Dear Subscribers,

Despite the holiday timing, there was a lot of response to my mold post. I would like to tidy up a few loose ends. All mold experiences, mine or anyone else's, involve a mixture of issues, starting with getting a proper diagnosis, which is surprisingly difficult, choosing a treatment, and eliminating the risk factors. If there is a responsible causal party, as in my case, there are apt to be many others involved and since they are part of our corrupt corporate community, you can expect to be shafted unless you happen to know how to maneuver in that world. For me, the healing part was basically easier than the legal part, but the legal part also brought into focus why we have the problems we today have and why the system no longer works.

When you buy insurance, you are promised that it is going to help you when the chips are down. If instead, the insurance companies play hardball, you have been duped and it takes a while to realize that the checks you have been writing for years might just have been giveaways. I don't want to dwell there but many people over the years have written about their experiences with insurance companies and there is not one story in which the company eased the torments for the client. Maybe this happens, but if it did, I will bet the client was well connected and the company used their "social conscience" to showcase their products. In my case, the insurance was not just worthless but it added considerably to the stress.

When it comes to property remediation, most people have a little more control. If I were a renter, I would determine whether or not my landlord is likley to remediate properly. If not, I would move and use the mold as the reason for breaking the lease agreement. In most places, landlords must remediate or release the tenant from the contracts. It is actually in everyone's interest to remediate. The landlord has a property that will lose value if not maintained properly. In this economy, there are horrific pressures on all concerned because plummeting property values make massive investments in remediation very financially risky. There are, however, social responsibilities because, as I have explained, "my mold" can become a problem for others. This is particularly true in apartment and office complexes because the leaky faucet or mold around the edges of a shower in one unit can potentially affect everyone else in the building. This sounds totally paranoid but one of the biggest mold cases to be publicized involved a Hilton hotel in Hawaii.

To hammer that nail in a bit, I will mention that I was invited to lecture at a conference on women's health in the Bahamas. The hotel room was musty but I turned off the air conditioner and left the sliding door to the balcony open. This felt very good in the middle of winter to someone who used to live in Hawaii. I was enjoying the sound of the waves and the gentle tropical breeze.

The departure procedures at the airport in the Bahamas are tedious so after all the formalities of checking luggage and clearing customs, you just wait but you have to arrive hours early for a 17-minute flight. This is major downtime for a person such as myself and it is sometimes people watching time. I noticed that nearly all tourists were coughing. Though I am usually far too shy to strike up a conversation with a stranger, I decided to overcome my fear and what I was hearing was that people were staying in hotels that had sustained hurricane damage and remediation was being performed on some floors while other floors were occupied. Unfortunately, this is a "no no".

Not many months ago, I became involved with a young mother with a similar story. She was a teacher and was in the classroom while mold remediation was being performed in the same building. She fought valiantly but at no time during her rather short battle did any physician or holistic healer try to put together a sensible account of why a perfectly healthy, athletic young woman suddenly became so ill. She was diagnosed with cancer, but not one test was ever performed to check for contributing factors. This was a maddening and ultimately tragic story because without connecting dots, patients might be exposed to additional risks that put them right over the top. For instance, antibiotics may worsen the outcome when there is already a mold burden. As the situation deteriorates and people see holistic practitioners to get some additional support for the conventional therapies, they will usually be turned on to mushrooms and this probably also worsens the prognosis. I know that when I say things like this, some people go absolutely ballistic, but in my world, mushrooms are neither food nor medicine and yet they are sneaked into practically everything. Finally, as we have been learning, all radiologic tests are potentially harmful. There seems to be a symbiosis between radiation and fungi so demise is probably hastened by reckless use of diagnostic and treatment procedures that cannot possibly benefit the patient. This is a horror and I know I am a voice in a wilderness and that it irritates a lot of people when I make such statements about "standard procedures".

The problem here is that the mold is very seldom diagnosed. Physicians and their cohorts in the various tangential industries are told that people with mold problems are weaklings. It is inferred by this that they are not simply fragile but perhaps physically, emotionally, and mentally inferior. Their immune systems are compromised or they are allergic to too many substances or they are habitual complainers, or, or, or, or. The missing dot on this long list of what is wrong with the patient is that mold is not only dangerous but it is used as a preservative in many medicines. In short, the industry cannot confront the problem because it would irreparably ding up the bottom line.

