This webpage provides information on chronic human illness caused by exposure to toxins produced by living organisms (biotoxins). Many biotoxins are neurotoxins in that they adversely affect neurologic function. Registered users will be able to complete questionnaires on exposure history, medical history and current symptoms.  Organisms that Produce Biotoxins Many types of organisms produce substances that are toxic to humans. These include dinoflagellates found in estuaries and the ocean, cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) found in fresh water, fungi (mold) found in indoor air and outdoors, and some types of bacteria. Our initial research on acute and chronic, biotoxin-induced illness associated a complex of non-specific symptoms and deficits in visual contrast sensitivity with exposure to estuaries inhabited by the fish-killing dinoflagellate, Pfiesteria piscicida, and other toxic dinoflagellates in the toxic Pfiesteria complex (1-8). Treatment for this illness, called Possible Estuary Associated Syndrome (PEAS) by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 9), according to our protocol was associated with recovery of vision and resolution of symptoms. Subsequent research indicated that this paradigm generalizes to chronic illness thought to be caused by toxins from a marine dinoflagellate, Ciguatera (Chronic Ciguatera Seafood Poisoning), cyanobacteria such as Cylindrospermopsis and Microcystis, various species of fungi such as Stachybotrys, Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Fusarium, and by spiders such as the Brown Recluse. Our research also suggested that toxins from tick-borne pathogens such as Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease organism) and Babesia microti may cause chronic illness even after the spirochetes or intracellular protozoa (also called apicomplexans) have been killed by antibiotics. People who cannot naturally eliminate biotoxins develop chronic illness. The toxins can be eliminated, however, by using our treatment protocol, and good health can be restored. Previous Diagnoses Chronically ill patients successfully treated by Upper Room wellness and others using our treatment protocol had many previous diagnoses, including Depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, Sick Building Syndrome, Bell's Palsy, learning disability, endometriosis, sensory-neural deafness, low vision, Chronic Soft Tissue Injury (usually from an automobile accident) and Chronic Lyme Disease . The diagnosing physicians did not realize that their illness was caused by biotoxins that living organisms excrete as waste. Some other diagnoses were thought to involve biotoxins, including Chronic Ciguatera Seafood Poison, Possible Estuary Associated Syndrome (PEAS) , spider bite and Mycotoxicosis, but there was no objective indicator or testing done to assist in diagnosis, and no treatment like RIFE, MMS, or herbal anti-parasitic agents to greatly enhance toxin elimination rates. We have also successfully treated people with the rare genetic disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. This is a condition in which toxins are produced within the body, causing chronic illness. How We Can Help You Standard medical diagnostic tests are usually normal in patients who have these biotoxin-induced illnesses, which makes it difficult to diagnose and treat. We do specialty testing that assists in diagnosis by showing evidence of a bio-toxin along with the neurological deficits that often accompany.  Take a screening survey and complete questionnaires on exposure potential, symptoms and medical history. We test every new patient for biotoxins because of the high incidence in autoimmune disorders.

