Dr. Alan Cantwell has investigated the phenomenon of cancer bacteria for over thirty years. A graduate of New York Medical College, Cantwell completed a residency program in dermatology at Long Beach Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Long Beach, CA and then practiced in the dermatology department of Kaiser-Permanente in Hollywood, California, from 1965 until his retirement in 1994. Dr. Cantwell is the author of more than thirty published papers on breast cancer, lymphoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, Hodgkin’s Disease, lupus, scleroderma, AIDS, and other immunological diseases. These papers have appeared in many peer-reviewed journals, including Growth, International Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Dermatologic Surgery and Oncology, and the Archives of Dermatology. He has also written The Cancer Microbe and Four Women Against Cancer and several books on AIDS.

1. How did you become interested in looking for bacteria, first in diseases like scleroderma and later in cancer?

It all started when I was a second year resident in dermatology. I was in the medical library and I came across a paper in the Southern Medical Journal describing a group of people who had been given allergy injections and who subsequently developed deep skin infection with tuberculosis-like germs. It was thought the allergy injection bottles were contaminated with these bacteria.

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“Bacterial L-forms are among the most unusual creatures in nature. Once one has seen their strange habits and life style, one starts to work on L-forms with great enthusiasm because their existence in vivo and in vitro gives rise to more questions in classical microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases.

And just who is able to describe the process of culturing L-form bacteria so eloquently? She’s an Associate Professor at the Department of Pathogenic Bacteria Institute of Microbiology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, who’s worked with L-form bacteria for the last 15 years. Meet Nadya Markova.

1. What led you to become interested in L-form bacteria?

I graduated as a medical doctor, but my interest in microbiology led me to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (where I defended my PhD thesis in the field of medical microbiology). Researchers already working there at the time had great experience in L-form research and had made many interesting observations about the bacteria, all of which sparked my interest. They were my teachers, who inspired me to continue their research in the same field.

2. How long have you been working with L-form bacteria? How many people do you currently work with and how to they contribute to the research environment?

I started thinking about how L-form bacteria change form in the beginning of the 90s, and my interest in them has risen ever since. Unfortunately, our research team is comprised of only 5 people. One of them must be mentioned, my teacher Professor Lilia Michailova. She is an excellent electron microscopist and, without her, our achievements wouldn’t have been possible. I’m really glad that she is still active and that we continue to work together.

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Two years ago he was bedridden with severe body and joint pain. Now he’s back at work and feels better than he has in years. Join Ival Meyer as he talks about his experience thus far on Autoimmunity Research Foundation’s Marshall Protocol.

1. What were your symptoms like before starting the Marshall Protocol (MP)?

As I got sick, the first symptoms I felt were confusion, fatigue, and a terrible flu-like feeling. After a while I thought that maybe I’d had a stroke. Of course my doctor told me to take Prozac. Well, I knew I wasn’t crazy and sure enough after about another year my joints started to hurt as well. That is when my doctor diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis. Next thing I knew, my rheumatoid arthritis pain started to get very bad. I had a great deal of pain in my hands and feet. The ligaments were so stiff that my toes started to turn and bend out of shape. My hands were getting very close to doing the same thing right when I found the MP. I’ve also had severe upper and lower back pain my whole life. When I was in high school I had to quit sports because of the back pain.

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In prehistoric times it was believed that illness was the result of punishment from the gods or the consequence of magic. During the Middle Ages, people attributed disease to toxic vapors or decaying earth.

However in 1867 a scientist named Robert Koch discovered that anthrax is able to cause disease and was able to successfully transfer the germ from cows to mice. Since that time, bacteria have been implicated in an ever greater range of diseases.

Over the past few decades, scientists such as Lida Mattman, Alan Cantwell and Trevor Marshall have provided great evidence for the hypothesis that chronic diseases ranging from arthritis to Alzheimers are the result of bacterial infection. Nevertheless, a great majority of the medical community still feel that these diseases are caused by toxins in the environment or are autoimmune in nature.

Koch’s Postulates

After working with anthrax, Koch developed a series of ground rules to determine whether a given organism can cause a given disease. These rules, known as “Koch’s Postulates” state that a scientist must find the same microbe in every person with a given disease. Furthermore, the specific microbe must be able to be grown on pure culture medium in the lab and when reintroduced into a healthy animal or person must produce the disease again.

Robert Koch in his laboratory

Many researchers still believe that Koch’s rules are universal and correct despite the fact that a massive body of research has shown that the principles are outdated and can no longer be applied to a modern understanding of disease.

