[Mb-civic] Nanobacteria and its implications in disease

[IHHS at aol.com]

The  Nanobacteria Link
to Heart Disease and Cancer  
Nanoparticles are implicated in the harmful calcification that's common to  
many illnesses.
A simple treatment is now reversing the symptoms, especially  in heart 
disease,
so why aren't the health authorities telling patients and  doctors about it?
Millions of seriously ill patients are unaware that heart disease is being  
measurably reversed with an approach pioneered by researchers at the National  
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and in Finland, aided by Mayo 
Clinic  and Washington Hospital Center findings. This approach is now prescribed 
by  hundreds of doctors for thousands of patients. A similar approach has been  
developed with prostate disease at the renowned Cleveland Clinic in Florida.  
According to doctors, both approaches are practical options for those whose  
other medicines and surgery have failed. So why aren't other desperately ill  
patients whose treatments don't work being told about it? 
In July 2004, the  medical journal Pathophysiology published a peer-reviewed 
research  paper with the innocuous title "Calcification in coronary artery 
disease can be  reversed by EDTA–tetracycline long-term chemotherapy".1 In plain 
terms, it meant  that hardening of the arteries was being reversed. Not only 
were rock-hard  calcium deposits being reduced, but chest pains were being 
resolved in most  patients and bad cholesterol levels were being cut beyond what 
other medicines  had achieved. The findings were important for patients whose 
other drugs and  surgery weren't working, i.e., the "cardiac cripples", whose 
numbers are in the  millions and whose doctors have told them there is nothing 
more to be done. They  were the ones who responded most favourably to the new 
approach. 
Then, in  February 2005, a paper published in the prestigious Journal of 
Urology  by researchers from the Cleveland Clinic, one of the leading urology 
hospitals  in America, reported "significant improvement" in chronic prostatitis—a 
growing  problem for millions of men—again, where other approaches had 
failed.2 
The  studies, although otherwise separate, had a compelling link. They used a 
 cocktail of well-known, inexpensive medicines that have been around for half 
a  century but were never before used in this combination. Both reports urged 
more  studies to confirm their conclusions, and emphasised that not every 
patient  experienced a reversal; only a majority did. Nonetheless, the results 
were  encouraging. Chronic diseases that had befuddled modern medicine were 
being  reversed. 
To put a human face on this, take the case reported by Dr Manjit  Bajwa of 
McLean, Virginia, who did not participate in the clinical studies but  whose 
experience with one patient paralleled study results. Dr Bajwa reported in  a 
testimonial of 5 May 2005: 
"Two years ago I had a patient with severe  coronary artery disease with a 75–
85% blockage in left coronary and two other  arteries. Open heart surgery was 
recommended as stents could not be put in. The  patient was told he would 
probably die within two weeks if surgery was not  performed. 
"He declined surgery and instead chose chelation. [Author's note:  chelation 
in this case is an intravenous form of heavy metal removal.] After  
twenty-five treatments of chelation, his angina worsened [author's  emphasis]. With 
[his] heart calcium score of 2600, I started the nanobacteria  protocol. Within 
two to three weeks his angina abated. He was able to return to  all his normal 
activities and exercises in two months. 
"Nanobacteria  protocol helped this patient measurably, when other treatments 
had failed. I am  quite impressed with his results. With heart calcium scores 
of 750 or more,  nothing else seems to work."
Bajwa and her patient are far from alone. In  Santa Monica, California, 
general practitioner Dr Douglas Hopper said he  recorded impressive results with a 
diabetic patient when he used the treatment  to help her recover from 
congestive heart failure. Hopper then put his patient  on the same treatment used in 
the clinical study: a regimen of tetracycline,  EDTA and nutraceuticals,3 
administered by the patient at home. Note that this  was not intravenous chelation, 
which has been broadly analysed and critiqued,  but, instead, a mix of oral 
and suppository treatments. 
In Toledo, Ohio,  cardiologist Dr James C. Roberts, who pioneered early 
patient treatment with  this approach, has on his website case histories from 
dozens of patients who  have shown remarkable improvement. In Tampa, Florida, 
cardiologist Dr Benedict  Maniscalco, who supervised the clinical study 
[Pathophysiology study,  referenced previous page], reports that patients who stayed on 
the treatment  after the study was completed showed dramatic reductions in 
their heart disease  symptoms. There are many more examples. 
