Paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta..The Black Death Is Here.

Where the hell are you, Sanjay? Nearly three weeks have passed since doctors in Joplin, Missouri, discovered a rapid, very aggressive fungal infection (zygomycosis although the name has formally changed to mucormycosis) that started showing up amongst the 1700 victims treated after the tornado from Hell ravaged Joplin, Missouri. This deadly black fungus causes nerve damage, blindness, brain and lung blood clots and ultimately, death.

This subcutaneous form of fungus, invades underlying blood vessels of tissue, and cuts off circulation to the skin causing the area to become black according to Dr. Schmidt who says it is “very invasive.” If the fungus stays in a limb, amputation of the infected limb may save the patient; however, as soon as it enters the brain tissue, it's too late.

Up to as many as eight people (3-4 people are being reported, however, my source tells me that 8 people have died to date) have died as a direct result. It wasn't until June 9, that health officials issued a staff warning about the killer fungus. Still, a close approximation of the number of people infected with the deadly fungus is not being revealed.

Spokesperson Jacqueline Lapine said the agency "is not confirming any deaths related to the reported fungal infections." She said samples taken from the suspected cases are being subjected to further testing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Cover up? 

As always, if you want an answer to any question concerning our profit driven society, follow the profits, or potential lack thereof. 

If there is no potential profit or potential loss of profit, the CDC will likely take their time, as they are doing now, regarding Morgellon's disease. After having  received reports of "Morgellon's Disease" since the 1990s, the CDC still refuses to officially recognize it. Why?   Perhaps, because of the disease's possible link to GMOs...wouldn't want to jeopoardize Monsanto profits, now, would we?. 

But, what could possibly be the reason for stalling/covering up in this case? Well, besides the fact that there is no profit inducing vaccine waiting in the wings, it could have something to do with what the tornado recirculated from another recent disaster, as a tornado is a natural blender of sorts.

Remember, the news reporters who tried visiting the morgue surrounded by armed guards in Joplin, Missouri, where police not only prevented them from doing ; they ordered cameras be placed in the back of the reporters' vehicle (CNN did cover this story)?  Of course, this does not prove anything, in and of itself; nevertheless, it raises the suspicion level.

So, as farfetched as this may sound, the two-million gallons of Corexit used to break up the BP oil spill, which is very toxic to life, is circulating in the air and the water all around us. It very well may factor into the extraordinarily rare deadly fungus that's killing people in Joplin, MO, as Corexit destroys the natural skin barrier, making people much more vulnerable to infection.

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Restrict Your Calories To Live Longer

A Diet for the Immune System

As we age, so do our immune systems. It's why senior citizens are encouraged to get yearly flu shots. But researchers have found a way to keep the immune systems of monkeys young and healthy as they age by putting them on an extreme diet called "caloric restriction," which is the only proven way to dramatically extend lifespan in animals.

"Caloric restriction is probably one of the more spectacular biological manipulations," says Janko Nikolich-Zugich, an immunologist at Oregon Health and Science University. "It has been known for over 70 years now that it can extend life by about 30 percent.

And when we say caloric restriction we typically mean ... taking about a third fewer calories, or about 30 percent [of] calories, compared to what you would take if you had no dietary restriction at all. And ... not only do animals live longer under this treatment, but also they're much, much healthier. They don't seem to be showing many of the diseases characteristic of old age."

Monkeys were placed on a calorie-restricted diet at Oregon Health and Science University.
Previous research showed that caloric restriction also led to an improved immune response in rodents, so Nikolich-Zugich wanted to see if the same was true in "long-lived" animals like monkeys. So he and his team split a group of 42 monkeys into two groups—one on caloric restriction and one on a regular diet—for a period of three and a half years.

As they reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, monkeys on caloric restriction had significantly stronger immune systems. They had more immune cells overall, and, most significantly, had more of a valuable type of immune cell called a naïve T cell. Most naïve T cells are created early in life. Once they get called into action to fight a specific pathogen, they turn into "memory T cells" that are only capable of fighting that specific pathogen. But naïve T cells are capable of attacking any pathogen, including ones the body has never encountered.

"As we use this naïve T cell reserve, we're less and less really prepared to fend off new pathogens," says Nikolich-Zugich. "And this is exactly one of the problems in old age. We don’t seem to be able to defend against some of the new pathogens that keep attacking us. And a typical case that you will see are the new strains of flu, where the elderly have serious problems combating them and we have [tens of thousands of deaths per year] due to flu related disease in the elderly population."

Janko Nikolich-Zugich and his colleagues found that monkeys on a calorie-restricted diet had more of a valuable type of immune cell.
Not only were there more of these kinds of cells in the caloric restriction group, but Nikolich-Zugich's team found the cells also seemed to function better. They introduced certain antibodies to the T cells in the laboratory (not in the animals themselves) and the T cells from the caloric restriction group proliferated and reacted much more vigorously.