For example, in the early 19th century researchers realized that viruses invalidate Koch’s Postulate because they require another living cell in order to replicate. According to TD Brock at the American Society of Microbiology, attempts to rigidly apply Koch’s postulates to the diagnosis of viral diseases may have significantly impeded the early development of the field of virology.

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All images of bacteria in this post are taken, with author’s permission from Clinical Microbiological Reviews, published in 1997, 10(2), 320-344.

Gerald Domingue

Gerald Domingue is a medical researcher and academic who served as Professor of Urology, Microbiology and Immunology in the Tulane University School of Medicine and Graduate School for thirty years and also as Director of Research in Urology. He is currently retired and resides in Zurich, Switzerland where he is engaged in painting and creative writing. At retirement he was honored with the title of Professor Emeritus at Tulane. Prior to Tulane, he served on the faculty of St. Louis University, was a lecturer at Washington University and director of clinical microbiology in St. Louis City Hospital, St. Louis, MO.

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A wide body of research has shown that classical forms of bacteria often transform into tiny variants of the same species, losing their cell walls in the process. They are then referred to as L-form or cell wall deficient (CWD) bacteria. Although researchers have known about L-form bacteria for over a century, up until recently they have not fully understood their connection to chronic disease. It is now known that these bacteria are responsible for causing a wide array of chronic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lyme disease, and sarcoidosis.

L-forms of various shapes and sizes inside the cells of a patient with breast cancer, photo taken by Alan Cantwell

Over the past century researchers have identified over 50 different species of bacteria capable of transforming into the L-form and it is likely that even more species will be discovered in the coming years. The vast majority of researchers and doctors are not aware that L-form bacteria are present in their patients because the pathogens will not grow under standard laboratory conditions and must be cultured in a different medium and at a different temperature than classical bacteria.

In 2005, a team of researchers at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London published a paper that reviewed the clinical significance of the L-form as an infectious agent. The review discussed the work of hundreds of researchers who have cultivated the L-form and implicated it in a wide array of diseases.

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In a 2006 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a paper stating, “Infectious agents have emerged as notable determinants, not just complications, of chronic diseases. To capitalize on these opportunities, clinicians, public health practitioners, and policymakers must recognize that many chronic diseases may indeed have infectious origins.”

According to the CDC, infectious agents likely determine more cancers, immune-mediated syndromes, neurodevelopmental disorders, and other chronic conditions than currently appreciated. In fact, they argue that the potential to avoid or minimize chronic disease by preventing or treating infections may yet be substantially underestimated. Those of us familiar with the Marshall Protocol know that they are absolutely correct.

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He’s a 43 year-old from Hamilton, New Zealand. First diagnosed with the lung disease sarcoidosis in 2002, he started Autoimmunity Research Foundation’s Marshall Protocol in October 2003. Guss Wilkinson will now take your questions.

1. What kind of condition were you in before starting the Marshall Protocol?

I was pretty miserable. I couldn’t take more than five steps at a time before stopping to gasp for breath. Then I had a slew of other symptoms. I was just 8-years old when I started to be plagued by psoriasis (a skin disease) and mild arthritis. Then, in the eighties I developed kidney stones and started to have frequent night sweats. I began to have terrible problems with insomnia. Around 2000 I began to experience short-term memory loss and concentration problems.

2. How did those memory and concentration problems affect your ability to work?

It was embarrassing. My boss came up to me one day and said, “Have you finished your report”? I thought to myself, “What report”!? I had absolutely no memory of my boss having asked me to write the report. But then, what was even more offsetting was that when I checked my files I realized that I had written the report, I just had no memory of writing it. I also had big problems remembering names and often confused simple terminology when I was writing.
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Sarcoidosis succumbs to antibiotics. The title of Trevor Marshall PhD’s 2004 paper communicates that bacteria are playing a much larger role in driving illness than is commonly understood. An increasing number of doctors around the world are also implicating bacteria in chronic conditions. Among them is Dr. Jeff Gordon at Washington University in St. Louis whose recent paper about bacteria and obesity directly relates to Marshall’s work.

Obese individuals have different populations of microbes

Gordon’s two recent studies, which were published in a 2006 issue of Nature, describe a direct relationship between the relative abundance of certain bacteria in the gut and the tendency of an individual to gain weight.

All humans have trillions of bacteria living in the gut. Their role is to combat pathogens and break down food. In 2004, Gordon proposed that these microbes might play a role in controlling body weight.

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