Normally results such as these, when  reinforced by clinical studies, however 
preliminary, would be cause for loud  celebration. If the findings had been 
reported by a major pharmaceuticals  company, they could have easily made the 
front pages of medical news services  because, until then, no one had reported 
reversing the symptoms of such diseases  to such an extent. More encouraging 
still, because the medicines have been  around for many years and their side 
effects are minimal and well known, the new  approach is already available 
across the USA and used with thousands of  patients. That leaves thousands more 
doctors with millions more patients who  might benefit right now. On top of that, 
a blood test based on the new approach  has been used to identify heart 
disease early in patients who show no outward  symptoms. 
Why, then, has the response from government authorities, medical  
associations and health experts been cavernous silence? 
To understand this  requires looking at a scourge that has been with us for 
millennia, and which  science has been at a loss to explain until now. It is 
known as  calcification.  
CALCIFICATION
Calcification is a rock-hard mix of the  most plentiful minerals in the body: 
calcium and phosphorus. Normally this  calcium phosphate mix is essential for 
building bones and teeth. But as we age,  and sometimes when we are still 
young, some of it goes haywire, stiffening  arteries, roughing up skin, 
destroying teeth, blocking kidneys and salting  cancers. 
The arithmetic is frighteningly easy. Calcification doubles in the  body 
about every three or four years. We can have it as teenagers and not  notice, 
although it mysteriously accelerates in some athletes. Then as we age  and also 
live longer, it becomes so endemic that most people over seventy have  it. 
For decades, calcification has been growing imperceptibly in tens of  
millions of baby boomers. Politicians and pundits are among the high-profile  victims 
of this slow-motion explosion that is ripping apart healthcare with  
skyrocketing treatment costs. In December 2004, doctors diagnosed US President  George 
W. Bush with one of the more commonly known forms: coronary artery  
calcification. Former President Clinton required emergency surgery because  doctors 
missed much of his calcification when they used older tests to track it.  Vice 
President Dick Cheney and many of his Senate colleagues are calcified. At  least 
three sitting US women governors have had it in breast cancer as well. And  
they are not alone. Media types who cover politics or poke fun at it haven't  
escaped. Larry King and David Letterman are both calcified, as are many ageing  
news anchors. A much younger CBS Early Show co-host, Rene Syler, has it  too. 
As we learn more about it, calcification is competing to be the leading  
medical disorder. Although it is nowhere on the "Leading Causes of Death" list,  
it contributes to most diseases that kill us, including heart disease, diabetes 
 and cancer. The numbers are staggering. For the 60 million Americans who 
have  heart disease, most have calcification. Of the millions of women who 
develop  breast or ovarian cancer or who have breast implants, calcification is a  
warning. Men with prostate disease often have it, as do kidney-stone sufferers. 
 Athletes with stress injuries like bone spurs and tendonitis get it 
frequently.  
Most of us don't know the pervasiveness of calcification because it has a  
different name in many diseases, and here are just a few: dental pulp stones,  
hardening of the arteries, kidney stones, pitcher's elbow, bone spurs,  
microcalcification in breast cancer and "brain sand". 
Unsuspecting patients  aren't the only ones in the dark. Many doctors are 
unaware of new studies that  show calcification is toxic, causing acute 
inflammation, rapid cell division and  joint destruction. Oddly, these nasty effects 
are well known to specialists who  study calcification in arthritis, but 
awareness of them hasn't translated very  well to the cardiovascular community, with 
the result that calcification is  still misperceived by many as an innocent 
bystander instead of an inflammatory  devil. 
The double-think about calcification is illustrated by how it is  treated in 
breast cancer. When microcalcification is detected in the breast with  routine 
scans, it is a warning sign for cancer and the deposits are biopsied for  
malignancies. This was the case, for example, with Connecticut Governor Jody  
Rell in early 2005. Doctors found cancer in the calcium deposits in her breast  
before scans detected a tumour. This let them surgically remove it before it  
spread to her lymph nodes. 
