All across the country researchers such as Dr. Reinhold Vieth are telling people to supplement with levels of vitamin D up to four times as high as the current RDA, or 2000 IUs a day. A friend attending medical school at UCLA told me yesterday that he and his fellow students have been taught to ignore the RDA requirement for vitamin D and tell their future patients to take at least 1000 IUs of the secosteroid. The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) announced its recommendation that Canadians consider taking 1000 mg of vitamin D daily in the fall and winter, and have refused to suspend the recommendation pending a review. Why is the substance being promoted in this manner at such high levels? Largely because vitamin D proponents are confident that the substance decreases the incidence of cardiovascular disease.

In fact, in the health section of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, Nova Scotia epidemiologist Dr. Louise Parker touted vitamin D as the “new aspirin” because of its perceived ability to benefit people with heart conditions.

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Could people 800 years ago have benefited from the Marshall Protocol? Did cave men suffer from infection with L-form bacteria? Nobody knows for sure when these stealthy pleiomorphic bacteria first began to infect human beings, but a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at Pennsylvania State University suggests that Th1 disease was already common during the middle ages.

The team analyzed 490 skeletons from a London cemetery for Black Death victims – the name given to those people who succumed to the plague epidemic of 1347 to 1351. Black Death – named after the black spots the bubonic form of the plague caused on the skin – was one of the deadliest recorded in human history, killing about 75 million people, according to some estimates, including more than a third of Europe’s population.

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For decades, researchers working with L-form bacteria have warned that while standard antibiotic therapy successfully kills classical bacterial forms, it leaves bacteria that transform into the L-form unscathed. In fact, when the beta-lactam antibiotics are administered to patients with acute infection, they actually foster the growth of L-form bacteria, meaning that patients treated with these antibiotics can certainly plan on dealing with numerous symptoms of chronic disease in the years to come.

Because L-form bacteria grow so slowly, few researchers have made the connection between acute infection and chronic symptoms that rear their heads decades down the road. However, several research teams have finally taken note of the fact that food poisoning victims, who at one point suffered from a severe acute infection, are much more likely to develop chronic symptoms later in life.

“It’s a dirty little secret of food poisoning,” says Lauren Neergaard of Yahoo News. “E. coli and certain other foodborne illnesses can sometimes trigger serious health problems months or years after patients survived that initial bout. Scientists only now are unraveling a legacy that has largely gone unnoticed.”

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A decade ago, after researchers linked folic acid with a reduced rate of a birth defect called spinal bifidia, the FDA mandated that the substance be added to wheat flour and other grain products. Since that time, 42 other countries have implemented some form of mandatory folic acid fortification based on the same premise.

However recent research has revealed that over the past decade, rates of colorectal cancer in the United States have risen for inexplicable reasons, even as regular colonoscopy check-ups have become more common. In Canada, where folic acid supplementation was introduced a bit later, the same trend has been observed.

Two recent commentaries appearing in Nutrition Reviews address these findings and provide an overview of the existing evidence on folic acid fortification and the associated policy issues.

Dr. Solomons, author of one of the commentaries, “Food Fortification with Folic Acid: Has the Other Shoe Dropped?” advises that a careful reconsideration of the fortification program is needed stating, “One size of dietary folic acid exposure does not fit all. It can be beneficial to some and detrimental to others at the same time.”

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Due to the hormonal changes that take place during recovery, many patients on the Marshall Protocol become sensitive to bright lights and sunlight. They are soon informed that dousing themselves with sunscreen does nothing to affect the production of vitamin D in their skin – hence the need to cover up with thick, dark layers when outside in the sun. “The majority of sunscreens are ineffective in blocking vitamin D production or blocking sun flare symptoms in Th1 patients,” states J.C. Waterhouse of Autoimmunity Research Foundation.

Yet, proponents of high-dose vitamin D continue to blame what they interpret as vitamin D “deficiency” on the fact that the American public wears too much sunscreen. Because they mistakenly believe that sunscreen fully blocks vitamin D production, organizations such as the Vitamin D Council – an organization dedicated to promoting high levels of vitamin D – make a firm point of informing the public that, “The only way to be sure you have adequate levels of vitamin D in your blood is to regularly go into the sun, or use a sun bed (avoiding sunburn).”

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For decades, scientists working with L-form bacteria have warned that the pathogens are not killed by the purification processes used when pharmaceutical companies creates vaccines. A recent drug trial by Merck and Co., Inc. suggests that the failure of mainstream medicine to take the presence of L-form bacteria seriously has put a large group of people of people for developing a wide range of chronic diseases.

Several months ago, two international trials aimed at testing an experimental AIDS vaccine were stopped after it became clear that the vaccine did not prevent infection with the AIDS virus. The trials were conducted in the United States, Peru, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Australia and South Africa. Today, the researchers conducting the trial are faced with another problem. Earlier this month they reported “worrying” indications that the thousands of people who received the vaccine are now at greater risk for infection. They have already begun counseling volunteers about the fact that they could be at higher risk for acquiring HIV – the fatal and incurable virus that causes AIDS.

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Lost your keys again? Recent research confirms that whether or not you have been diagnosed with dementia you can probably blame L-form bacteria for your substandard memory. Researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago who conduced a recent study on aging and memory were surprised to find that most older adults have significant brain pathology (disease), regardless of the presence or absence of outward signs of dementia.

The results of this study jive with the work of researchers such as Dr. Trevor Marshall who, while investigating the manner in which L-form bacteria affect people as age, have found that few, if any, people are spared from the actions of these pathogens as they reach their later years.

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My recent article Bacteria vs. genetic predisposition: the spread of Th1 disease in families discusses how the bacteria responsible for causing chronic disease can be passed from generation to generation. At the same time, the genetic mutations created by these pathogens are also passed from mother to child.

Just this month, researchers led by John H. Werren at the University of Rochester in New York elucidated yet another way that bacterial DNA is likely passed from person to person. This demonstrates just how easy it is for bacterial DNA to become incorporated into human DNA – a reality that is central to biomedical researcher Trevor Marshall’s model of chronic disease in which pathogens are constantly swapping genetic material with each other and their host.

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