A certain small number of our population are very easy "bleeders" as a result of genetic diseases such as Hemophilia. There are the vast majority of people who "clot" their blood normally and, on the other side of the bell shaped curve, a small number of people who are hypercoagulable or "slow bleeders." The Bergs estimate that as many as 14 million Americans have problems with Hypercoagulation.

By suggesting that an unconscious disposition toward these emotions may be molded by a specific area in the brain, the research moves into previously uncharted waters. It is part of a broad effort by neuroscientists in recent years to use powerful brain-imaging technology to pinpoint the areas of the brain responsible for various emotions.

"Clinical Management" has taken priority in efforts to treat these diseases, with little or no importance placed on finding the cause. Instead, medical Specialists have segregated various groups of symptoms into a wide array of seemingly distinct clinical entities. Each becoming a separate disease and the exclusive territory of the specialist that treats it. There has been growing evidence, however, in the last number of years implicating chronic viral infections as a root cause for many neuropsychiatric and inflammatory diseases. This evidence however continues to be viewed an “unconvincing” by the Center for Disease Control.

Since most patients have voiced concern about anthrax and smallpox, below are some details about those two diseases.

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Yet that is exactly what happened one ill-fated afternoon last February. Inspectors had found a thick black mold growing between the stucco and the drywall of the master bedroom, bath, study and dining room. After some of it was identified as stachybotrys atra--a fungus that has been linked to everything from sinus infections to brain damage--an industrial hygienist warned the Ilers to evacuate. Thirty minutes later, they abandoned their home forever. "I thought, This can't be happening to me," says Sharyn. "This is my sanctuary. This is where I come when everything else is wrong."

$232,000,000 - The number of dollars the National Institutes of Health spent on research for an AIDS vaccine, up from $82 million in 1993. In 2000, the NIH spent $570 million on new drug therapies, up from $430 million in 1993. There was a time in the early '80s when AIDS was killing people with brutal efficiency, and no one knew what caused it. Was it swine-flu virus? The inhalants that gay men were using to heighten sexual pleasure? There was no telling who would be stricken next, or what it would take to stop the new scourge. But as soon as researchers identified the AIDS virus in 1984, the ultimate solution seemed obvious. Science would vanquish AIDS just as it had polio, measles and smallpox: by immunizing people against it. In announcing the isolation of HIV, federal health officials famously predicted that a vaccine would enter clinical trials within two years and reach the market within three. Seventeen years later experts still agree that a vaccine is our best hope of ending the pandemic. They also agree that we'll be lucky to have even a crude one on the market by 2007. At current rates, an additional 50 million to 100 million people will have contracted the virus by then--most of them in countries too poor to provide treatment--and millions will have died.

I have put together a packet of articles detailing my scientific hypothesis and current treatment philosophy. I suggest they be included in the record. I have also provided information on the emerging science and technology describing Neuro Immune Dysfunction whose common pathway is involved in many immune or autoimmune diseases including the development of the Autistic Syndrome. We finally have an understanding of how the brain interrelates with the endocrine and immune system. We are confident that we can apply this new understanding rapidly to evolve a treatment plan within the next six to twelve months, through an unprecedented blend of private enterprise and government-supported research.

This work, published in the October issue of Nature Structural Biology, may lead to improved ways to thwart viral infections, and may help scientists design virus-based vehicles for gene therapy. The study reveals that the receptor protein for coxsackievirus (known as coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor, or CAR) forms pairs on the surface of human cells, with two adjacent CAR receptors attached to one another below the surface of the cell membrane. When coxsackievirus binds to the human cell, it forms bonds with both receptors of the pair.

Neuroscientist Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of the Emerging Diseases Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, is not convinced that the link between the two has been proven. Still, Lipkin does believe that infections may be at least in part responsible for the development of many diseases. NEWSWEEK’s Laura Fording asked Lipkin, who will soon be moving to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, to elaborate.

Researchers aren't certain how frequently Borrelia burgdorferi - -the corkscrew-shaped bacteria that causes Lyme disease--attacks the brain or nervous system. Dr. Brian Fallon, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry atColumbia University and director of its Lyme Disease Research Program, estimates that if diagnosed and treated early, less than 5% of sufferers will develop brain or nerve complications--a condition known as neuroborreliosis. If leftundiagnosed and untreated, the Lyme bacterium may attack the brain or nerves in as many as 40-50% of patients.

Bradley has no memory of the attack, and experts needed weeks to unravel the mystery, according to his attorney, Jerrold Ladar. They concluded that encephalitis - an inflammation of the brain - had made him delirious.