That typifies one perverse advantage of  calcification: it helps doctors 
pre-empt more serious disease. In some ways, it  is a canary in the mine of the 
body. And yet, if cancer is not found in calcium  deposits, these are often 
declared as "benign" and patients are told there is  nothing to worry about. 
The same thing goes for heart disease. Coronary  artery calcification is seen 
as an excellent predictor of the illness. Tens of  billions of dollars are 
spent every year on scanning technology to identify the  telltale thin white 
lines that betray its presence. Yet most doctors see  calcification in the 
arteries as something that comes along later once the  disease takes hold, despite 
evidence that calcium phosphate crystals generate  the same type of 
inflammation that, according to cardiologists, plays a big role  in heart attacks. 
Incredibly, with all the advanced detection techniques,  there has been no 
way to find calcium deposits where they get started in the  billions of 
capillaries in the human body—so, without being able to see the  starting point, 
doctors often conclude that what they don't see isn't there. But  make no mistake: 
calcification is there, and it is a medical disorder. It was  registered in 
1990 as a disorder under the International Classification of  Diseases list of 
the World Health Organization and was adopted by WHO member  states as of 1994 
(see _http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/_ 
(http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/) ).  
When well established, calcification stares defiantly at radiologists every  
day from X-rays as it multiplies incessantly. There has been no proof of where 
 it comes from, and there is no known way to prevent it or sustainably get 
rid of  it without removing it surgically. Due to its gestation period of years 
before  it triggers real trouble, it has just begun sucking the life out of 
baby boomers  and their healthcare budgets. 
Among its more exotic effects, it threatens  space exploration when it 
disables astronauts with unexpected kidney  calcification and it is a budget-breaker 
for pro-sport-team owners who lose  athletes to its ravages. At the more 
mundane level, it complicates root canals  and it disrupts the lives of otherwise 
healthy young people when it strikes as  kidney stones. Worst of all, it 
infiltrates plaque in heart disease and stroke  and it plugs bypasses and stents 
used to fix our internal plumbing. 
The US  National Library of Medicine holds thousands of research documents 
referencing  calcification, and various medical journals cover it in depth. GE 
Healthcare,  Toshiba, Philips and Siemens sell thousands of machines for 
detecting it.  
TREATMENT A THREAT TO PHARMCO PROFITS
But with all this  money being thrown at calcification, there has been 
virtually no success at  finding the cause. So when researchers such as those at 
Mayo Clinic and NASA  find something that seems to cause it, and clinical studies 
show that a new  approach seems to get rid of it, you'd think that most of 
the medical  establishment would be rapt with attention, right? Wrong. 
Only a few small  studies have been co-financed by the National Institutes of 
Health (NIH) to look  into this, and neither has to do with the treatment. 
The only thing the Food and  Drug Administration (FDA) seems to have done is to 
make rumblings about whether  the treatment is legitimate, although the active 
ingredients—tetracycline and  EDTA—have been FDA approved for other uses for 
decades. So far, no government  agency has made public note of the 
peer-reviewed studies that many physicians  say are so promising. 
According to doctors familiar with the approach, here  are a few reasons why 
the treatment has not been given the attention that it  seems to merit... 
• The most perturbing for patients: the treatment is  relatively inexpensive 
and produces poor profits compared to other drugs. It is  exponentially 
cheaper than open heart surgery. Because it does not have to be  taken for life at 
full dose—as is the case with most other heart drugs—it does  not provide the 
steady cash flow that other medicines do. 
• Although the  treatment is initially used alongside other medicines as a 
precaution to make  sure patients don't switch prematurely and suffer problems, 
evidence suggests  that the new approach might replace more profitable blood 
thinners and  anti-inflammatories that are staples of the pharmaceuticals 
industry. 
• And  if the approach continues to reverse coronary artery disease, it will 
cut down  on expensive surgical procedures that are the financial mainstay of 
hospitals.  
That's not to say surgeons don't want to get rid of calcification. New  
stents that go into arteries are specially coated with time-release drugs that  
seem to ward off calcification. But that only happens where the stent is  
located, not in the other 99.999 per cent of the arteries. 
