Dr Shoemaker/The Intelligence Test

[Guest guest]

" It began in Nevada, in a tiny community on Lake Tahoe knowns

as " Incline Village. " It was here, starting back in 1985, that two

observant physicians began to notice a strange pattern of symptoms in

patients who complained of blurred vision, faltering short -term

memory and debilitating exhaustion. " -Page 345 " Desperation

Medicine " by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker.

One of my first questions to Dr Cheney and Dr during the

Incline Village epidemic was " Why is mold killing me? " . I spent the

next eleven years trying to get hundreds of doctors, CFS researchers

and to help me and not one of them ever showed the slightest interest

or willingness to pursue an answer to my question.

Finally, after realizing I had been totally abandoned and could

expect no assistance, I developed my own extreme mycotoxin avoidance

strategy which resulted in a recovery so dramatic that no one

believes it.

I spent years telling my story of recovery and the " Mycotoxin

Connection " to support groups, CFS specialists and researchers

wordwide and virtually no one showed any interest. I was just turned

down by a personage no less than Professor Simon Wessely who also

failed to see anything significant in my story. I've even told my

story on this board years ago with no response. Several years ago I

told my concepts to a Dr refugee who gave me a copy of

Desperation Medicine. I was amazed. After so many years of total

inability to get a doctor to respond in a manner that conveys that he

understood a single word I said, here is a doctor on the other side

of the country in land who knows exactly what I am talking about.

I contacted Dr Shoemaker and he instantly responded. We've been

corresponding ever since and I've told him most of my story. I told

him that he is virtually the only doctor to pass " The Intelligence

Test " since I am so amazed that I could say the things I do and have

a seemingly rational individual fail to recognize any relevant

information in my experience. I make a reference to this incredible

lack of interest in a message I sent to Dr. Shoemaker several months

ago.

-

" Dr. Shoemaker.

A Dr patient called me up last week and said that there was

a highly motivated local doctor who wanted to learn about CFS. The

patient thought it would be a good idea for me to contact him since

this doctor was a " genius " .

I said " We'll see. I'll give him the Intelligence Test " .

Now I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I've been put in the very

peculiar position of being an original Incline Village CFS epidemic

survivor who was twice diagnosed as the " perfect case of CFS " who was

so sick in 1998 that Dr told me that I was " at a point where

most people commit suicide " and I proposed the mycotoxin avoidance

strategy that allowed me to walk out of his ampligen program without

treatment and return to mountain climbing. I'm not saying that I

found the cause and cure for CFS but it's pretty darned amazing. At

least it made a huge difference in my life when Dr told me

that only ampligen could save me but I was unable to afford it.

It seems to me that it was a noteworthy thing and if someone is

looking for something that helps people with CFS, it might be a good

thing to watch for if someone does something crazy like propose some

bizarre strategy and then proves that it works.

So if a doctor is looking for clues, this one ought to be semi-

unoverlookable.

But to my neverending and ceaseless amazement, I've told my story to

hundreds of doctors, researchers and CFSers and the one and only

person to pass the " Intelligence Test " is an eccentric doctor from

land.

It's kind of fun adding new names to the list of those who failed the

intelligence test so I called up this local doctor and told him who I

was and what I had done and gave him the opportunity to talk with me

if he liked.

He didn't like the idea.

Another one bites the dust.

I have a really tough time figuring how someone can be a " genius " and

fail to respond to a story of recovery when he is supposedly doing

nothing but looking for ways to help CFSers recover.

I think it was Winston Churchill that said something like " Men

occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will

pick himself up and hurry off as if nothing had ever happened " . I

had no idea until now how consistently men will hurry off from the

truth and doctors seem to be hurrying as fast as anybody else.

But the weirdness of this whole experience unveils a horrible truth

that I never expected.

It is that if someone developes any treatment that really works for

CFS, doctors will treat it as an obstacle that they have to avoid

tripping over and they wil hurry off as if nothing had happened.

We always thought that if anybody came up with anything that helped

with any illness, doctors would be tripping over themselves trying to

get at it and word of its success would spread like wildfire. My

experience of giving doctors the " Intelligence Test " shows that the

universality of their " hurry off as if nothing had happpened "

response means that the only way you could get them to look at the

truth is if you ran after them and clubbed them over the head with it.

At this point, it doesn't even matter if I'm a liar or not.

The point is that someone can contact hundreds of doctors and show

them a picture of a " Perfect case of CFS " on top of Mt Whitney and

doctors will turn away.

I don't know how doctors ever expect to find a cure for any illness

with an attitude like that.

- "

He replied " Eccentric? I thought everyone else was weird since they

didn't see things right... "