Doug Kaufmann

I subscribe to a service that forwards me articles with key words like “fungus” from news wires, and you can only imagine some of the reports I read! But every once in a while, I get a doozie. Such was the case on a Saturday morning at 7a.m., following my jog, when I received the following headline:

4 ARTHRITIS DRUGS GET FUNGUS WARNINGS

Now, if I were a layperson who didn’t take arthritis drugs, (there have to be a few out there who don’t), or even a physician who wasn’t educated on fungus in medical school, (far more than a few), this headline wouldn’t mean a thing. But I’m Doug Kaufmann, and as I read it, I quickly began to see why physicians, including those with the FDA, haven’t a clue as to the cause of arthritis. As you know, I believe that fungus causes arthritis.

Two days prior to WTOV, Channel 9 in the Ohio Valley reporting this headline, the FDA requested stronger warnings on the arthritis drugs Enbrel, Remicade, Humira and Cimzia because patients taking one or more of these drugs might face an increased risk of a fatal infection caused by the fungal species histoplasmosis. Wait a minute. This article was about the FDA and arthritis and pharmaceutical drugs. How did histoplasmosis get in here, and more importantly, where did it come from? Perhaps if we’d figure out that, we’d figure out arthritis!

Histoplasma encapsulatum is a fungus that grows in soil materially contaminated with bird droppings. A person infected with it is said to suffer from histoplasmosis. When wind blows the contaminated soil, these fungal spores become airborne and inhalation of them can infect anyone, even those with healthy immune systems. Interestingly, about 80% of people living in endemic areas, like those in central areas of America, have positive skin tests for this particular fungus, making physicians believe that exposure must, therefore, be considered normal, and me questioning if those 80% aren’t ticking time bombs just waiting for a time when immunity is suppressed for the fungus to cause serious health threats.

WAIT, THAT’S IT!

Once again, we see caring physicians offering drugs that impede the normal functioning of patients’ immune systems without a clue that, when those patients’ immunities dip, any opportunistic organism, like fungus, can infect and potentially kill a human being. Yes, each of the four drugs referenced in this article suppress the immune systems of every patient who takes them.

But there is more to this “without a clue” phenomenon than meets the eye.

I’m just guessing that the FDA, and drug makers alike, are wondering if their pills aren’t somehow tainted with this histoplasma encapsulata and, when patients take these drugs, they aren’t somehow infecting themselves with the fungus and it is killing a certain number of them. But we know better, don’t we?

Fungus is ubiquitous and, each time we inhale, we inhale certain fungi. If you happen to live in areas where an abundance of this histoplasma encapsulata blows in the air, you’ll likely have more of an immune response against it. In other words, it’s in your bloodstream where you make protective antibodies against it. It’s only when something like an immune suppressing drug impedes that natural immunity that histoplasma encapsulata, or any opportunistic fungi, infects a human being and begins taking its toll on their health and even, as this article depicts, their life.

Look up the word “IATROGENIC” and the definition will have you reviewing this and most other medical news reports differently. Armed with this information, we now become educated medical consumers. Talk to your doctor about taking supplements that help eradicate fungus from your bloodstream and a diet that effectively starves fungus from within your body. Doesn’t this make more sense than depleting your immune system with FDA approved drugs?

Blessings,
Doug