Relief For Biotoxin-Related Illness Victims Is On The Way! Surge In "Chronic Diseases" Caused By Organic Toxins Requires New Approach To Helping Patients Get Better By Ritchie Shoemaker, M.D. Pick up the morning newspaper or flip on the evening news, and the numbers jump out at you: ¦5 Million Now Struggling With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ¦ Chronic Lyme Disease Toll - At Least 1 Million Americans ¦ "Sick Building Syndrome" - More Than 3 Million Affected. If you're like many Americans today, you've probably noticed that a lot of people around you seem to be struggling with "chronic" ailments marked by a distinctive grouping of symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, muscle aches, pain in joints, abdominal cramps, sensitivity to bright light, blurred vision, difficulty concentrating and short-term memory lapses. As a family practice physician, I've been surprised to hear so many patients ticking off these same symptoms during the past few years . . . after telling me how they were recently diagnosed with such vague and difficult to pin down diseases as "chronic fatigue syndrome," "chronic Lyme disease," "sick-building syndrome" and even "fibromyalgia" (a catch-all term for an ailment that may not be a distinct entity). When large numbers of patients first began showing up in my Maryland medical practice with these repeated complaints about five years ago, I was baffled as to the cause of their illness. Some of these suffering and demoralized patients did, indeed, appear to be struggling with a form of Lyme disease that never went away . . . regardless of the number of antibiotics and other medications doctors prescribed for them. But it was also true that many other patients with the Lyme-like symptoms described above clearly were not infected with the bacterium (Borrelia) that causes Lyme disease. What was going on here? Scratching my head, I asked myself: Was there perhaps an invisible connection that linked these symptoms to a disease mechanism we didn't understand? Fascinated, I went to work. It took me two years of steady research and hundreds of interviews with patients before I finally began to unravel the medical mystery at work behind all these endlessly repeating symptoms. The invisible link was "biotoxins" - poisonous chemical compounds that travel with impunity through the human body. These tiny molecules shuttle from nerve to muscle to brain to sinus to G.I. tract and other organs in a continual circuit, while triggering the symptoms we define as "biotoxin-related illness." As recent research clearly demonstrates, the compounds are manufactured by a growing number of microorganisms that have begun thriving in our ecosystem. While some are genetically altered products of the Chemical Age, others were spawned by changes in the human ecosystem . . . such as the recent expansion of the suburbs into the countryside, which brought increasing numbers of humans into contact with the deer ticks that spread Lyme disease. Although the ecological dynamics responsible for the surge in biotoxin-producing "bugs" are complex, the bottom-line results can be easily understood. They tell us, quite simply, that toxin-forming microorganisms have brought a new kind of disease into our world - a pathology in which bacteria, fungi, algae and other tiny organisms have "learned" how to manufacture toxins that linger on in the human body, long after the organisms themselves are dead. These disease agents vary considerably, depending on climate and other variables. Some (such as the bacterium that causes Lyme) inhabit the bodies of carriers (deer ticks, in this case), before ending up in the tissues of their human victims . . . where they manufacture toxins that cause debilitating illness. Other toxin-forming bugs such as the fungi (Stachybotrys and others) that cause "sick-building syndrome" and the blue-green algae (Cylindrospermopsis and Microcystis) now poisoning animals and humans alike in the lakes of central Florida and elsewhere do their work at a distance, by releasing their toxins into the air or water. The pathogens may differ, but the biotoxins they produce all do their damage by setting off an "exaggerated inflammatory response" in humans. While hiding out in fatty tissues where blood-borne disease-fighters can't get at them, they "trick" the body's immune system for fighting germs into launching attacks of inflammation in many organ systems, including joints, muscles, nerves and brain. Increasingly, there is evidence to show that these attacks are carried out by a newly discovered group of molecules, the "proinflammatory cytokines," and that the devastation they cause is clearly linked to recent surges in the rates of heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Much more research is needed, of course. Nonetheless, the recent findings about inflammatory disorders caused by biotoxin-driven cytokines do seem likely to challenge our understanding of the body's "immune system" in the years immediately ahead, while also forcing us to reevaluate much of our currently accepted medical practice. At the same time, these provocative discoveries will require medical researchers to confront the grim possibility that these organisms have "figured out" how to skew our basic immune responses. How? By targeting them with powerful toxic molecules that can wreak havoc on the body's system for protecting itself from disease.

OUR* PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS INVOLVING BIOTOXINS OR VCS:

1. Shoemaker R (1997). Diagnosis of Pfiesteria human illness syndrome. Maryland Medical J 46:521-523.

2. Hudnell HK (1998). Human visual function in the North Carolina study on Pfiesteria piscicida. For the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Task Force on Pfiesteria, Dean William Roper, Chairman, University of North Carolina School of Public Health. [US Environmental Protection Agency # 600-R-98-132].

3. Shoemaker R (1998). Treatment of persistent Pfiesteria-human illness syndrome. Maryland Medical J 47:64-66.

4. Grattan LM, Oldach D, Perl TM, Lowitt MH, Matuszak DL, Dickson C, Parrott C, Shoemaker RC, Kauffman CL, Wasserman MP, et al. (1998), Learning and memory difficulties after environmental exposure to waterways containing toxin-producing Pfiesteria or Pfiesteria-like dinoflagellates. The Lancet 352:532-539.

5. Swinker M, Koltai D, Wilkins J, Hudnell K, Hall C, Darcey D, Robertson K, Schmechel D, Stopford W, Music S (2000). Estuary associated syndrome in North Carolina: an occupational prevalence study. Environmental Health Perspectives 109:21-26.

6. Hudnell HK, House D, Schmid J, Koltai D, Wilkins J, Stopford W, Savitz D, Swinker M and Music S (2001). Human visual function in the North Carolina Clinical Study on Possible Estuary Associated Syndrome. J Toxicol Env Hlth 62:101-120.

7. Shoemaker RC & Hudnell HK (2001). Possible estuary associated syndrome: Symptoms, vision and treatment. Environmental Health Perspectives 109:539-545.