Also, the  EDTA–tetracycline–nutraceutical combo that has demonstrated such 
promise is not  the only treatment shown to work. A group of drugs known as 
bisphosphonates,  used for example to treat osteoporosis, has been shown to be 
effective in the  lab against some calcification. But bisphosphonates can have 
nasty side effects,  especially with the type of regular application that 
seems to be necessary to  reverse heart disease in seriously ill patients. Due to 
these risks, the only  present approach that seems to be safe and effective in 
reversing heart disease  is the one that uses the EDTA–tetracycline–
nutraceutical mix. 
Critics claim  the reason why the treatment isn't adopted more broadly has 
nothing to do with  money but instead with science. They say researchers can't 
show how the  treatment works.  
NANOBACTERIA DISCOVERED IN OUR BLOOD
It all comes down to  a sub-microscopic blood particle known as a 
nanobacterium, discovered in 1988 by  Finnish researcher Dr Olavi Kajander at Scripps 
Research Institute in  California. 
The particle has a special habit no other blood particle has  been known to 
possess: it forms a rock-hard calcium phosphate shell that is  chemically 
identical to the stuff found in hardening of the arteries, prostate  disease, 
kidney disease, periodontal disease and breast cancer. The problem is,  the 
particle is so small that it apparently can't accommodate nucleic acid  strings that, 
according to commonly accepted wisdom, would let it replicate on  its own and 
be alive. So scientists are stumped over how it manages to  self-replicate. 
For 15 years, microbiologist Dr Neva Ciftcioglu (pronounced  
"shift-show-lew") has been peering with an electron microscope at this blood  particle that 
critics say doesn't live. But according to NASA colleagues and  Mayo Clinic 
researchers, the question of whether it lives is less important than  what it 
does. Despite or perhaps due to its tiny size and genetic elusiveness,  this speck 
may be the Rosetta stone for a calcified language found in most  diseases on 
the Leading Causes of Death list. 
Like her science, Ciftcioglu's  life is full of unusual turns. Being a woman 
microbiologist from Turkey speaks  volumes. Throw into that her once-fluent 
Finnish, a position at NASA and  professorships on both sides of the Atlantic, 
and you've got a determined  character struggling with a stubborn scientific 
cryptogram. 
Ciftcioglu's  work with nanobacteria began when her PhD scholarship took her 
to the University  of Kuopio in Finland, where alongside her once mentor, 
biochemist Olavi  Kajander, she developed the antibodies necessary to find the 
particle in the  human body. A decade later, her work caught the eye of NASA 
chief scientist Dr  David McKay and she ended up at the Johnson Space Center in 
Houston, gathering  science awards that testify to her success. 
Now Ciftcioglu and long-time  collaborator Kajander, who discovered the 
nanoscopic artifact, stand at the eye  of a growing storm. They and their 
colleagues are garnering praise and scorn  because they claim to have evidence for why 
most of us are literally petrified  by the time we die. More profoundly, their 
work may influence how new life is  found on Earth and other planets.  
SELF-REPLICATING NANOPARTICLES
An intense dispute has  raged for years that connects how we look for 
infection in the body with how we  look for bio-kingdoms on Earth and throughout the 
universe. Researchers have  long sought terrestrial extremophiles that tell 
them what might survive on Mars,  while others doubt the wisdom of looking for 
life on Mars at all. The mystery  remains: what is the most effective way to 
find novel organisms? 
Until  recently, every life-form was found to have a particular RNA sequence 
that can  be amplified using a technique known as Polymerase Chain Reaction 
(PCR). Nucleic  acid sub-sequences named 16S rRNA have been universally found in 
life-forms. By  making primers against these sub-sequences, scientists 
amplify the DNA that  codes for the 16S rRNAs. Resulting PCR products, when 
sequenced, can  characterise a life-form. 
One high-powered group persuaded NASA with a  "Don't fix it if it ain't 
broke" line and lobbied successfully to use the same  method employed for years: 
get a piece of RNA and amplify it. The group—led by  scientists such as Dr Gary 
Ruvkun at the Department of Genetics in Massachusetts  General Hospital, 
Boston, and advised by luminaries such as Dr Norman Pace at  the University of 
Colorado—got money from NASA to build a "PCR machine" that  would automatically 
seek such clues in harsh environments such as those found on  Mars. 
Other scientists known as astrobiologists say the PCR machine approach  is a 
waste of money because such amplification shows only part of the  picture—not 
what nature might have done on other planets or, for that matter, in  extreme 
Earthly environments. 
