Diseases of Unknown Cause or Causes

by Ching-Chee Chan, Ph.D.

All Rights Reserved, February 1999

EGRET PUBLISHING INC.

People suffering from chronic and debilitating diseases of unknown cause or causes are crying out for more information, and new ideas to help them. The number of patients is rising phenomenally and the ages of the patients are dropping. There is no lack of new ideas but there are problems in publishing. The usual excuse is the manuscript is too controversial or rejected out right without explanation. Some are published and the authors are immediately attacked or condemned as if it is a sin to mention certain subjects. The difficulty is man-made.

A few years ago, an article about some chronic, debilitating diseases, appeared in a Toronto newspaper. The author suggested that there were good reasons to suspect these were caused by slow viral or bacterial infections. Next day, another article about the same subject by the president of one of those societies, involving in care of those chronic disease patients, appeared in the same newspaper. The author attacked the author of the previous article for suggesting the idea but not a word about the idea. It seems the discussion of the probability of viral or bacterial infection is forbidden in the press. It is difficult to hire healthcare workers to take care of chronic disease patients. Suggestion of infection will make the problem even more acute. It is always unpleasant or offensive to discuss diseases. Some people consider it is an insult to think some diseases are caused by viral or bacterial infection. Some even think God uses diseases to punish man because man sins. Even in scientific journals, any discussion there will soon end up in the popular press. Besides most scientific journals are controlled directly or indirectly by industries through advertizing, therefore no genuine discussion possible.

In December 1994, I submitted a manuscript proposing an alternative hypothesis with a mechanism for AIDS, to an AIDS journal. I was told by the executive editor that would take a little time to get through peer review. Around March 1995, I received a letter of acceptance from the editor with the comment, "a very interesting hypothesis." Further communications indicated the manuscript would be published in the issue near the end of the year. When this issue came out, my manuscript was not in it. I faxed a letter to the editor, requesting a written explanation. He replied by a letter, stating that my work was highly controversial hence he must decline to publish and my manuscript was released back to me. A few days later, I received another letter from him, reiterating the same points but adding an apology for the delay. That was thirteen months altogether.

The journal seemed to undergo some kind of reorganization. First the picture of a very prominent proponent of the HIV hypothesis appeared on the cover. A chief editor was appointed and the position of the executive editor disappeared. The person originally holding this position became the senior managing editor. I could only hope that the changes were not due to my manuscript. The executive editor had done nothing more than upholding my right to free speech.

It is obvious that publication of idea unfavorable to some industries or sectors of society is discouraged. The result is that some people crying out for new ideas and people with new ideas cannot reach them, separated by people controlling the media or the means of communication. Since the advent of the Internet, the situation has been improving as more people are connected. The Internet is the greatest equalizer. It circumvents the media and bookstores thus solving the problem of disseminating information.

As far as I am concerned, my manuscript had gone through peer review, although it was not published in a journal. The manuscript was reproduced as Chapter 2, The cause of AIDS in my booklet entitled "AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO AIDS AND RELATED PROBLEMS: BOOK 2." Based on this hypothesis, many diseases such as AIDS, arthritis, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn's disease, diabetes, Gulf War syndrome, lupus, Lyme disease, osteoporosis, necrotizing vasculitis, sclerodermas, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, cancer (skin, testicular, breast), Alzheimer, Parkinson, motor neurone diseases (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease) are linked through the immune system.

Shortened versions of these booklets, which can be e-mailed as an attached file, are available free to anyone of twenty-five and over.

Notes:

The hypothesis and mechanism concerning the cause or causes of these immune-related diseases are theoretically justified in the two booklets entitled "AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO AIDS AND RELATED PROBLEMS" and "AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO AIDS AND RELATED PROBLEMS: BOOK 2." For free e-mail versions, See Shortened Versions

For Neurological Diseases, Rethinking Cancer, the Decline in the Number of Deaths due to AIDS, see Supplement

If treatments based on the hypothesis proposed can stop or cure these diseases, the results would reflect on the hypothesis. See A Low-Cost Method of Proving the Hypothesis