8. Shoemaker RC (Hudnell in acknowledgments) (2001). Residential and recreational acquisition of possible estuary associated syndrome: A new approach to successful diagnosis and treatment. Environmental Health Perspectives 109:791-796.

*9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 1999). Notice to readers: possible estuary associated syndrome. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 48:381-382.

10. Hudnell, HK and Benignus, VA (1989). Carbon Monoxide Exposure and Human Visual Detection Thresholds. Neurotox. and Teratol 11:363-371.

11. Anger, W.K., Letz, R.E., Chrislip, D.W., Frumpkin, H., Hudnell, HK, Kilburn, K.H., Russo, J.M., Chappell, W. and Hutchinson, L. (1994). Neurobehavioral test methods for immediate use in environmental health studies of adults. Neurotoxicol. & Teratol 16:489-497.

12. Broadwell, D.K., Darcey, D.J., Hudnell, HK, Otto, D.A. and Boyes, W.K. (1995). Work-site neurobehavioral assessment of solvent exposed microelectronic workers. Am. J. Indust. Med 27:677-698.

13. Hudnell, HK, Otto, D.A. and House, D.E. (1996). The influence of vision on computerized-neurobehavioral test scores: A proposal for improving test protocols. Neurotoxicol. & Teratol., 18:391- 400.

14. Hudnell, HK, Boyes, W.K., Otto, D.A., House, D.E., Creason J.P., Geller, A.M., Darcey, D.J. and Broadwell, D.K. (1996). Battery of neurobehavioral tests recommended to ATSDR: solvent-induced deficits in microelectronics workers. Toxicol. Indust. Hlth., 12:235-243.

15. Hudnell, HK, Skalik, I., Otto, D.A., House, D.A., and Sram, R. (1996). Visual contrast sensitivity deficits in Bohemian children. Neurotoxicology17:615-628.

16. Camicioli R, Grossmann SJ, Spencer PS, Hudnell K, Anger WK. Discriminating Mild Parkinsonism: Methods Epidemiological Research. Movement Disorders (2001), 16: 33-40.

17. Schreiber JS, Hudnell HK, Geller AM, House DE, Prohonic E, Langguth K, Aldous K, Force M and Parker JC. (2002). Residential and day care exposure to tetrachloroethylene (perc) and deficits in visual contrast sensitivity. Environmental Health Perspectives, in press.

* Not our publication

SOME OF OUR OTHER PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS:

Hollins, M. and Hudnell, K. (1980) Adaptation of the Binocular Rivalry Mechanism. Invest. Ophthalmol. and Vis. Sci., 19:1117-1120.

Otto, D., Hudnell, K., Boyes,W., Janssen, R. and Dyer, R. (1988). Electrophysiological Measures of Visual and Auditory Function as Indices of Neurotoxicology. Toxicol. 49:205-218.

Hudnell, HK, Boyes, W.K. and Otto, D.A. (1990). Stationary Pattern Adaptation and the Early Components in Human Visual Evoked Potentials. Electroenceph. Clin. Neurophysiol., 77:190-198.

Hudnell, HK, Boyes, W.K. and Otto, D.A. (1990). Rat and Human Visual Evoked Potentials Recorded Under Comparable Conditions: A Preliminary Analysis to Address the Issue of Predicting Human Neurotoxic Effects from Rat Data. Neurotox. and Teratol., 12:391-398.

Otto, D., Molhave, L., Rose, G. Hudnell, HK and House, D. (1990).Neurobehavioral and Sensory Irritant Effects of Controlled Exposure to a Complex Mixture of Volatile Organic Compounds. Neurotox. and Teratol., 12:649-652.

Hudnell, HK and Boyes, W.K. (1991). The Comparability of Rat and Human Visual Evoked Potentials. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev., 15:159-164.

Benignus, V.A., Boyes, W.K., Hudnell, HK, Frey, C.M. and Svendsgaard, D.J. (1991). Quantitative Methods for Cross-species Mapping (CSM).Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev., 15:165-171.

Otto, D.A., Hudnell, HK (1991). Problems in studying low level solvent mixtures. Arbete och Halsa, 35:35-38.

Otto, D and Hudnell HK. (1991). Acute effects of exposure to organic solvents: Experimental approaches and methods. Arbete och Hälsa, 35:35-38.

Otto, D.A., Hudnell, HK, House, D.E., Molhave, L. and Counts, W. (1992). Exposure of humans to a volatile organic mixture. I. Behavioral Assessment. Archiv. Environ. Health, 47:23-30.