However, their argument always suffered from  lack of evidence—that is, until 
2003 when scientists associated with the San  Diego–based Diversa Corporation 
and advised by Professor Karl Stetter, of the  University of Regensburg, 
Germany, published the genome of an extremophile known  as Nanoarchaeum equitans, 
which Stetter's team had discovered in  Icelandic volcanic vents. 
N. equitans was special because it had  the smallest known genome found so 
far, but it also had another intriguing  trait. With Nanoarchaeae, the 
particular 16S rRNA sequence found in other  life-forms wasn't in the place that it was 
expected to be and did not respond to  conventional PCR tests. The 16S rRNA 
sequence was different in areas addressed  by the PCR primers and did not 
amplify. Stetter noted that the so-called  universal probes that work with humans, 
animals, plants, eukaryotes, bacteria  and archaeae did not work in this 
organism. 
How, then, was the discovery  made if the organism couldn't be sequenced in 
that way? Stetter had found that  the organism's sequence where the traditional 
"universal" primers are located  was abnormal. This finding let him use other 
means to sequence the gene. In  reporting their discovery in the Proceedings 
of the National Academy of  Sciences,4 the Stetter team observed that the 
information-processing  systems and simplicity of Nanoarchaeum's metabolism 
suggests "an unanticipated  world of organisms to be discovered". In other words, it 
might be the tip of a  nano-lifeberg. 
Stetter's finding gave ammunition to scientists such as Neva  Ciftcioglu who 
say they have found other extremophiles, including human  nanobacteria, that 
cannot have their nucleic acids detected with standard PCR  amplification. 
One of the differences between Stetter's N. equitans  and the nanobacteria 
found by Ciftcioglu and Kajander's team is that  Nanoarchaeae need another 
organism to replicate, whereas at least some  nanobacteria seem to replicate by 
themselves. Another difference is that  Nanoarchaeae are slightly wider: 400 
nanometres compared to 100–250 for  nanobacteria. The greater size allows for what 
conventional wisdom says is the  smallest allowable space for 
life-replicating ribosomes. 
Which leads to the  question: how do nanobacteria copy themselves? Evidence 
for self-replicating  nanoparticles has been around for years in everything 
from oil wells to heart  disease, but failure to sequence them using regular PCR 
led some to dismiss them  as contamination or mistakes. However, researchers 
have found characteristics  that make the particles hard to explain away. They 
replicate on their own, so  are not viruses. They resist high-level radiation, 
which suggests they are not  bacteria. They respond well to light, where 
non-living crystals don't. So if  they aren't viruses, regular bacteria or 
crystals, what are they? 
Some  supporters of standardised 16S rRNA tests are quick to discount 
nanobacteria.  That's not surprising. If a novel nucleic sequence holds true with 
other  extremophiles as with N. equitans, then a machine that searches for  life 
using standard PCR tests might miss them and be obsolete. Conscious of  this, 
the PCR machine team has said that as part of their work, they plan to  
"search for the boundaries" of the 16S sequences, but what exactly that means  and 
how they plan to overcome the problem hasn't been set out yet.  
Reputations, money and perhaps the foundations of life ride on the 16S rRNA  
dispute. Resolving it may determine who gets money to find the next great  
biological kingdom.  
NANOBACTERIAL INFECTION 
How relevant is the outcome for  human welfare? In 2004, researchers reported 
finding nanobacteria in everything  from heart disease to cancer and kidney 
stones. Medical researchers reported to  the American Heart Association's 
Scientific Sessions 2004 that a test for  nanobacteria is an accurate predictor of 
heart disease risk. But the work that  these researchers say may already have 
saved lives has been ridiculed by critics  who claim that such nanobes don't 
exist, which in turn has made funding for  basic research hard to get. 
Who is right? One well-respected astrobiologist  observer qualified the 
struggle this way: "Unless we declare [the nano-organism  scientists] incompetent, 
then the info they have gathered is rather compelling  that something 
interesting is going on." 
