Dr. Rea story on Nightline 3-20-08

[Guest guest]

I just watched the whole video and want to scream when I hear the words

stress and psychosomatic issues!

I never had any stress or psychosomatic problems UNTIL I got sick! Really a

slap in the face when we have to listen to these Drs. say it can't be

environment BUT then they don't know what is wrong except to blame it on stress

or

mental problems! May be the day will come when their system becomes over

loaded with environmental toxins then we'll see what they have to say!!!!! My

BP

is going up just thinking about it!!

The following is the transcript of the Nightline story, which is posted on

their website. It is substantially different than the impression created by

the actual video. So please click on the link at the bottom of this posting,

and pray that the video is still available for viewing. The video is a

marvelous example of the power of television to warp, twist, and transform the

impression of a story. The video creates the impression that Dr. Rea is " crazy "

at

best, and " criminal " , at worst.

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[Guest guest]

The following is the transcript of the Nightline story, which is posted on

their website. It is substantially different than the impression created by the

actual video. So please click on the link at the bottom of this posting, and

pray that the video is still available for viewing. The video is a marvelous

example of the power of television to warp, twist, and transform the impression

of a story. The video creates the impression that Dr. Rea is " crazy " at best,

and " criminal " , at worst.

If you don't watch the video, and just rely on the transcript, below, you will

get the mistaken impression that the T.V. interview was a model of impartial

objectivity. You will be wrong. Watch the video. The link to the video, is at

the end of the transcript.

.................................................................................\

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Controversial Clinic for the 'Chemically Sensitive' Texas Doctor Target of

State Medical Board for 'Environmental Medicine' By TERRY MORAN and MARY-CLAUDE

FOSTER March 20, 2008—

What if you thought that the world around you was making you sick? If you

feared that the house you live in, the car that you drive and everyday

activities such as watching television and talking on a cell phone were making

you ill?

Dr. Rea says he has treated more than 30,000 people, from all over the

world, who believe the world around them has made them sick. Very sick.

" Lots of times they know what's wrong with them, but they haven't been able to

get any help, " Rea said. " And they're looking for solutions to their problems. "

A board certified surgeon, Rea has become one of the foremost practitioners of

" environmental medicine. " At his clinic, the Environmental Health Center-Dallas,

no cell phones are allowed and the air is constantly filtered. The walls and

floors are made of porcelain -- " because there are no fumes and particulates, "

Rea said -- and other non-reactive surfaces such as unvarnished wood.

The clinic has been open since 1974. " We had to de-grease all the exercise

equipment, " Rea said. " Because of the fumes that were coming out of it. "

'Chemically Sensitive' Nagy, a patient of Rea and a medical doctor with

a degree from Cornell University, said she came to the clinic because " I knew I

was dying. I knew I had, like, a month left. "

You wouldn't know to look at her now but just a few years ago Nagy could

hardly move.

" I knew I was sick, I thought I was depressed, " she said. " I went to a

psychiatrist every day for a year. I went to an acupuncturist. "

Nothing worked, and Nagy became convinced that she was suffering from an

" environmental illness " : that chemicals and electromagnetic energy in the world

around her were making her ill.

" I was unable to drive into Los Angeles to see the psychiatrist because of the

diesel exhaust coming in the car, " she said. " And I had no knowledge that I was

chemically sensitive. "

Nagy also says the mold in her former house was toxic. " It's possible that I

had other exposures before this house and other situations, which adds to my

toxic load, so that this house tipped me over, " she said. " We all see car

exhaust, smell car exhaust on the way to work in the morning, and we all have

dogs and cats at home, and we all have new carpeting at work. We all have air

fresheners at the airport that we get exposed to. It's how you deal with those

exposures. Do you get tired or do you get a headache? That makes you

environmentally ill. "

Diesel Fuel and Detox The first thing Rea did was test Nagy for

" environmental allergies. " He injected a small amount of antigen -- which is a

diluted amount of the very thing she may be allergic to -- which triggers an

immune system response. Rea tests for a whole slew of allergens such as

perfumes, fabric softeners, diesel fuels, woods like oak and many others.

Then Nagy, as with most of Rea's patients, began what is called the

detoxification program that he says cleanses the body of all pollutants. The

patient gets saunas to " sweat out " the toxins -- purified air, and certain

kinds of food in a controlled environment.

Nagy became so ill during detox she was admitted to a nearby hospital and

ended up in the psychiatric ward. " It was excruciating, " she recalled. " The only

benefit was I did oxygen every night and they had hard surface floors without

carpeting. I didn't know really the principals of environmental medicine yet. I

just knew that I needed to rest and oxygen seemed to help. "

Nagy's husband Wes Nagy said " the psychiatrist that had me commit her told me

she would never get well and that I should consider moving on. " But after a

month of treatment at the clinic, Wes Nagy said that his wife " was like somebody

else. It was like somebody had flicked a switch. It was a different person. "

Public Health Hazard? If it all sounds a little extreme to you, you're not

alone. " We believe he is posing a threat to the public health of the citizens of

Texas, " said Mari , an attorney for the Texas Board of Medicine. The

board is trying to stop Rea from practicing his brand of medicine, and may even

strip him of his license. The hearing is set for Dec. 1.

