Truckee Toxic Mold - Intentional or Accidental - What happened in Truckee in 1985??

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http://www.cfs-news.org/amposler.htm

ONORIO ANTONUCCI: " Andy " Antonucci, a girls' basketball coach and algebra

teacher for nearly three decades, was among eight teachers who shared a

cramped teachers' lounge two hours a day at Truckee High in 1985, and nearly

all of whom acquired the disease in the space of several months. In 1988,

after numerous failed attempts to resume teaching, Antonucci, then in his

mid-fifties, officially retired and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to be

near his mother. He subsists on a reduced California state teachers'

retirement pension. The Truckee teachers' 1985 lawsuit against the school

district for workers' compensation has so far been unsuccessful. Now

sixty-two, Antonucci says, " I've got maybe three or four hours a day in me,

as long as it's nothing physical or demanding. "

GLORIA BAKER: Baker, a real estate saleswoman from Riverside, California,

had suffered from CFS for a decade when she moved to Incline Village,

Nevada, to become one of the original Ampligen recipients in 1989. She chose

to go off the drug in 1992. In October 1994 she committed suicide.

IRENE AND LAURIE BAKER. Baker, a Truckee High civics teacher, came down with

CFS in the spring of 1985. Since 1989 she has been able to work full time

without experiencing major relapses, and she currently claims a 90 percent

recovery from the illness. Her teenage daughter, Laurie, who fell ill at

roughly the same time, experienced full recovery within a year.

GERALD CRUM. Crum had been on Ampligen for four and a half years when, in

September 1993, he was forced off the drug. Although he testified before the

Food and Drug Administration to the good effects of Ampligen, his wife

believes her husband had reached a " plateau " on the drug, even though it

" saved his life " by halting a progressive dementia. Even without Ampligen,

Crum continues to improve in stamina, although, he notes, the improvement

comes " at a snail's pace. " The former computer programmer lives on

disability support from his former employer.

CANDACE GLEED. An Ampligen recipient in Dan 's practice for two and

a half years, Gleed chose to go off the drug in June 1993. " Ampligen helped,

but it became toxic after awhile, " she says. " In the last six months, " she

adds, " I've been going downhill. " For five years, Gleed had helped educate

doctors and nurses who called the Incline Village CFS hotline. When she

moved from Reno to Las Vegas in 1995, however, the first board-certified

internist she consulted for an infection told her, " CFS doesn't exist. " Said

the second: " I don't think it's a real disease. "

NANCY KAISER. A former golf enthusiast, Kaiser had been ill for nearly ten

years and was thought to be in a terminal state when she became the first

CFS victim to receive Ampligen in 1989. She experienced dramatic

improvement, but she was pulled from the drug in September 1993, and after a

two-week grace period she deteriorated rapidly. She is currently confined to

a wheelchair or to bed.

JANICE KENNEDY. Disabled by CFS since February 1985, the former Truckee High

English teacher received Ampligen in the 1990 trial. The drug resulted in

some improvement, though not enough to allow Kennedy to return to teaching.

Now fifty, she is once more housebound and lives on teachers' disability

insurance.

CYNTHIA MODICA-GAINES. Modica-Gaines, a former university ballet instructor

and performer, was considering suicide before she joined the Nevada Ampligen

trial. Having fallen ill at thirty-five, she already had been bedridden for

five years. Her sister, who cared for Modica-Gaines during several years of

her illness, also acquired the disease, as did a cousin who briefly nursed

Modica-Gaines during a period when she was temporarily removed from Ampligen

after developing liver problems. The disease, says Modica-Gaines, " is a

living death -- it's as though you've been kidnapped from your life and

locked in your bedroom. " When she met Dan , she recalls, " I could

only stare at him like a child in a Keane painting and cry. " She received

Ampligen for three years. Now, she says, " I'm a Lazarus. "

JOYCE REYNOLDS. A decade after the Nevada epidemic, former bank teller and

Truckee resident Joyce Reynolds remains ill. " Sometimes you feel so bad you

want to die, " Reynolds, now sixty-six, says. An Ampligen recipient for three

years under the Food and Drug Administration's compassionate care clause,

Reynolds found the drug only mildly helpful. Her two adult sons, believing

her to have an imaginary illness, no longer visit.

FLOYD SKLOOT. Novelist Skloot, ill since December 1988, was a placebo

recipient in the 1990 Ampligen study. The former elite-class long-distance

racer is bedridden for an average of three days a week, requires a cane to

walk, and is able to write for just two hours a day " on a good day. " He

calls the four-city Ampligen trial " a horror " and says he is working on a

fictionalized account of the experience.

NANCY TAYLOR. , the wife of a Tulsa entrepreneur and philanthropist,

fell ill in 1977 after a blood transfusion, although she was not diagnosed

with CFS until 1986. Ampligen,which she received for sixteen weeks in 1989,

exacerbated her disease. Her husband, Ed , who had partially funded

the early Nevada trial, was convinced the drug worked in only a small

proportion of CFS sufferers and that HEM had toyed with data to cultivate

government support for its drug. In 1995, remained seriously

ill, able to function for only three to four hours every other day. " She is

worse, not better, " reports her husband, " but that's true of a lot of the

ten-year people. Of course, our studies are now telling us that after just

five years it's damn near hopeless. "