Wheldon's comments on abx choices

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Below are Wheldon's comments on his choices of

abx for treating Cpn. i sent him Nelly's questions

(with her name removed of course, plus a few of my

own.

There's also some interesting discussion of Cpn

treatment on the This Is MS forum, including the last

Vanderbilt study.

I'm now contemplating putting up a web page that has

all the Cpn treatment and research stuff gathered in

one place, perhaps snippets of discussion from sites

like ours as well. I have found most info is oriented

towards a specific illness (like MS) and yet this

organism is implicated in so many other things. Not a

task I need to take on these days, but maybe worth

doing. If you folks send me any links or other info

you have, I'll start collecting it.

Jim

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Jim -

Thanks for your letter. You certainly cover some

salient points.

I believe that Stratton and co-workers used a

beta-lactam (penicillin, amoxycillin or similar) to

attack the infectious stage (elementary body) of the

organism. They did some in vitro work to support this,

which they should publish, because it's fundamental. I

reasoned that, as culture was so rare in persistent

human infections, the numbers of elementary bodies

would be small. Also, any elementary body entering a

phagosome in a cell containing bacterial

protein-synthesis inhibitors would be doomed, as the

organism needs to fabricate proteins immediately to

survive. Coupled with this was a native gut-reaction

that people would buy into the idea more readily if

there were fewer antibiotics. And, further, that one

is taught at med school never to combine cidal and

static agents. In the higher levels of microbiology

that's not always true, but basically you just want

people to believe you and treat, as early as possible,

and the more complications you put in their way the

more difficult that is.

In fine, I think that mangling the organism and

exposing all its components to the immune system for

recognition, and purging the immune cells

(lymphocytes, macrophages and monocytes) of the

organism is enough. You don't need to kill every last

organism. Just halt bacterial protein synthesis, force

the bacterium into a non-oxidative mode, then damage

its DNA with metronidazole while it is unable to

repair it. You want a situation like the opening scene

of Polanski's Macbeth. After treatment you might want

to keep in with an intermittent maintenance therapy,

but to be honest I think clearing the immune system

and exposure of the organism is probably enough.

Have I sent you a draft of our paper on this? If not,

I'll send you one.

best wishes,

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