That's why a few intrepid investors  have plopped US$7 million and counting 
into a Tampa biotech start-up devoted  exclusively to Ciftcioglu and Kajander's 
discoveries about the calcifying  particle. For the big pharmaceuticals 
companies that's pocket change, but for  these entrepreneurs it's a pocketful of 
faith that's been keeping them on edge  for years. And it's starting to show 
some results, as published research from  NASA, Mayo and various universities 
indicates. Moreover, despite its relative  financial insignificance, this venture 
may end up wagging the dog due to a  long-overdue paradigm shift in, of all 
things, the space program. 
After  decades of resistance, NASA—provoked by successful upstart private 
projects such  as the X Prize, which led to the first private foray into space—is 
now  collaborating with fledgling companies, instead of just corporate 
behemoths, on  intractable problems: in this case, why perfectly healthy astronauts 
come down  with kidney and other calcifying disorders. The result: in March 
2005, NASA's  Johnson Space Center put the finishing touches on a tightly 
secured lab aimed at  decoding nanobacteria found at the core of kidney stones. 
After some serious  growing pains, the lab is finally beginning to look into what 
Ciftcioglu and  Kajander began examining so many years ago: the genetic 
content of nanobacteria.  Meanwhile, Ciftcioglu and others have published results 
showing that  nanobacteria multiply five times faster in weightlessness than in 
Earth  gravity,5 which may explain why calcification shows up so suddenly in 
space.  
But while researchers argue over what this nanobacterium is and how it  
multiplies, doctors are finding that, when they treat it with a medical  cocktail, 
their patients improve. 
Nor is it unusual that doctors are  succeeding before science figures out 
why. Antibiotics were used successfully  against bacteria long before scientists 
deciphered DNA. Doctors stopped  infecting patients by washing their hands 
long before they were able to identify  all the viruses and bacteria that they 
inadvertently transported from patient to  patient. 
Most recently, a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer has been put  on the 
market. It apparently works by targeting the human papilloma virus.  Problem 
is, researchers can't show exactly how the virus causes cancer; they can  only 
show that when it is stopped, the cancer doesn't occur. But that hasn't  
prevented the drug from being patented and put on the market. The history of  
medicine is full of such examples where patients improve with treatments whose  
mechanisms aren't fully understood at the start. 
The idea that infection  could be at the heart of chronic illness is 
intriguing because it has been  around for more than a century but only now is 
regaining favour due to  discoveries of, for example, a vaccine that prevents 
cervical cancer (as  mentioned above). The resulting debates over infection in 
chronic disease have a  novel twist because they are driven by new diagnostic 
technologies that give  researchers the molecular accuracy required to confirm older 
theories about  infection. On one hand, clinical results suggest antibiotics 
alone do not  prevent the rate of heart attacks among coronary patients. On 
the other,  discoveries that infection is responsible for most stomach ulcers 
and some  cancers support the long-held idea that the same might be true in 
heart disease,  if only science could find the right infection and get rid of it. 
Some say  that nanobacteria may be one such infection. Yet scientists' 
inability to fully  explain the genetics of nanobacteria is being used by 
high-ranking medical  authorities as an excuse to ignore the pathogen and its treatment. 
This is  especially perplexing because scientists involved in the discoveries 
work at  some of the highest level institutions in America, including NASA, 
Mayo Clinic,  Cleveland Clinic, Washington Hospital Center and many others, and 
are not only  respected in their field but are also award winners. Other 
centres of excellence  internationally, such as University Hospital in Vienna, 
have also isolated the  pathogen and observed it in diseases such as ovarian 
cancer. 
For decades,  scientists have shown that disease can be caused by 
contaminants that are not  "alive" and cannot replicate on their own. Environmental 
toxins, many viruses  and, most recently, particles known as prions have all been 
shown as  players in disease processes, although they cannot self-replicate. 
So it  seems unusual that nanobacteria would be discounted just because no 
one has yet  shown how they multiply. Which takes us to the question of where 
nanobacteria  might come from.  
NANOBACTERIA-CONTAMINATED VACCINES 
When Dr Olavi  Kajander discovered nanobacteria in 1988, he was not looking 
for disease at all.  He was looking for what was killing the cells that are 
used to develop vaccines.  Labs everywhere have a vexing and expensive problem 
with these widely used cell  cultures: they stop reproducing or die after a few 
generations and have to be  thrown out. 