Joey Virgo, 21, had pleaded guilty in the death of 17-year-old LeAnne Hamm. Virgo threw a rock that caused the car to run off the road in August 1998. He said the girls had been annoying him by speeding by his house. Hamm fell ill in October 1998 and died two months later. A forensic specialist testified that an organism that was in the dirt on the rock had made its way into Hamm's brain.

Coconut oil, often blamed by the medical community as a high cholesterol agent causing coronary problems, may turn out to be the saviour for millions of victims of the dreaded AIDS virus. Jon J Kabara, professor emeritus, Michigan State University and Dr. Conrado S Dayrit, emeritus professor of pharmacology, University of the Philippines say that preliminary studies conducted in the US and Philippines have shown that the use of coconut oil or coconut could effectively check the proliferation of HIV virus. In separate presentations during the International Coconut Conference –2000 held in Chennai recently, Kabara and Dayrit said high presence of lauric acid in monoglyceride form known as monolaurin in coconut and coconut oil provides them with the anti-viral quality. According to the two scholars monolaurin present in coconut and its oil could be rated as one of the best natural anti-viral agents. According to Kabara over 20 clinics in USA are now investigating the use of monolaurin in checking various viral diseases including HIV and hepatitis-C infections.

In the six weeks that followed, doctors puzzled over Carrie's strange symptoms. As her family clamored for answers, doctors raced packages of her brain tissue across the country to top scientists.

A report in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that the rate of multidrug resistance for the microbe Streptococcus pneumoniae had increased from 9 percent to 14

What I'm going to try to persuade you on today is that we can bring at least some new insights to a sub-group of autistic children, those with bowel symptoms and to suggest to you that at least autism in this group may have at its core origin a primary problem in the gut, rather than a primary problem in the central nervous system. It is the central nervous system that is affected as a consequence of that gut damage. It's up to you at the end to decide to what extend this applies to your child or the children that you treat or teach because, clearly, it is a sub-group of the autistic population. We've presented a paper in the Lancet two years ago on 12 children who came to us with 'regressive autism'. This is the key phenotype that we've been looking at - that is, children who are normal for the first year to 18 months of life and then regress either dramatically or over a period of months. This is associated with the change in their bowels.

Some 320 federally subsidized homes on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation are infested with mold. Residents say the infestation is sickening, and tribal officials say at least seven deaths in recent years could be related to the infestation, which is so pervasive they estimate 210 homes will have to be destroyed.

Ever since that realization sank in, finding HIV's hiding places has been the goal of a small group of researchers. What they have learned is one of the biggest disappointments in AIDS research.

HONG KONG - The Hong Kong government yesterday ordered the immediate slaughter of 1.2 million chickens - virtually the territory's entire poultry population - in a drastic attempt to stamp out a killer virus that officials fear could eventually affect humans.

Dr. Mary Enig MS (Nutritional Sciences), Ph.D. did original research that showed a positive link between vegetable oil and cancer and a negative correlation for animal fat. She originated comprehensive analysis of trans fatty acid components of over 200 foods. Trans fatty acids are formed when vegetable oils are hydrogenated or heated to high temperatures. With high temperatures, trans fatty acids are fats that are twisted, which alter their natural “cis” shape. She studied how the trans fatty acids from foods affected the liver’s mixed function oxidase enzyme system that metabolizes drugs and environmental pollutants in the body. An important finding of this latter study was that laboratory animals fed experimental diets containing trans fatty acids have altered activity of this enzyme system. These results were partly responsible for the review of the “Health Aspects of Dietary Trans Fatty Acids” held by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Life Sciences Research Office, at the request of the Food and Drug Administration. Mary Enig has had 17 articles published in scientific journals since 1976. In 1986,she was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to the “State Advisory Council on Nutrition.” She was contributing editor to “Clinical Nutrition” magazine and consulting editor for the “Journal of the American College of Nutrition.” She has given over 50 seminars and lectures on since 1979 on foods and nutrition topics.

A good distillation of the theories about chronic fatigue syndrome's possible causes. Theories abound about the causes of chronic fatigue syndrome. Many physicians still doubt that CFS is an actual disease but believe rather that it is a component of a psychological disorder or a symptom of other problems, similar to anemia and high blood pressure. Indeed, no primary cause has been found that explains all cases of CFS, and a number of experts believe that it develops from a combination of factors including brain abnormalities, a hyper-reactive immune system, and a viral or other infectious agent. Still, although all of these elements appear to be at work in many cases of CFS, it is not yet clear what sequence of events actually leads to the fatigue and other prominent symptoms of this disorder. Other conditions that have been posited as causes for certain CFS cases include hypotension, hyperventilation, and defective muscle tissue.