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Mold Warriors: Fighting America's Hidden Health Threat
From the forewords by Dr. Richard Lipsey and Bianca Jagger to the Epilogue, with the inside story on the cancellation of an entire season of Scotia Prince Cruises in Portland, Maine, Mold Warriors is the first book that brings together the truths that underlies the struggle of patients made ill by toxin-forming mold growing in water-damaged buildings to regain their health and their lives. Mold Warriors has 640 pages and 25 chapters of compelling writing and actual events that demonstrate the medical, legal and scientific battles of the Mold Wars. Biologically produced toxins make many of us chronically ill, steal the life-savings of many victims, prevent our children from achieving their academic potential and our health care system is largely blind to diagnosis and treatment. By reading Mold Warriors, you will learn how to use the Biotoxin Pathway, a magnificent scientific and medical breakthrough, to then easily recognize and treat the mold illness, leavin! g behind meaningless diagnoses such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, stress, “chronic pain syndrome,” deconditioning and more. With Mold Warriors as your companion, you will not be forced to listen to “experts” who tell us that damp buildings might cause respiratory problems, but not neurologic problems, fatigue and cognitive impairment. You will be freed from legal defense consultants who would attempt to falsely deny you your legal rights to compensation for property loss and personal injury. Here are the facts about mold illness; show them to your Congressman and your physician. If you are made ill by exposed to water-damaged buildings, use Mold Warriors to show what is wrong with you on a printed page of lab reports; sometimes just knowing what is wrong becomes the biggest step towards return to health. Begin a step-by-step treatment protocol, published in high level, peer-reviewed, academic journals, that provides a plan to treat sequentially the complex physiologic abnormalities that are caused by exposure to biotoxin-forming indoor molds. You don’t have to stay ill from mold any longer.
- GenresHealth
604 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
30 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
About the author
Ritchie C. Shoemaker
11 books6 followersRitchie C. Shoemaker MD is board certified in Family Practice. He has practiced in a rural area of Maryland, between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean for 23 years. Named Maryland's Family Physician of the Year 2000, and finalist (1 of 5) as the National Family Physician of the Year 2002, Shoemaker combines a career as a bedside doctor with a passion for making the biochemistry that underlies how things work in the human body abundantly clear to his patients and readers. Shoemaker is an acomplished writer, having published 4 books, numerous scientific articles and multiple essays previously.His interest in weight loss started in medical school in his role as a primary care advocate at a tertiary care institution, Duke University. Much of what was taught then (and still today!) about weight loss just doesn't fit the physiology of what actually happens. Thinking "outside the box" seems to be Shoemaker's basic lifestyle. A simple example is Shoemaker's use of a diabetes drug, Avandia, with his No-Amylose diet. With FDA and IRB approval, Shoemaker showed that the drug is safe in non-diabetics, activates uncoupling proteins, primarily in fat cells, that directly burn fat. The results, not found when Avandia is used without the No-Amylose diet, are astounding. By looking at how things work, Shoemaker showed that the most refractory weight loss patients "burned their hips." His presentation to the Endocrine Society 83rd annual meeting, 6/01, was selected as 1 of 150 papers for special media attention (out of 2400 papers presented). Recently, GlaxoSmithKline sent out a copy of Shoemaker's paper to each of its diabetes sales force due to the number of physician inquiries about the use of Avandia in weight loss.
Shoemaker continues to practice full time, though his patient load increasingly comes from patients all over the country seeking help with illnesses characterized by chronic fatigue and multiple other symptoms related to environmental exposures to neurotoxin forming organisms, including toxin forming fungi (sick building syndrome), dinoflagellates (Pfiesteria is endemic in the Pocomoke River), including ciguatera, blue-green algae and chronic Lyme Disease. His collaboration with researcher Dr. Ken Hudnell, neurotoxicologist, has generated several academic papers already. They have abstracts on several topics that promise to "revolutionize" thinking about biotoxins, pro-inflammatory cytokines and their combined role in human health and illness.
Shoemaker takes his science seriously, but not to the point that the reader will be turned off. His approach to dieting parallels his approach to life-make it full, make it fun, make it right. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Shoemaker continues to practice full time, though his patient load increasingly comes from patients all over the country seeking help with illnesses characterized by chronic fatigue and multiple other symptoms related to environmental exposures to neurotoxin forming organisms, including toxin forming fungi (sick building syndrome), dinoflagellates (Pfiesteria is endemic in the Pocomoke River), including ciguatera, blue-green algae and chronic Lyme Disease. His collaboration with researcher Dr. Ken Hudnell, neurotoxicologist, has generated several academic papers already. They have abstracts on several topics that promise to "revolutionize" thinking about biotoxins, pro-inflammatory cytokines and their combined role in human health and illness.