Kajander surmised that something invisible was killing them; and  when he 
incubated supposedly sterile samples for more than a month under special  
conditions, he got a milky biofilm. That biofilm contained particles that he  later 
named nanobacteria, unaware at the time that some of their  characteristics 
made them quite distinct from bacteria. 
The serum that  Kajander used to grow the nanobacteria came from the blood of 
cow foetuses.  Serum from the UK especially was full of nanobacteria, but a 
much later study  also concluded they were present in some cow herds in the 
eastern US. In other  words, nanobacteria are in cows, and cow blood is used to 
develop many vaccines.  Kajander emphasises that this should not stop people 
from using vaccines,  because the immediate risk from diseases that the vaccines 
are intended to  prevent is relatively higher than the calcification risk in 
the short term.  Nonetheless, the potentially explosive implications of 
contaminated vaccines and  cow by-products would be clear to everyone at government 
agencies who has  examined the issue. 
In that context, a series of hotly disputed discussions  went back and forth 
between Kajander and Ciftcioglu and disease prevention  agencies. And it 
certainly wasn't a secret because the Medical Letter on the  CDC & FDA (10 June 
2001) published an article entitled "Nanobacteria  Are Present In Vaccines; But 
Any Health Risks Remain Unknown", explaining that  nanobacteria had been 
discovered in some polio vaccines. 
The minutes of a  subsequent meeting of the FDA Center for Biologics 
Evaluation and Research  (CBER) advisory committee in November 2002 reveal an 
extraordinary decision by  the committee members: they elected not to investigate the 
potential  contamination. According to the minutes they based their decision 
on a lone  experiment, suggesting that what Kajander had found was a 
contaminant often  found in lab experiments and nothing new. In other words, they 
maintained that  Kajander had made a mistake. 
But one of the glaring problems with the  NIH-funded experiment performed 
around late 1999 or early 2000, as shown in the  published paper about the 
results,6 is that it did not use a control sample that  could have been provided by 
Kajander. In other words, the experiment never  examined the particle that 
Kajander had discovered, but instead relied on  growing the particle 
independently without knowing if it was the same one  Kajander was referring to. Moreover, 
the experiment was never repeated after the  preliminary finding. On that 
very slim basis, according to the CBER committee  minutes, the whole issue of 
nanobacteria was dismissed as a potential  contamination issue for the time 
being. Since then, papers have been published  showing that nanobacteria have been 
grown in labs around the world and that  patients began to improve when the 
pathogen was targeted in disease.  Nonetheless, neither the FDA nor NIH has 
indicated much readiness to  re-investigate the vaccine contamination issue or the 
nanobacteria treatment.  
What might be the price for this delay in researching nanobacteria?  
Annually, millions of heart disease patients go through agony or die because  drugs 
and surgery prescribed for them haven't worked. For this last-ditch group,  the 
choices are simple: try something new or die. 
The question that the NIH  and FDA may one day face is: when such promising 
early evidence was being  reported and so many patients had exhausted their 
other options, why were  doctors not advised of this new possibility so that they 
could at least tell  patients and make some informed decisions? 
Researchers like Ciftcioglu and  Kajander, along with cardiologists like 
Benedict Maniscalco plus experienced  general practitioners such as Douglas 
Hopper, profess frustration that so many  patients and their doctors are not being 
given the information that could help  them, especially in last-ditch 
situations. Meanwhile, calcification continues  its relentless march in millions, and 
the human and financial costs are  mounting.  
POSTSCRIPT
In May 2005, Dr Olavi Kajander delivered a  sobering message to a joint 
meeting of the US FDA and the European Medicines  Agency on viral safety when he 
presented new evidence to support something first  published in 1997: that 
vaccines are contaminated with nanobacteria.
Since  1999, government agencies have done virtually nothing to investigate 
the claim,  due largely to that NIH experiment which failed to use particles 
discovered by  Kajander as control samples; so now that the vaccine 
contamination has been  officially reported to authorities, the question is: what will be 
done?
