blood feud?
www.supremelaw.org/sls/email/box023/msg02355.htmI first traveled to Rock Forest in January, 1992,
taking with me
>a
>friend who would be termed a high risk for cancer: His mother and one
>brother have died from the disease; his father and another brother are
>currently undergoing treatment for it.
>
> An unlikely spot for a revolution in science, from the outside
>
Naessens' laboratory looked like any other summer cottage. At -18° C,
>however, it was not summer, and the snow crunched and squeaked as we
>walked towards the second of two cottages in the compound.
>
> An informal seminar for two American MDs was being held that
>day, and
>we were invited to attend. Two guard puppies yelped, and tried to lick
>our faces, as Daniel Sdicu, one of Naessens' four stepchildren, opened
>the door.
>
> Inside in a room bare but for a long table and chairs, Naessens
>stood
>to greet us. Tall and imposing -- even his stepchildren refer to him as
>
>"Monsieur Naessens" -- he was formally polite. Introduced to the two
>doctors from Vermont, we sat quietly and listened.
>
> One of the doctors, Bradford Weeks, interpreted Naessens' French
>for
>the other, a gaunt, worried-looking man. Part of the discussions in
>progress involved
a new modified version of the somatoscope that
>Naessens calls an "ultramicroscopic condenser," which -- attached to any
>
>optical microscope and for a modest $3,000 -- will enable a doctor or
>scientist to perform basic aspects of blood analysis according to the
>somatid theory. The rest covered what was to me by now familiar ground,
>
>with Naessens acting the strict but fair teacher.
>
> Then we crunched fifty yards through the snow to the older, main
>
>cottage. Inside this neat and tiny house -- clearly Naessens' home --
>we removed our boots, were given woolen slippers to wear, and were shown
>
>into a sitting room whose most prominent feature was an illuminated
>shrine to the Virgin Mary.
>
> In one corner of this otherwise ordinary room a staircase led
>down. At
>the foot was a real if somewhat antique laboratory: Test tubes,
>retorts, specimen tubes, the lot. To one side, dominating everything,
>was the somatoscope. Looking like a cross between an ordinary large
>optical microscope and the inside of an old television set, the
>revolution in microscopy was definitely complicated.
>
> A metal box labeled Helium-Neon Laser was attached to one side
>and a
>small video camera to the top; a web of wires ran to other contraptions
>below and behind it; there was a computer to the left, and some
>high-tech electronics connected to a monitor and Super VHS machine on
>the right.
>
> Wandering down the long narrow room, with its panoramic views of
>the
>Magog ice scape, I came across a strange fleshy pink blob under clear
>viscous liquid in a sealed jar, like something left over from a David
>Cronenberg movie.
>
> I asked the worried-looking Vermont doctor what it was. He
>peered
>closely at the slimy bolus and eventually replied, "I don't know, but
>whatever it is it's alive."
Naessens cheerfully explained that the blob
>
>had started life as a bit of muscle tissue he'd taken from a living rat,
>
>injected with a concentration of pure rat somatids, sealed in a
>sterilized glass jar under vacuum, and then put on his lab windowsill
>back in 1978. "Ever since," he added, "the cells have continued to
>grow." "Great," the doctor laughed uneasily. "Grow your own
>hamburger."
> What everyone was really here for, however, was to see his own
>blood
>under the unique microscope. First taking a sample from Dr. Weeks --
>washing his hands, sterilizing the doctor's finger with alcohol, then
>taking the crimson pinprick onto a slide and covering it with a sliver
>of glass -- Naessens moved to his extraordinary device, flipping
>switches, positioning; the slide, peering through the eyepieces.
>
> After focusing, he flipped another switch and the nearby monitor
>
>suddenly revealed what he was seeing.
Tiny star-like dots pulsed and
>danced around brilliant circles that were, the biologist explained, red
>corpuscles. An awed silence followed, then gasps of amazement -- there
>was a singular beauty to this spectacle.>
> Carefully shifting the slide around -- the tiny pinprick of
>blood at
>20,000 X like a hot tub full of stars -- Naessens explained the various
>forms we saw in normal and healthy living blood, untreated, unstained.
>
> Then it was the worried doctor's turn. There was the wait as
>the slide
>was prepared. But this time the blood looked distinctly different:
The
>
>level of pulsing somatids seemed greatly reduced, and the later forms of
>
>the sixteen-stage cycle were clearly present, some great twisted shapes,
>
>bars, and curious blobs with filaments.
>> "This is so strange," the doctor murmured, "seeing your own
>blood. I
>mean your own blood alive." Naessens scanned the sample more thoroughly
>
>than he had Dr. Week's. He asked if the doctor had been suffering from
>fatigue (he had) and the doctor in turn asked a few questions about AIDS
>
>that seemed to indicate the source of his worry.
