Welcome to new readers I am coming up to a two-yearassociation with Dr Petrovic. It is still astonishing to see how people react when they find out about him. Everybody ( including me ) first think that it is an internet scam One recent Australian patient who has scoured the world for a successful treatment took checking on the bona fides of Dr Petrovic to a new level. He actually had long phone calls in which he interviewed the patients during their consultation. A new international correspondent says that the chief activity of patients on the internet is trying to reach aconsensus for a universally recognised name for the condition. [ To think of talking about a successful treatment would be beyond their wildest dreams.] He is very concerned that people are still being stigmatised with names like ‘ yuppie flu ’. So, although the British medical establishment has recognised that CFS/ME etc. is a real disease, this has not yet filtered down to the doctors. Australian patients seem to be making steady, not spectacular, progress. The plunge in the dollar has probably deterred some people. Thank goodness it has started to pick up recently as the American dollar has gone down.

Sunny Australia We have had the privilege of living near the sunniest ( statistically ) area of Australia for a long time. Corowa is twenty miles away. We play a lot of golf there. Each year in January the sky is alive with parachutes as the Australian championships are held. This year the World Championships are to be held there. I’m sure that I read that there were 400 flights and a thousand jumps in a normal year. Goodness knows how many the World Championship will involve. I was very surprised to see camera persons practising with the competitors on the ground just before the groups went up. Of course there is no other way of checking to see if the group actually achieves what it sets out to do. It seems strange to think of the judges being locked away in a video studio awarding marks.

The Successes The Canadian experience is providing an amazing proof of the efficacy of the protocol and the importance of having a doctor to supervise the treatment.

So far EVERY patient has recover ed. Mrs Laura Adjemian, a pastor’s wife, was described in February by her doctor as one of the worst cases he had seen. Gradually she began to recover. Each step was greeted with grateful thanks by the relatives. Just this week I received the news that she has passed her driving test. I think that even the most cynical would describe this as a CURE ! I am sure that Pastor Adjemian would only be too happy to respond to any questions sent to: adjemian@perth.igs.net

The relatives are so over the moon that they are taking antioxidants to relieve other conditions.

Another patient, further south in California, has also provided a powerful proof that the protocol can be miraculous. Professor S. Elghobashi is the Professor and Chair of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of The University of California.

His daughter Nancie was suddenly struck with CFS. Every available CFS specialist in California has seen her without success. There is a record of him paying for the protocol on the 14th of September. Already, on the 30th of October, Magda has decided to resume her studies at the university. Professor Elghobashi is putting a lot of pressure on Dr Petrovic to visit California soon to conduct lectures for the medical specialists

Testimonials I have written a four page document called ‘ Profile of a CFS Patient ’ in which I describe how the disease develops and how the protocol tackles it. I intended to use it as an October newsletter, but instead I decided to send it to people searching for additional information. In it I tell the story of Mrs Kamm. She is a Hawaiian mother whose teenage daughter Noel suffered from CFS. Mrs Kamm kept a precise record of her search for a cure. This is part of her story. ‘ In a little over a year her daughter had to endure visits to doctors, an infectious disease specialist, a chiro practor, nutritionists, psychiatrists, an acupuncturist, a rheumatologist, a stress management psychiatrist, a physical therapist, a pediatrician, and a neurologist. In a last desperate attempt to find a remedy the mother bought Cat’s Claw, a South American miracle cure. She said that she felt like a desperate sinner ready to give money to ANYBODY who would promise salvation. The patient was prescribed many antibiotics plus prozac, tylenol, elavil, davil, zoloft, diflucan, nystatin, melatonin, florinef, K-dur and noni-juice. She had to suffer blood tests, allergy tests, CAT scans, a Tilt test for NMH ( Neurally-mediated hypotension ), which the mother

described as ‘a miserable experience’. If she hadn’t been sick before she started all this I’m sure that she would have been by the time she had finished. Mrs Kamm said that the best advice that she had been given, before finding Dr Petrovic’s website, was from the nutritionist. Her advice was a diet without sugar, vinegar and dairy products. She prescribed Co-enzyme Q10, acidophilus, super blue-green algae and more protein. Mrs Kamm wished that she had followed this advice to the letter, and ignored everyone else. ’

