Nexus - 0221 - New Times Magazine-pages

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G: No? T-cells were ever tested. I'm in the first paper ever describing T- L: No. Yes, they can. The only people who could do it are cells, so I am very familiar with T-cells. And at the time I thought people who are friends, and it can happen. I knew all there was to know about T-cells, and at that time I was G: You have protection? an arrogant academic anyway. L: Yes, ma'am. So then one day my tech came into the office and said: "There G: Like Joe? . is something wrong with our assay because the controls are fine, L: Yes, ma'am. It's not Joe. It's not Joe at all. It's profession- _ but patients are all low." So I went in and looked, and they were als, Government-paid professionals. all Phyllis’ patients! And so then I began to interview the patients G: They're your friends? and they all had the same strange symptoms. L: You'd better believe it. I gotta tell you, these guys are very To make a long story short, it made logical, perfect sense. What honourable and they have the same goals that I have. They are was going on was that toxic chemicals were damaging their good people. They just play hard ball. immune systems and they were developing autoimmune disease. G: That goes over my head, too. It was perfectly logical. L: That you don't have to know. In the meantime, being a lousy businessman, busting my own So right now, I'm hated more than Ralph Nader was hated at his _lab, I decided to go into private practice, and since she had such an peak because I'm getting to Joe Six-Packs. And of course Bill Rea _ interesting patient population—and since her office was closer and I vie for who's "No. 1 Quack” in the than my other friend’s, who is a_tradition- country. I've been written up in Forbes al allergist, and I loved them both, but she Magazine and Galileo's Revenge. The latter was closer—I decided to go to her office was used by Dan Quayle in his attack. I's "There are even bounties © Seam how to practise medicine. And part of the Tort Reform Act. They talk about SS . 7 so I worked with her and she taught me "junk science" in the courtroom, and I'm the now being given by drug how to run a practice. You know, work- one chemical competion the acters | has pole de wid we shot aoc name is Peter Huber. doctors who treat troversy between the clinical ecologists Bd ee nutrition.” Ie L: Through Phyllis Saifer. the allergists were going to say something Basically, then, after kind of running about what clinical ecologists did, amuck with the university and all of the politics, I went into the —_ because as far as I knew, it was kinda like a left-handed surgeon practice of pathology. I still stayed at the university and my wife and a right-handed surgeon arguing about how to take out a gall is still at the university, but I went into the private practice of | bladder. And it didn't make sense. In the beginning, I didn't pathology. I'm a pathologist. believe it. I was running the first immunology lab in the area in the late But then I began to see, indeed, there was this controversy, and I 1970s, and this colleague of mine, Phyllis Saifer, whom I thought —_ began to question what it was. And they started talking about it's was a "quack"—a delightful quack, but a quack—used to run the allergists who are worried that the clinical ecologists are going around talking about these people who had strange reactions to _to take their revenues away. I said, "No, that’s not it. It's not that perfumes and cigarette smoke and all that kind of stuff. SoI kinda at all. Doctors aren't smart enough to do that. There's something shined around because she was a real nice lady, and I said, "Why —_ more there." don’t you measure T-cells?” Then I began to look a little closer, and I began to say: “Gosh, I don't know why I said that. I am the first person upon whom _you guys are talking about food allergies, and you're talking about allergies to chemicals. What does the food industry and the chem- — ical industry have to do with this so-called ‘battle’?" I began to look, and lo and behold! There it was: funds, direct- ly given to the academic allergists to attack us, from the drug com- ‘ panies and the nutrition companies. G: Really? This wouldn't be a research contract, this would be like perks? L: Right. There are even bounties now being given by dmg 4) companies to go after doctors who treat nutrition. G: Some doctors in New York have lost their licences. L: I know. I'm involved with a lot of those things. Anyway, so people are given bounties to tum these people (doctors) in. G: You mean, like a patient will go and tum them in. L: Yes. Or a doctor will be given 'x' thousands of dollars in order to turn in a doctor. Yes. And this is well-documented. G: And this is being done to protect the food industry and the chemical and drug industry? L: Yes. I can go on that in the State of California, as late as five years ago, it was illegal to say bad things about pesticides and 4 herbicides. You could get your licence taken away. You could make love to your patients (unethical), you could do drugs intra- venously (illegal), you could sell drugs out of your office, and 1S T-SHIRT PRoupiyt PRINTED in AUSTRA y% SW =e . 44eNEXUS AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1994