>
> Avoiding any explicit diagnosis, Naessens told him that there
>was
>definitely a stress on his immune system and that he should cut down his
>
>workload, rest more, and put himself on a strict diet --
no red meat, no
>
>dairy products, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Then get his blood
>checked again in a month or so.>
> The man's mounting gloom was contagious; it also seemed a rather
>
>private moment to have strangers present, so my friend and I left,
>arranging to come back the next day. Neither of us could shake the
>image of that doctor faced with a picture of his mortality.
>
> The next day it was my blood Naessens looked at first. With
>sweaty
>palms and a knotted heart, I waited until the video monitor was flipped
>on, seeing that universe of stars and red corpuscles like jostling
>balloons. Naessens moved the slide, pointing out forms, each one of
>which had me asking if that meant cancer.
>
> But no, all was as it should be. Beyond an apparent indication
>of iron
>deficiency Naessens saw nothing amiss. Once I was able to relax, there
>was something inexpressibly thrilling about the play of the elements in
>living blood my blood -- something fundamental.
>
> But the mood was shattered. My friend's blood appeared next on
>the
>monitor. The red corpuscles seemed more frail, less defined. And
>stretching across the screen,
coiled and serpent-like, was the last form
>
>in the sixteen-stage cycle -- the "thallus," the discarded shell that
>has expelled new somatids. As Naessens moved the slide, indicating
>other forms from the complete cycle, my friend paced the lab in shock
>and fear.
>
>
Naessens continued to scan, pointing out forms, one of which --
>a
>circular shape with waving snake-like protrusions that he termed the
>Medusa head -- seemed busy surrounding "intruders" or seemed at least
>very busy. "Ask your most eminent hematologists what that is ,"
>Naessens told me. "They cannot answer.">
> When my friend emerged from a prolonged and silent spell in the
>washroom, Naessens assured him that all this activity showed that his
>immune system was fighting, certainly, but in good shape. The somatid
>level was still relatively high, and the presence of the Medusa heads
>indicated an aggressive response to some form of stress.
>
> My friend then told Naessens his family history, but the
>biologist
>still resisted any diagnosis, and advised him to follow the same
>regiment of diet and relaxation he'd recommended for the doctor the day
>before.
>
> Augustin Roy had accused Naessens of furtive and covert work but
>
>Naessens was hardly secretive, his lab and files patently open to anyone
>
>who was interested. No-one was getting rich here either. When I asked
>if he's supplied 714-X free to anyone willing to perform standard animal
>
>tests he immediately said yes, providing the tests were carried out
>according to his protocols, the compound injected intralymphatically and
>
>not into the tumors or the blood.
>
> In Canada, because of his problems, Naessens was giving it away
>to any
>physician who asked for it through official channels. As of October,
>1992, 210 MDs across the country were administering it to patients,
>admittedly on compassionate grounds, in most cases, and at their
>patients' request.
>
> In retrospect, what impressed me most during this first
>exploratory
>visit was the devotion of Naessens' stepchildren.
Only in Rock Forest
>did I learn that their mother, Francoise, had died of a rare fungal
>infection just four months earlier.>
Finally I found a young microbiologist, Jacqueline Conant, then
>working
>as an associate scientist with the Robert Wood Johnson Pharmaceutical
>Research Institute in Toronto, who was intrigued (and professionally
>brave) enough to make the trip with me - and one very nervous friend
>heading for his second appointment with his own blood.
>
> The moment Naessens had drawn the blood in question and turned
>to slide
>it into the jaws of the somatoscope, that friend was heading up the
>stairs. Naessens flipped on the monitor, revealing a vastly improved
>picture. He laughed and shouted, "C'est meilleur!" calling my friend
>back.
>
> The full cycle of somatids was no longer evident, and the red
>corpuscles seemed more defined, more robust. The fast-clotting blood,
>as Dr. Minden had described it, had changed its nature in three months.
>
> Next, Naessens showed us a video tape of blood from a patient
>with very
>advanced cancer. If normal blood had a sparkling beauty to it,
this
>murky broth of filaments and tendrils had something deeply depressing
>about it. All the sixteen stages in the somatidian pleomorphic cycle
>were clearly visible, floating like wreckage in the blood. I couldn't
>see anything resembling red corpuscles and asked Naessens if this were
>so. He pointed them out - bubbles filled with grit, their edges jagged
>filaments.>
> Then Naessens played a tape of the same patient's blood after
>three
>months' treatment with 714-X; after six months and a year. The progress
>
>was clear and dramatic. From what looked like Kitts's last cough, the
>final tape revealed that bright dancing universe I'd come to recognize
>as life and health. My friend was cheered, more at seeing what
>diabolically cancerous blood looked like than at this unknown patient's
>restoration to health.
entire story is fascinating
aqt
>
As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice. We shall
not leave, until our mission is accomplished and justice reigns eternal
wow
aqt