to treat alcoholism. Many of the studies done in the US and internationally are double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. The evidence for these studies shows a success rate of approximately 80% in those patients who used naltrexone. Note: the naltrexone must be used in patients who are still drinking alcohol; if the patient is already not drinking, naltrexone treatment should not be employed. Patients who are suitable for naltrexone treatment should not have liver or kidney disease or evidence of liver function abnormality.

It was unexpected to read that perhaps the most successful treatment for alcoholism is done while the patient continues to drink alcohol. The Sinclair method should be considered a first-line approach for alcoholism and it may be successfully done without additional counseling.

The Registry

I know that many men like to get out fishing at this time of year – I prefer lounging around reading, punctuated by the occasional stroll. Most physicians are steadily keeping abreast of the medical literature; I do my share, but I have to admit that I have more enjoyment in reading fiction. And not a minor part of that perusing includes 19th-century novels, plays, and operas. When Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the Scarlet Letter, he probably was not seeking to be known as the author of the first major American book featuring a sex offender protagonist. Hester Prynne’s dastardly offense, as you recall, was engaging in adultery for which she was ordered to walk about the town with the letter A signage displayed over her chest. Of course, Hester’s act has long been recognized as not only not sexually offensive, but approved of by men and women, assuming sex is consensual. But in her day, Hester was deeply stigmatized for the audacity of her act and her lack of morality and recognized depravity. In a sense, her scarlet letter was the sign that her neighbors recognized immediately and daily that she was a tainted woman, not to be trusted, and shunned in all dealings.

Hawthorne’s novel is a work of fiction but we have a modern-day version of the Scarlet Letter – it is the sex offender registry. Every state in the US maintains a list of predators who have been guilty of rape, childhood sexual predation, filming child pornography, and other sexual crimes. One understands the need for such a list when individuals who are unrepentant for their sexual misdeeds live freely in society; one would like to know if a sexual predator is living next door. But what if the individual on the registry is a juvenile or a young adult whose only crime was pulling down the pants of a classmate at age 10? Yes, pulling down a classmate’s pants is a crime, a sexual crime, sufficient to be deemed a punishable offense by the courts, and a listing on the sexual offender registry. What if a few preteen kids are home alone and they want to do show and tell with their bodies – I’ll let you look at mine, if you let me look at yours. It turns out that this is a sexual offense, especially if there is a young teen and a preteen. And if the sexual offense is prosecuted, guess what: there is a listing on the sex offender registry. It may seem moronic for the first two cases to be prosecuted and placed on a registry. How about two 17-year-olds who go to the prom, drink too much, and at a hotel later engage in sex? Yes, a parent can complain, about underage sex, despite it being consensual, and the male teenager will be charged with statutory rape. (Shouldn’t the female teenager face the same offense?) It’s a criminal act and, if successfully prosecuted, yields a listing as a sex offender. Mind you, all of the above are considered as sexually depraved as the 43-year-old pervert getting teenagers to film porn or the 48-year-old psychopath violently raping women. They’re all considered sexual crimes. Once convicted or obliged to plea-bargain guilt for a lesser sentence, each is considered a sex offender, listed on a sex offender registry, and treated by the police and public exactly the same – as deviants deserving contempt, avoidance, and distrust, not to be hired, not to be allowed near schools, not even to be permitted to visit their own children. Yep, the pre-teens who groped each other while playing show-and-tell are hardened sex offenders who need to be listed!

Why am I carrying on so about this; after all, what do sexual offenders have to do with integrative medicine? Much like Hawthorne’s Hester, someone who is registered lives the life of a “leper.” Being stigmatized means no work, getting ugly looks walking into the store, time wasted figuring out how and where one can travel, families being targeted by vigilantes; basically, a life of hell. The psychological toll is relentless; individuals withdraw, become depressed, and have suicidal thoughts. And not a few have committed suicide. The preteen and teenage “sexual offenders” who are listed live lives of a pariah. Their stories are amply illustrated in an article by Sarah Stillman in the March 14 New Yorker.³ One woman, whose sexual show-and-tell at age 10 with younger siblings led to a conviction for intercourse with a child (that never occurred), was removed from her home, placed in juvenile detention, and given “sexual rehabilitation.” She eventually completed her judicially ordered program and returned to living with a foster family and performed outstandingly in high school. She entered college and continued to excel in her studies until one day her photo, name, and address appeared on a Michigan sex offender site. Vigilante students told her to get out of the dorm. She fled and lived hidden but still managed to complete her degree. However, when she finished her master’s and sought work, the sex offender registry followed her. Despite attempts to get herself off the list, the judge refused. For a few years she lived peacefully outside the US, but when she returned, after Michigan did remove her name from the registry; her name continued to appear as an offender on other sites on the Web. These sites would not remove her listing. The woman is now married and has children. She is trying to give her children a normal life despite her ongoing dealings with the lingering effects from being trapped by a scarlet letter.