Then  on 24 June 2005, a "smoking gun" was announced about calcium deposits 
in heart  disease. British researchers published proof in the leading medical 
journal  Circulation Research7 that calcium phosphate crystals cause  
inflammation in the arteries. Inflammation is a leading cause of heart attacks,  but 
until now most cardiologists have believed calcification to be an innocent  
bystander in the inflammatory process. Because of that, calcium deposits were  
never targeted with treatment. If true, the British discovery would force a  
re-evaluation of the whole medical approach, not only to inflammation but also  to 
the foundations of heart disease, looking at calcification as a prime  
culprit.  
About the Author:
Douglas Mulhall is a leading  nanotechnology journalist who appears often on 
nationally syndicated talk shows  in the US. As managing director of the 
Hamburg Environmental Institute, he  co-developed methods now used by government 
agencies to measure environmental  impacts. His book Our Molecular Future 
(Prometheus Books, 2002)  describes how to use nanotechnology as a defence against 
tsunamis and other  natural disaster risks. His disease prevention experience 
comes from pioneering  water purification technologies in China and South 
America. 
Mr Mulhall's  communications background began with a Bachelor of Journalism 
(Hons.),  progressed to (award-winning) documentary film making, then 
diversified into  management when he co-founded the first commercial TV network in the 
Republic of  Ukraine. He has written articles for US media such as News Day, 
The  Futurist and The National Post as well as for publications in  Germany and 
Brazil. He contributed to the first Financial Times (UK)  book on green 
business opportunities and has also written and edited a range of  technology 
training books. Douglas Mulhall sits on the advisory boards of the  Center for 
Responsible Nanotechnology and the Acceleration Studies Foundation.  He has given 
invited lectures to organisations such as the National Research  Council, the 
US EPA and the Institute of Medicine.  
Editor's Note: 
This article is based on material in the  book The Calcium Bomb: The 
Nanobacteria Link to Heart Disease &  Cancer, by Douglas Mulhall and Katja Hansen (The 
Writers' Collective, 2005;  see review this issue), which was selected as a 
Finalist for the 2004 Book of  the Year Award for Health by Foreword Magazine. 
For more information, visit _http://www.calcify.com_ (http://www.calcify.com/) 
.  
Endnotes:
1. Maniscalco et al., "Calcification in  Coronary Artery Disease can be 
Reversed by EDTA–Tetracycline Long-term  Chemotherapy", Pathophysiology, July 28, 
2004. 
2. Shoskes, Daniel  A., Kim D. Thomas and Eyda Gomez, "Anti-nanobacterial 
therapy for men with  chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome and 
prostatic stones:  Preliminary Experience", J. Urology, February 2005. 
3. The  ingredients are described in The Calcium Bomb, p. 94; they are: (1)  
nutraceutical powder (vitamins C and B6, niacin, folic acid, selenium, EDTA,  
L-arginine, L-lysine, L-ornithine, bromelain, trypsin, CoQ10, grapeseed 
extract,  hawthorn berry, papain), 5 cm3 taken orally every evening; (2) 
tetracycline HCl,  500 mg taken orally every evening; (3) EDTA, 1500 mg taken in a rectal 
 suppository base every evening. According to the representatives of the 
company  that sells the nutraceutical/EDTA combo, the treatment works this way: 
the  nutraceuticals boost the immune system, accelerate EDTA action and reduce  
inflammation; the EDTA strips off the calcium phosphate shell; and the  
tetracycline eradicates the nanobacteria. The tetracycline is also a chelator on  
its own and helps remove the calcium phosphate. 
4. Waters, Elizabeth et al.,  "The Genome of Nanoarchaeum equitans: Insights 
into early archaeal  evolution and derived parasitism", PNAS 
100(22):12984-12988, October 28, 2003.  
5. Ciftcioglu et al., "A potential cause for kidney stone formation during  
space flights: Enhanced growth of nanobacteria in microgravity", Kidney  
International 67:1-9, 2005.
6. Cisar, John O. et al., "An alternative  interpretation of 
nanobacteria-induced biomineralization", PNAS  97(21):11511-11515, October 10, 2000. 
7. Nadra, Imad et al.,  "Proinflammatory Activation of Macrophages by Basic 
Calcium Phosphate Crystals  via Protein Kinase C and MAP Kinase Pathways – A 
Vicious Cycle of Inflammation  and Arterial Calcification?", Circulation 
Research 96(12):1248-1256,  June 24, 2005.
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