Shoemaker takes his science seriously, but not to the point that the reader will be turned off. His approach to dieting parallels his approach to life-make it full, make it fun, make it right. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2012
The chapter in this book on 'CFS' is appalling. It denigrates Cheney and others for not seeing how 'obvious' it supposedly was that 'CFS' was entirely a problem caused entirely or almost entirely by mould.
Of course some patients misdiagnosed with 'CFS' have mould-related diseases, but to say the main cause of 'CFS' misdiagnosed disease is mould, or that the outbreaks of M.E. were caused by mould is just utterly ridiculous. This theory is contradicted by a mountain of factual evidence compiled over 70 years and by genuine M.E. experts. This book is not written by an M.E. expert.
Yes, M.E. patients can often react badly to mould as well as to some chemicals, and extremes of temperature and drugs and so on. And the same is true of some patients misdiagnosed as 'CFS' that have non-M.E. diseases. But this is one symptom of these diseases, which is very different from saying it is the sole cause or that the illness could be cured merely by removal of mould in the environment.
For a start, we know that M.E. and 'CFS' are not the same and that M.E. occurs in epidemic and sporadic form and is causes by a virus with a 4 - 7 day incubation period. None of the facts fit mould causation.
To clarify:
-------
M.E. patients were treated appropriately and correctly diagnosed until around 1988, when there was an increase in the number of M.E. patients and outbreaks in the US. Some medical insurance companies (and others) decided that they would prefer not to lose many millions of dollars on so many new claims and so they created a new vague fictional disease category called 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome' to try to confuse the issue of M.E. and to hide M.E. in plain sight.
Under the cover of 'CFS' certain vested interest groups have assiduously attempted to obliterate recorded medical history of M.E.; even though the existing evidence has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals around the world and spans over 70 years.
M.E. is a distinct, scientifically verifiable and measurable, acute onset, organic neurological disease. 'CFS' in contrast, is not a distinct disease. 'CFS' doesn't exist. Every diagnosis of CFS - based on any of the CFS definitions - can only ever be a misdiagnosis. A watebasket diagnosis.
The fact that a person qualifies for a diagnosis of 'CFS' (a) does not mean that the patient has M.E., and (b) does not mean that the patient has any other distinct illness named CFS.' M.E. and 'CFS' are not the same.
Far fewer than 0.5% of the population has the distinct neurological disease known since 1956 as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is an artificial construct created in the US in 1988 for the benefit of various political and financial vested interest groups. It is a mere diagnosis of exclusion based on the presence of gradual or acute onset fatigue lasting 6 months. If tests show serious abnormalities, a person no longer qualifies for the diagnosis, as 'CFS' is 'medically unexplained.' A diagnosis of 'CFS' does not mean that a person has any distinct disease (including M.E.). According to the latest CDC estimates, 2.54% of the population qualify for a 'CFS' (mis)diagnosis.
The patient population diagnosed with 'CFS' is made up of people with a vast array of unrelated illnesses, or with no detectable illness. However, while 'CFS' is not a genuine diagnosis, those given this misdiagnosis are in many cases significantly or even severely ill and disabled. 'CFS' is made up of people with cancer, MS, Lyme disease, depression and hundreds of other unrelated conditions.
Sub-grouping different types of 'CFS,' refining the bogus 'CFS' definitions further or renaming 'CFS' with some variation on the term M.E. (such as 'ME/CFS') would achieve nothing and only create yet more confusion and help to continue and further entrench the mistreatment and abuse.
The problem is not that 'CFS' patients are being mistreated as psychiatric patients; some of those patients misdiagnosed with CFS actually do have psychological illnesses. There is no such distinct disease/s as 'CFS' - that is the entire issue.
Due to outrageous political influences on medicine and govermnent policy, the vast majority of M.E. patients will not be able to be correctly diagnosed with M.E. Most M.E. patients will unfortunately be misdiagnosed with 'CFS.' It is extremely important to note, however, that only a very tiny percentage of those told they have 'CFS' will be M.E. patients. The overwhelming majority of those misdiagnosed with 'CFS' do NOT have M.E. 'CFS' is NOT just another term for M.E.
The name Myalgic Encephalomyelitis must be fully restored (to the exclusion of all others) and the World Health Organization classification of M.E. (as a distinct neurological disease) must be accepted and adhered to in all official documentations and government policy. M.E. patients must again be diagnosed with M.E. and treated appropriately for M.E. based on actual M.E. research. For this to happen, there is a real need for patients (and others) to participate in genuine advocacy and activism.
