A  U of Hawaii researcher found evidence of exposure to ciguatera, a bacterial toxin from brown seaweed, in the blood of 95% of the patients with CFIDS who ate fish from South Pacific waters where the Americans and French tested nuclear bombs. He has been given an award for the research by the National CFIDS Foundation.

 

The fish get ciguatera from eating a brown seaweed, which began to grow after the nuclear testing around the Marshall Islands and other atolls. It is not poisonous to the fish, but has made more than three hundred species of fish poisonous to humans. Once poisoned, if you survive, you cannot eat any other fish for the rest of your life because they will cause the symptoms to return. This is a heavy burden on the Island populations - local fish is or was the main diet.

Dr. Rosalie Bertell who conducted several health studies on the people of the Marshall Islands and made a film about their plight with the Canadian National Film Board, says the brown seaweed has a bacteria in it, which has not been well studied. It occurs where the South Pacific nuclear testing took place, and according to the Pacific people in Tahiti, also near to the island where the boats from the test site were cleaned. Before the testing, the brown seaweed apparently did not contain this bacteria or did not produce the toxin. Bertell suspects some kind of reduced immune system in the seaweed has made it susceptible to this bacteria. CFIDS is common among Islanders, their children and grandchildren who also have generalized reduced immunity from low level gamma radiation, radioactive particles in the local foods and radioactive thyrotoxins, the legacy from the tests.

Note that "ciguatera toxin reactivity" in the blood is not the same as ciguatera poisoning. Bertell says it may imply a previous not very severe exposure to the toxin. So it could be a non-causal link. Maybe everyone who has ever eaten fish from Pacific tropical waters now has this reactivity. It doesn't say whether Hokama found toxin reactivity in healthy people. But the fact that nearly every CFIDS patient tested so far, has it? Not just coincidence? And does ciguatera toxin exposure possibly make people hypersensitive to fluoride? Does it make the blood brain barrier more permeable too?

 

Fiji has one artificially fluoridated town. I wonder if they have high rate of CFIDS.

 

Aliss

Star*Bulletin

Vol. 12, Issue 242 - Thursday, August 30, 2007

SHINING STARS

UH fish-toxin expert gets national award
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Yoshitsugi Hokama, the University of Hawaii's world authority on fish toxins, received a national award for his work linking ciguatera poisoning to chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome. The National CFIDS Foundation gave him its 2007 Outstanding Researcher Award. He was the first to discover ciguatoxin in the blood of chronic fatigue syndrome patients. Since his discovery was announced at a 2002 medical conference in Japan, Hokama has obtained an international blood permit so patients suffering with the disease worldwide could have access to testing offered by the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine.

His test identified ciguatera toxin reactivity in the blood of more than 95 percent of people afflicted with CFIDS, a debilitating chronic illness that affects the brain and other systems of the body, according to the medical school.

"Our medical school is pleased to support Dr. Hokama's pioneering research, which has the potential to help millions suffering from the crippling effects of chronic fatigue syndrome," interim medical school Dean Gary Ostrander said in a news release.

Hokama's research was used by Oceanit Test Systems to develop Cigua-Check, a ciguatera fish poison detector kit.

The National CFIDS Foundation Inc. was founded 10 years ago primarily to support medical research to find a cause, treatments and a cure for the disease.