Efforts are under way throughout the US to modify state regulations, prohibiting the listing of juveniles on sex offender registries unless the youth has engaged in felonious acts. However, such efforts have been limited to very few states to date.

Prof. Marco Ruggiero and the Brain Microbiome

In this issue, medical journalist Jacques Fernandez de Santos interviews Prof. Marco Ruggiero for the second time in the Townsend Letter; the first interview in July 2012 concerned the controversy of HIV causation of AIDS.⁴ Ruggiero discusses the important role that the microbiome of the gastrointestinal tract plays in brain functioning. In fact, he labels the gut microbiome, the “third brain,” following the role of the GI tract’s acting as a secondary brain. But Ruggiero points out that our gut microbiome is composed of a vast population of microorganism species, some of which are defined during stool examinations, but the majority remain undiagnosed. He estimates that the gut biome population, nonhuman organisms living symbiotically or parasitically within the body, outnumbers the human cell population by 10:1. Much more concerning is that the genetic information contained with the microbiome DNA outnumbers the human cell DNA by 100:1. Given the overwhelming amount of alien DNA functioning within the gut, Ruggiero conjectures that the human brain is clearly being directed at least to a certain degree by the gut microbiome. Further, since all organisms seek to maximize their survival at the expense of their environment, Ruggiero suggests that our brain function, indeed our cognitive functioning, and more crudely our eating preferences, may be directed by the gut microbiome for their partialities. What should set the readership off balance is that Ruggiero makes the case that our brain itself has its own microbiome, totally oblivious to the blood–brain barrier.

What, if anything, can support our immune system that is terribly outnumbered by numbers and the metabolic functioning of the two microbiome populations? Ruggiero’s work has focused on GcMAF (Gc protein-derived macrophage activating factor), an immune modulator that acts to stimulate immune system functioning when under attack while inhibiting immune cell activity when the danger is abated. Ideally, this would mean that it would enhance white blood cell activity during the course of an acute infection or when faced with tumor cell growth, while it would dampen such activity if autoimmune dysfunction was ongoing. GcMAF has had a sensationalized reputation over the past decade as a panacea for cancer, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic degenerative diseases. Due to the disdain that the FDA has had for clinics promising cures using GcMAF, it has been difficult to import. However, Ruggiero thinks that we should reconsider GcMAF as continuing research supports its impressive immune modulating activities with essentially no adverse effects.

Stephen Levine PhD

Our cover features Stephen Levine, PhD, well recognized in the supplement industry as the founder of Allergy Research Group in California. Stephen and I share similar paths with our participation in orthomolecular medicine and vitamin therapies. Stephen began Allergy Research with a handful of supplement products that he distributed from the trunk of his car in 1980; at that time I was getting my feet wet learning about chelation and nutritional medicine at a clinic run by Leo Bolles, MD, with a tiny lab implementing some crude functional lab tests by a biochemistry professor, Jeff Bland PhD. In 1985, after the Townsend Letter had just began its transition from a newsletter to a small magazine, Stephen Levine published his seminal work, “Antioxidant Adaptation: Its Role in Free Radical Pathology,” coauthored with Parris Kidd, PhD. In those early days of Townsend Letter publication, Stephen and I met frequently at chelation and environmental medicine meetings, where he would be speaker and company president/booth representative. Allergy Research has been an advertiser in the Townsend Letter for more than 30 years!

Stephen has retired from direct activities with Allergy Research, but he remains very interested in clinical research and publication. In this month’s interview by Bob Frost, Stephen shares his own treatment favorites and what he takes daily to bolster and maintain his health.

Enjoy!

Jonathan Collin, MD

Notes

1. Elizabeth E. Holistic doctor death series: Over 50 dead on 1 year anniversary, but what’s being done? Health Nut. March 12, 2016.

2. Eskapa R. The Cure for Alcoholism: the Medically Proven Way to Eliminate Alcohol Addiction. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books; 2008.

3. Stillman S. The list. New Yorker. March 14, 2016:50–63.

4. De Santos JF. Interview of Prof. Marco Ruggiero on the controversy of HIV causation of AIDS. Townsend Lett. July 2012.