What more has to be done?

Hello Prof Nicolson, and welcome back to MedHelp.

I've been reading about your findings along with Trevor Marshall's findings, and am really grateful there are researchers out there making new discovers of what role L-form infections really play in chronic disease.  

I was wondering when the L-forms have been shown to exist in humans through special culturing, and genetic sequencing, and multiple species of L-forms can live in communal biofilms, and invade cells, alter host genetic transcription, and cause immune suppression for their own propagation, what more evidence has to be gathered before this is taken more seriously by "mainstream medicine"?

My belief is the "mainstream medicine" could never "afford" to cure chronic diseases. What are some of your thoughts?

Thank you for visiting MedHelp today to answer questions.

~Corvin

[Garth L Nicolson, PhD]

L-form bacterial infections seem to be found in a variety of clinical conditions, but until recently we knew very little about these reclusive bacteria and their possible role in pathogenesis of disease.  They cannot be cultured under normal conditions, because they live inside human cells and do not grow well in synthetic, cell-free culture broth.  Newer molecular tests are being developed to find these culprits, usually by their genetic signature, and it has been only recently that the pathological effects of these infections have been fully appreciated.  Don't expect physicians who were trained years ago to recognize or understand the role of such infections in chronic diseases--they were not trained to recognize them as pathogens, if they received any information at all about them.  Medicine moves slowly.  Just last year I finally received an invitation to review some aspects of chronic infections and disease for Laboratory Medicine, the no. 1 ranked lab pathology journal (Nicolson, G.L. Chronic infections in neurodegenerative and neurobehavioral diseases. Lab Medicine 2008; 39(5): 291-299), so things are slowly changing.  (This publication can be found on our website, www.immed.org)  ProfGN