Previous research by Nikolich-Zugich and H. Daniel Lacorazza, published in the Journal of Immunology suggested that aging reduces immune system function because the body starts producing more of a certain kind of T cell, called T cell clonal expansions, that are less effective in fighting disease. But he says it's possible that the bodies of the monkeys on caloric restriction were instead still making new naïve T cells.

"We could see a very dramatic improvement compared to what we normally see," says. "We could clearly show that caloric restriction had [a] very major impact on the makeup of the immune system and on its function, suggesting that one of the effects of caloric restriction on longevity might be through the improvement of the function of the immune system."

A "Drastic" Diet
While such a dramatic effect on health and aging may be alluring, Nikolich-Zugich stresses that the caloric restriction diet is probably too extreme for people, and potentially unsafe. There are people who are trying to adopt the diet into their lifestyle, but scientists have not yet tested the diet in people.


"People really should not jump on this treatment without careful consideration and knowing what it is," says Nikolich-Zugich. "The way a lot of [scientists] think about caloric restriction is that it represents a mild stress. It sort of represents like, taking a little bit of a poison and then you get used to it. And then you’re really, really good at tolerating large doses of stress. And that's a cautionary note; you might cross a threshold point where the organism is not able to react with this constructive adaptation to caloric restriction. You might instead actually really only show the detrimental side."

Instead, the point of his research is to understand how caloric restriction works at the molecular level. Knowing that might allow us to reap the benefits without enduring the diet.

"If we can understand which signaling pathways inside the cell are being stimulated or which might be inhibited, then you can use pharmacological intervention to really achieve much of the same effect," says Nikolich-Zugich. "If we can understand at the molecular levels what's happening then we should be able to devise treatments that would really not require necessarily for people to go on a fairly drastic diet…[and] trick [their bodies] into thinking that they’re on caloric restriction."

As to whether a more moderate diet might help our immune system, he says it's possible, but unproven.

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Cannibals in the Body

Your tummy may be grumbling for a Thanksgiving feast, but scientists have found cells in our bodies that are even hungrier. As this ScienCentral News video explains, the discovery could lead to more effective flu shots and other vaccines.

When scientists at Oregon Health and Science University started experimenting with immune system cells, they witnessed a surprising new way that our body defends itself against viruses. Under the microscope, they watched immune cells, called "killer T-cells," munching on bits of their enemy.

Killer T-cells target body cells that have become virus factories, churning out copies of viruses that have infected them. Immunologist Mark Slifka and his colleagues marked these infected cells with a special green dye. Researchers knew that when killer T-cells attack these virus factories, they spew destructive chemicals, such as cytokines. "If they come up to a cell and they can recognize that it's infected with a virus that they know, they will attack that cell and actually deliver a lethal payload to that cell causing it to self-destruct," Slifka says.

But surprisingly, these cells were doing much more. "When we threw in troops of these killer T-cells ... when they recognized these virus-infected cells that were green, they themselves began to turn green," he says.

This means that the killer T-cells were literally taking a bite out of the membrane or skin of the infected cell. "This is truly a case of microscopic cannibalism," Slifka says. "And this is the first time we've seen virus-specific killer T-cells ingest parts of infected cells."

"This information is actually starting to develop into a new area of investigation where people are studying this phenomenon of T-cells cannibalizing other cells," he says. "And we still don't know really why they're doing this."

Slifka thinks the immune system cells are actually using the infected cells as a food source, which may be what makes them so effective. "So not only do you have this warrior cell coming in and attacking these virus factories, but it's able to take away nourishment from this in order to help it to continue the fight against the infection," he says.

As he wrote in the journal Nature Medicine, drug researchers can use this discovery to measure how well a new vaccine works. Vaccines, like the flu shot given each year, contain dead or weakened germs that give your immune system a pattern to recognize stronger versions of that virus in the future. Vaccines spur the development of T-cells floating around in the body.

Vaccine Microscope
By color coding the killer T-cells, researchers can track the effectiveness of a vaccine.
"Now that we know that you can detect virus-specific T-cells by the fact that they will tear off and eat colored infected cells we can now measure T-cell responses not only after a natural infection but also after a vaccine," he says.

While he says that there are other ways of measuring T-cells response to infection, Slifka says that this is a more precise way of measuring that response. Different types of T-cells have a range of functions for the immune system, from producing antibodies, which are proteins that identify threats, to killing infected cells. "Every T-cell will be a little bit different in terms of how it reacts to virus-specific cells. And what we're able to do is measure all the T-cells regardless of what their individual roles are," he says.

Slifka and his colleagues also found that the killer T-cell can be a pretty picky eater, choosing certain kinds of cells to munch on, but not others. While researchers are still unclear why, killer T-cells will eat infected white blood cells, but refuse to eat infected fibroblasts, a type of cell that provides structure to connective tissue. "It's like a child who has a choice between sugar cookies and Brussels sprouts -- they'll take one over the other every time," he says.

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