Now, why is the industry so insane as to use something like mold to make what is alleged to be a medicine? I have taken a lot of pot shots at Pasteur for more than 30 years now, maybe 40 years. Why do we make clay-footed idols out of rogues is the question? The answer is always found within a specific context. In this case, we have to recognize that Pasteur was a chemist, not a doctor. Moreover, he was a consultant to the wine and beer industries where fermentation is desired and bacteria is not. That would be the end of the story if it ended there, but it didn't. It corrupted much of what passes for modern medicine. If Pasteur's understanding of germs and fermentation had only been applied in the industries that he was advising, we would not still have an axe to grind, but he was a scoundrel and there are plenty of clones of Pasteur undermining the integrity of medicine even today or especially today. Sometimes bad ideas are profitable and sometimes rogues and their cohorts become rich and powerful, but it hardly makes them right.

Wine Making: Fermenting Must, photo WikiPedia

So, let's keep this simple. Mold inhibits bacteria, probably not all mold but many molds have this ability. Now, we fast forward to Alexander Fleming and his accidental discovery of penicillin. I do not put Fleming in the same boat with Pasteur at all. Pasteur suppressed the truth until recanting on his deathbed, but the estate planning he had in place at the time of his death prohibited anyone from knowing what he really knew until 75 years after his death. So, if I say he was a rogue, there are good reasons. Fleming, however, was acutely aware that his discoveries could be misused and he advocated strongly for restraint. These are not nuances because our characters define us and all systems that lack integrity are doomed to fail. The only question is how much suffering occurs between the tragic flaw and the final chapter.

If one looks at epidemics, such as the bubonic plague or cholera, it is very easy to be anti-bacteria. In Fleming's case, the frequently fatal infections of Staphylococcus aureus were a worthy concern and definitely warranted scientific investigation and personal dedication. I am not in a position to prove what I am going to write next, but I suspect that if we were to conduct a long-term study, we would find that antibiotics, aka penicillin and its brother and sister molds in other antibiotics, sometimes confer short-term relief from allegedly dangerous bacteria but they are Trojan horses in that they come with risk factors that, long-term, cannot possibly be safe for anyone. That is a really big allegation and it won't improve my popularity on this Planet.

We today have an epidemic of undiagnosed mold infections due to the use of abhorrent substances in food and medicine. I told the story of Savika's prescription when I adopted her. I researched it online before deciding whether or not to give her the remaining doses. It is made with mold from sewers in Sicily. I wonder when we lost track of the meaning of the word "wholesome"?

Since Savika came into my life with multiple problems and not much of a manual, we had to navigate her challenges very carefully. At the moment, the right to determine the treatments for animal companions still exists but this is not always the case with people and we need to be very, very careful if we want to be healthy.

In any event, to put a cap on Staphylococcus aureus, let me just say that after considering many options, I am convinced that this problem can be managed with herbs and essential oils and no antibiotics are necessary. I want to expound on this a bit because the information is important. I know a lot of what I am saying is just a juggling of words and sentences from material that has been sent to subscribers before but rearranging furniture and thoughts is useful once in a while. The problem with mold that is completely underestimated by almost everyone in officialdom is that it is viable. Somehow, scientists and doctors understand that germs replicate. It is totally a mystery to me that they seem to overlook the fact that mold also reproduces. The advantage of a treatment that uses a non-viable alternative is therefore obvious. There are however complete and total differences between something like an herbal paste using aseptic powders or poultices and essential oils. In nearly every case, the herbs that are antiseptic are also immune enhancing so they rely on the ability of the herbs to promote white blood cell activity. They should not therefore be mixed and matched with other substances that destroy white blood cells.