CHEMICALS The rest of this newsletter is chiefly about the chemical industry’s link to community health. They are certainly a major component in the development of CFS . Unfortunately the companies like to insist, like tobacco companies, that a link to problems hasn’t been established. Fortunately the individuals that I am going to mention are not alone. Greenpeace is doing a tremendous job in raising people’s awareness of the dangers of byproducts of chlorinated materials. They produced a Special Dioxin Report in June 1997 [ On the dangers in Homebush Bay, Sydney - home of the 2,000 Olympics ]. It says that, ‘ hormone disrupters are known to block the the action of oestrogen, an essential female hormone; to reduce the levels of the male hormone testosterone; and affect thyroid hormones and peptide hormones such as gastrin and insulin ( Birnbaum 1955 ). Because hormones are intimately involved in the development and/or functioning of the reproductive ( Sharpe & Skakkabaek 1993 ), nervous ( Portfield 1994 ) and immune systems ( Grossman 1984 ), the toxicological implications of disrupting the hormone system are profound.

Jim Ludwig, a scientist working with alligators, in the Great Lakes ( ‘ Frontline ’ video program ), describes the development of the foetus. He has an alligator born without eyes in his hand. " There is a four hour window of opportunity for the development of the eyes. ", he says. " If this is missed the alligator is blind." His mission is to prove that one of the many possible chemical contaminants has turned out to be an endocrine disrupter.

Another scientist described the process of disruption. He likened the development of a foetus to a player

piano role. In the case of disruption it is as if something has made extra holes in the paper, or covered up holes which are already there.

In the late sixties and/or early seventies a product called ‘ Desplex ’ was prescribed to thousands of American mothers. It was supposed to ( and possibly it did ), prevent miscarriages. Unfortunately it did far more. It was a VERY potent endocrine disrupter . There is now a generation of American women, whose mothers took Desplex, who cannot have children because one or more sexual organs did not develop.

In Boston ( I think ) a group of American women with breast cancer formed an association called ‘ One in Nine ’. This was to draw attention to the fact that they believed chemicals were the cause of this tremendously high rate of cancer in their area. Geri Barish was the spokesperson for this group and she approached Senator Ralph D’Amato. She convinced him, and through him, the congress, to spend $200,000,000 put aside for war expenditure, on research into the role of chemicals in the development of breast cancer.

At the time Theo Colborn, a zoologist with the Worldlife fund, ( and a member of the EPA panel ), had just published, " Our Stolen Future ", describing the role of chemicals as endocrine disrupters, particularly in animals of course . Theo to me is the Rachel Carson of the nineties. I’m sure that " Our Stolen Future " will be every bit as seminal as " Silent Spring ".

Senator D’Amato led a bill to set up tests to examine over 60,000 chemicals through both houses. Although many politicians received money from chemical companies, the bill was passed unanimously in both houses. There was NEVER any doubt that chemicals COULD be endocrine disrupters - DESPLEX had proved that they sometimes were.

A committe, EDSTAC, was formed and given the task of setting up a testing regime. The committee had to come up with proposals by ( about ) September 1998. The EPA has just announced that they are initially targeting 15,000 chemicals. A screening process is to be worked out over the next six months.

The full program is obviously going to take years to develop. With the continual development of new chemicals it looks like an unending cycle of testing is going to be necessary. Chemical manufacturers will conduct the tests, but the EPA must validate the screening procedure outlined by the advisory committee.

Back in Australia

I was amused to hear a representative from a drug company criticise universities because they aren’t making enough discoveries that the drug companies can make money from. He threatened to remove the funding that pharmaceutical companies are providing.

GRIM NEWS Fairly recently I told how hospitals were becoming afraid that they were losing the war against bacteria. The antibiotic of last resort in hospitals is Vancomycin.

A fortnight ago newspapers carried the news that an eighty-eight year old man had died of vancomycin resistant bacteria. It also carried a plea by an associate professor for chicken producers to stop using Asparix. It is the animal equivalent of vancomycin. As the population consumes chickens fed on asparix it will develop vancomycin resistant bacteria. Where to after antibiotics ? ?

This website is maintained for historical and reference purposes only.
The Petrovic CFIDS Health Center has permanently closed its physical premises.
All information is presented for educational and research reference, not for clinical use or medical diagnosis.