Hudnell, HK, Otto, D.A., House, D.E. and Molhave, L. (1992). Exposure of humans to a volatile organic mixture. II. Sensory. Archiv. Environ. Health, 47:31-38.

Otto, D., Hudnell, HK and Prah, J. (1992). Methodological issues in human exposure studies of low level solvent mixtures. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 41:239-245.

Otto, D.A. and Hudnell, HK (1993). The use of visual and chemosensory evoked potentials in environmental and occupational health. Environmental Research, 62:159-171.

Skalik I, Kottnauerova S, Dvorakova D, Otto DA and Hudnell HK (1994). Verifying methods of studying neurobehavioral functions in children as presented in environmental studies - methodology of screening examinations: Neurobehavioral Evaluation System (NES). Czechoslovak Psychology, 27: 233-244.

Otto, D.A., Skalik, I., House, D., Tse, J. and Hudnell, K. (1996). Neurobehavioral evaluation system (NES2): Normative data from 2ND, 4TH and 8TH-grade children. Neurotoxicol. & Teratol., 18:421-428.

Dahl, R., White, R.F., Weihe, P., Sorenson, N., Letz, R, Hudnell, K, Otto, D.A. and Grandjean, P. (1996). Feasibility and validity of three computer-assisted neurobehavioral tests in 7-year old children. Neurotoxicol. & Teratol., 18:413-419.

Kelly, E.F., McLaughlin, D.F., Ross Dunseath, W.J., Folger, S., Jones, Jr., F. and Hudnell, HK (1996). Frequency-domain measurement of vibrotactile driving responses in first-order afferent populations. Exp. Brain Res., 109:500-506.

Bascomb R, Meggs W, Frampton M, Hudnell K, Killburn K, Kobal G, Medinski M and Rea W (1997). Neurogenic Inflammation: with additional discussion of central and perceptual integration and non-neurogenic inflammation. Env. Hlth. Perspect., 105:531-537.

Cometto-Muniz, J.E., Cain, W.S. and Hudnell, HK (1997). Human chemosensory responses to mixtures of volatile organic compounds: odor, nasal pungency, and eye irritation. Perception & Psychophysics, 59:665-674.

Geller, A.M. and Hudnell, HK (1997). Critical issues in the use and analysis of the Lanthony Desaturated Color Vision Test. Neurotoxicol. & Teratol., 19:455-465.

Mergler D, Belanger SB, Larribel F, Panisset M, Bowler R, Baldwin M, Lebel J and Hudnell K (1998). Preliminary evidence of neurotoxicity associated with eating fish from the upper St. Lawrence River. Neurotoxicology, 19:691-702.

Mergler D, Baldwin M, Belanger S, Larribe F, Beuter A, Bowler R, Panisset M, Edwards R, de Geoffroy, Sassine M-P and Hudnell, K (1999). Manganese neurotoxicity, a continuum of dysfunction: results from a community based study. Neurotoxicology, 20(2/3):327-342.

Baldwin M, Mergler D, Larribe F, Belanger S, Tardiff R, Bilodeau L and Hudnell K (1999). Bioindicators and exposure data for a population based study of manganese. Neurotoxicology, 20(2/3):343-354.

Beuter A, Edwards R, de Geoffroy A, Mergler D and Hudnell K (1999). Quantification of Neuromotor function for detection of the effects of manganese. Neurotoxicology, 20(2/3):355-366.

Bowler RM, Mergler D, Sassine M-P, Larribe F and Hudnell K (1999). Neuropsychiatric effects of manganese on mood. Neurotoxicology, 20(2/3):367-378.

Hudnell HK (1999). Effects from environmental manganese exposure: A review of the evidence from non-occupational exposure studies. Neurotoxicology, 20(2/3):379-400.

Hemple-Jorgensen A, Kjaergard SK, Molhave L and Hudnell K (1999). Time course of sensory irritation in humans exposed to n-butanol and 1-octene. Arch. Env. Hlth., 54:86-94.

Hemple-Jorgensen A, Kjaergard SK, Molhave L and Hudnell K (1999). Sensory eye irritation in humans exposed to mixtures of volatile organic compounds. Arch. Env. Hlth., 54: 416-424.

Engle LS, Checkoway H, Keifer MC, Seixas NS, Longstreth WT, Scott KC, Hudnell K, Anger WK, Camicioli R (2001). Parkinsonism and occupational exposure to pesticides. Occup Env Med, 58:582-589.