I know this is a big subject so I want to explain it more thoroughly. Lots of people write me about how they are doing "everything". This may be innovative and reflect a lot of ability to research and implement information on one's own behalf, but it doesn't mean that the way the different products act is understood. This is why I like to tell you about my darkfield observations. Instead of telling you to take 30 drops of something three times a day, I am trying to give you enough information to make intelligent decisions.

Let's say that there is an open wound. If it were Fleming considering the problem, he would be thinking about bullets from World War I. More soldiers died of septicemia than from the original wounds. Dot i's and cross t's: if the wound had not infected, it would not have been fatal. I.e., incompetent medicine is more dangerous than war. That was a century ago. Wars have become much more dangerous!

In my situation, someone could contact me about an apparently simple cut incurred while removing moldy lumber when renovating an old barn or removing rotten planks on the porch. These cuts can be very dangerous. Whatever is placed on an open wound will become a systemic treatment. Actually, to make this point clear, I will toss a gauntlet. Take something with a strong smell or taste, like garlic or bloodroot, and put a little bit on the bottom of the foot, on the softer skin in the arch, not the heel. Take a look at the second hand of the clock and count how long it takes before you taste this on your tongue.

Okay, now we can put an herbal poultice on a wound and a certain amount will be absorbed systemically. If we use an herb like goldenseal which is very, very powerful and extremely resistant to mold, we ought to have a very clean site in hours. We can mix the goldenseal with mucilaginous herbs to give the poultice body and we can add something like turmeric to remove the odor. There are thousands of possible formulas so do not believe anyone who claims his is the only one that works.

These applications have the advantage that they support the inner workings of the immune system as well as the critical situation on the skin. If, however, one tries to mix and match, for instance, why not use colloidal silver and herbs or essential oils and herbs or antibiotic creams and herbs, the combination may not work as intended. I have tried to define these as "death on contact" strategies versus the more indirect actions of something that supports the immune system to defend the host. My observation has been that anything that kills bacteria also kills white blood cells so if using a death on contact method, don't bother to combine it with herbs, but this method should probably only be considered where the infection is very, very serious and likely to be fatal because the treatment will damage the immune system. Once the infection is eliminated, the immune system will have to be rebuilt. If faced with this kind of danger, please consider all options and keep in mind that antibiotics may do very long-term damage not only to the immune system but to all the other physiological functions that depend on friendly bacteria. Colloidal silver and essential oils are non-viable and thus self-limiting. Once one stops using them, recovery will take however long it takes to rebuild immunity.

Now, let me go back to our Russian patient with the mold infection and the hyphal structures that were observed in her blood. While the mold was viable, it secreted a mycotoxin that is simply unbelievably dangerous. There was not a prayer that the red or white blood cells could survive that toxin. This is extremely important information for a number of reasons.

According to what was said in the mold seminar, inactive mold remains toxic. In the context of the statement made, it meant that if you know some building materials are contaminated, that material must be removed. Obviously, the insurance company wants to get off the hook by simply drying out a damp area or maybe coughing up enough money to spray a commercial product on the surfaces, but for 99% of people with mold problems, that solution is irresponsible and perhaps even dangerously life-threatening. Even if mold is not viable, it is still potentially toxic because mold is harmful for multiple reasons, not a single one. Science does not like studies involving many variables but unless we go beyond simplicity and face complexity, we will not understand the problem(s).

Mold decomposes organic matter. It likes warmth and darkness and is fully capable of eating away parts of the brain, lungs, stomach, breast, liver, you name it. That, however, is only half of the problem. The other half is that the mycotoxin is poisonous. So, when you read about "toxic mold", you are only really factoring in part of the problem. One of the issues that came up in my attempt to recover damages from the insurance company was that when a mold test was conducted in the house, the laboratory called the main mold graphium. This upset made my lawyer because aspergillus and stachybotrus are easy legal targets but graphium is not a big name fungus. In fact, it is just as dangerous, but it lacks press. With what I know now, it's very possible it was aspergillus, not graphium, because all the lab did was look at the samples using a very simple brightfield microscope and relatively low magnification. They did not culture the samples to see what would grow and hence the methodology was unprofessional. In those days, this kind of incompetence cost just under $2000. They have people over a barrel because to make a claim, proof is required but the proof is easy to shred.