" The treatments that he's giving, we believe, can be dangerous to the public

health, such as injecting jet fuel or natural gas, " said , who added

that the treatments appear to have no clinical value.

Rea says that he has never injected patients with jet fuel. " I've used

antigens of it, and,of course, as you well know, that was one of the

accusations, " he said. " I used an antigen, a provocation test, just like we

would a food or just like we would a mold. "

We asked Dr. Khan of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical

Center, who, unlike Rea, is a board certified allergist and immunologist, if any

of this makes sense.

" Certainly injecting jet fuel or any part of jet fuel into someone I think

would be potentially dangerous and certainly doesn't seem to have any value, " he

said.

When asked about the success stories of Rea's patients, Khan said, " They're

feeling better living in a closed room with aluminum foil, never leaving without

oxygen. Is that a cure? Absolutely not. "

Countered Rea: " I might say that in Japan now they have four environmental

clinics that are at university medical schools that are patterned after our

methods in our clinic. " And he maintains that his methods have been peer

reviewed in the United States, just not in what most would consider mainstream

medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA or Nature.

And his reaction to the actions of the Texas Medical Board is that it " seems

like somebody wants to limit the public's chance for freedom of choice in

medical care, doesn't it? "

But , of the Texas Board of Medicine, said that " what's gotten him in

trouble is that he has yet, so far, refused to submit his treatments to the

double-blind sort of gold standard studies or to an institutional review board

to oversee it. "

'He Gave Me My Life Back' But none of that matters to Nagy. " I have a

headset on every phone in the home because I can't really use [a regular]

phone, " she said. " If I hold it up, in the piece here, it's got a magnet and it

gives me a headache. "

Following Rea's program, she injects herself daily with all sorts of allergy

shots. " This one is terps, which is terpians from wood -- I was very sensitive

to pine. Do not have raw pine in your home. Oak is OK. This is chemicals and

these are the chemicals that are in this vial, whatever the chemicals are, I was

sensitive to some and not to others. So the ones I was sensitive to, they were

put in here with water, " she said.

Nagy says yes; water with a little bit of diesel, perfume, and even mercury.

" Yeah, but we inject vaccinations with huge amounts of mercury; comparatively

it's probably one-one hundredth or one-one thousandth of the amount, " she said,

although, in fact, most vaccines today don't contain any mercury.

To trained immunologists such as Khan, there's another possible explanation

for Rea's success: His patients are ill, but from stress and other psychological

factors. " You can have people stressed out and they can break out in a rash or

hives or all sorts of things just from the nervous excitement, " he said. " These

things are real events. But it's not because of the substance they just

ingested, it's because of their conditioned response and so when they smell

whatever the odor is, they have this conditioned response, they feel ill, their

pulse rate may go up, they have a headache, a variety of things. "

Getting away from it all was a matter of survival for Nagy. She moved to an

island -- Martha's Vineyard -- and created a special pollutant-free home -- Rea

style.

" Most of these patients who have these ailments actually have an underlying

psychiatric problem, and one of the problems in this country is the under

diagnosis and under treatment of psychiatric diseases, and I think we are all

guilty of that, " Khan said.

Nagy said, " I tried to communicate with the psychiatrists who take care of me,

to invite him over to Bill Rea's clinic. To educate him how many of these

patients appear to be mentally deranged or have mental issues, but how in fact

when you treat their chemical sensitivity, then their mental situation gets much

better. "

It is a fact that Rea and his methods are controversial, scorned by many

mainstream medical researchers and institutions. But all that simply makes no

sense to those who say the world made them sick, and Dr. Rea made them

better.

" I don't want to get all choked up, " Nagy said, " but he gave me my life. "

Click here for more information on Nagy's Story and environmental

medicine. Environmental medicine is not an official branch of the American

Medical Association. Click here to find out more information on allergens from

the The American Academy of Allergy Astham and Immunology.

ABCNews.com Producer Escherich contributed to this report.

ABC News Internet Ventures

This is the link to the page where you can watch the video. But, I'm sure that

it will only be available for a day or two. So, watch it now, or lose the

opportunity. I can't figure out how to save the video to my computer.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4489265 & page=1

[Guest guest]

The stress and psychiatric issues come from dealing with doctors who

don't listen to you, treat you like you are imaging things, don't hep

you to figure it out, run the appropriate tests, make appropriate

referrals, etc.

>

>

> I just watched the whole video and want to scream when I hear the

words

> stress and psychosomatic issues!

>

[Guest guest]

I felt like reaching into the TV grabbing his tie slapping him a couple

times and saying " DOES ADRENAL CRISIS SOUND LIKE A MENTAL ISSUE TO YOU "

LOL. He looked the idiot but I'll bet he still has people fooled.

Sharon Hanson

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> >

> > I just watched the whole video and want to scream when I hear the

> words

> > stress and psychosomatic issues!

> >

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