I actually told my lawyer that the doctors she wanted me to see were also incompetent ambulance chasers, but her reply was that even if I had researched this way beyond where medical science is today, what I know is irrelevant to the courts. This was actually a sorrowful game, but I want to stay on topic while at the same time warning that you are more or less on your own. From any standpoint but your own and that of those who love you, you are nothing more than a whiner and complainer who is wasting other people's time and money. Obviously, this is not true but the cover up of reality is enormous.

What I am trying to say is that while some people could go into anaphylactic shock from something as ordinary as someone else cracking a peanut in a bar 40 feet from where a "sensitive" person is trying to enjoy dinner, the main problem that has some level of official recognition is toxicity. This was touched upon in the mold seminar, but from a legal standpoint, every single mold would have to be tested separately and no generic conclusions would be possible. For instance, with the countless types of aspergillus and penicillium, only a few are recognized as toxic. The others are therefore regarded as safe because there is no evidence to the contrary. What I want to bring into focus is that even those molds that are deemed absolutely safe (on the basis of toxicology studies) are not safe if we consider their eating habits. Mold is totally capable of decomposing anything it colonizes and I have studied the radiologic tests of countless people who were originally misdiagnosed and eventually found to have died of mold. Mold is apparently much less dense and therefore may appear in tests as mist or a hole, but this should immediately give rise to questions as to whether or not that is a mycelium or hole.

At that point, someone could run toxicology tests. Doing a biopsy would be reckless to the point of endangering life and I want to hit that nail pretty hard also. I feel some people crying already. I'm really sorry but if you are still alive, you have time to deal with this.

When making Roquefort cheese, which is blue because of penicillium, a skewer is plunged into a "finished" cheese and then dipped into the new batch. This incubates the batch and in time, the new (clean) batch will be blue or bluish-green like the mature cheese. Next time you are cutting away mold on fruit or anything else, think really hard about what the knife touched before you touch anything else with that knife. Now you know why biopsies seem so risky to me. In official language, it is said, "There is very little risk of dissemination", but what I want you to understand is that the sentence should read, "The risk of this procedure is that the underlying problem might be disseminated." Actually, in all likelihood, it would be disseminated.

Penicillium roqueforti

This is a little long already so there will be a third part soon. For now, I simply want you to understand that the source of the mold has to be eliminated and then we have to conquer the health issues one by one. This is a quite arduous process and though improvements are sometimes very decisive, there can be spans of time where the progress is almost imperceptible and then another quantum leap may occur. For many people, recovery of memory is a huge issue. I had a very serious problem with memory so if people think I make up stories for entertainment, think again. My friends were telling me how worried they were but what I explained to the lawyer is that one can be totally resolved to bite the bullet but the moment one is back in the contaminated space, fatigue and blurriness and countless other issues arise and procrastination takes over. To have one's neurological system functioning properly is an immense recovery but there are many symptoms and many variations in experience so I want to go over these in as much detail as possible so you have all the information you need to make good decisions.

In the meantime, for those who want to read more, I have material in three different online locations. The MoldMisery.com website was started some years ago and nothing has been added for a while. If you printed out that site, it would be about 175 pages in Word (without the images). It is a mixture of general and personal material that has been very helpful to a number of people who have faced similar challenges in their lives. MoldHerbs.com is strictly commercial and has the herbal formulas and essential oils, both for internal use (in very, very tiny amounts) and for diffusing. The diffuser is an extremely important part of remediation and I prefer it to ozone and UV. I can explain the reasons in another post. The third location is on this site where mold posts have been archived.

You might notice that I have several related sections here. One part is called Fungi but there is another called Mushrooms. There is also a podcast. The David Attenborough film on cordyceps is constantly being removed from youtube. I will look for a valid link.

Many blessings,

Ingrid

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2011

Cryptococcus gattii: Pacific Northwest || Flowers and Fungi || Indoor Air Quality
Fusarium, Contact Lens, and the Drug War || Radiation Eating Fungi
Fungi, Antibiotics, and the Immune System || Mold Control

Guduchi || Mold Chikitsa

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