The bogus disease category of 'CFS' must be abandoned. All those misdiagnosed with 'CFS' must immediately reject this harmful misdiagnosis and begin the search to find their correct diagnosis whether this be M.E., PVFS, depression, cancer, or any other disease. Correct diagnosis is vital in obtaining the correct treatment.
-------
Mould taxes or stresses the system as do excessive environmental chemcial exposures, overexertion and lack of rest, food allergies, antibiotics and other drugs and many other things. These factors can all play a role in causing illness or predisposing one to different viruses and other issues. They are part of the 'total load.'
The chapter on 'CFS' was so self aggrandising it was hard to read. It tried to paint the author as a genius that saw things that nobody else saw. But he has his facts completely and utterly wrong and denigrated unfairly Dr Cheney, a man that knows far more about M.E. and the cardiac insufficiency it causes than the author of this book.
This book could easily cause harm by convincing readers that anyone who has M.E. or a 'CFS' misdiagnosis can be cured by mere mould removal.
This book is not recommended, unless you genuinely do have a mould related illness (it may well be a high quality book in that context) and you ignore totally the chapter on 'CFS.' It is such a shame the auther had to so extremely overstate the case for mould causing so many diseases which we know have other causes. Mould IS an issue if you are ill, but it is not true that it is the number one causative issue for everyone. It is just one part of the mix.
Jodi Bassett, HFME
Of course some patients misdiagnosed with 'CFS' have mould-related diseases, but to say the main cause of 'CFS' misdiagnosed disease is mould, or that the outbreaks of M.E. were caused by mould is just utterly ridiculous. This theory is contradicted by a mountain of factual evidence compiled over 70 years and by genuine M.E. experts. This book is not written by an M.E. expert.
Yes, M.E. patients can often react badly to mould as well as to some chemicals, and extremes of temperature and drugs and so on. And the same is true of some patients misdiagnosed as 'CFS' that have non-M.E. diseases. But this is one symptom of these diseases, which is very different from saying it is the sole cause or that the illness could be cured merely by removal of mould in the environment.
For a start, we know that M.E. and 'CFS' are not the same and that M.E. occurs in epidemic and sporadic form and is causes by a virus with a 4 - 7 day incubation period. None of the facts fit mould causation.
To clarify:
-------
M.E. patients were treated appropriately and correctly diagnosed until around 1988, when there was an increase in the number of M.E. patients and outbreaks in the US. Some medical insurance companies (and others) decided that they would prefer not to lose many millions of dollars on so many new claims and so they created a new vague fictional disease category called 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome' to try to confuse the issue of M.E. and to hide M.E. in plain sight.
Under the cover of 'CFS' certain vested interest groups have assiduously attempted to obliterate recorded medical history of M.E.; even though the existing evidence has been published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals around the world and spans over 70 years.
M.E. is a distinct, scientifically verifiable and measurable, acute onset, organic neurological disease. 'CFS' in contrast, is not a distinct disease. 'CFS' doesn't exist. Every diagnosis of CFS - based on any of the CFS definitions - can only ever be a misdiagnosis. A watebasket diagnosis.
The fact that a person qualifies for a diagnosis of 'CFS' (a) does not mean that the patient has M.E., and (b) does not mean that the patient has any other distinct illness named CFS.' M.E. and 'CFS' are not the same.
Far fewer than 0.5% of the population has the distinct neurological disease known since 1956 as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is an artificial construct created in the US in 1988 for the benefit of various political and financial vested interest groups. It is a mere diagnosis of exclusion based on the presence of gradual or acute onset fatigue lasting 6 months. If tests show serious abnormalities, a person no longer qualifies for the diagnosis, as 'CFS' is 'medically unexplained.' A diagnosis of 'CFS' does not mean that a person has any distinct disease (including M.E.). According to the latest CDC estimates, 2.54% of the population qualify for a 'CFS' (mis)diagnosis.
The patient population diagnosed with 'CFS' is made up of people with a vast array of unrelated illnesses, or with no detectable illness. However, while 'CFS' is not a genuine diagnosis, those given this misdiagnosis are in many cases significantly or even severely ill and disabled. 'CFS' is made up of people with cancer, MS, Lyme disease, depression and hundreds of other unrelated conditions.
Sub-grouping different types of 'CFS,' refining the bogus 'CFS' definitions further or renaming 'CFS' with some variation on the term M.E. (such as 'ME/CFS') would achieve nothing and only create yet more confusion and help to continue and further entrench the mistreatment and abuse.
The problem is not that 'CFS' patients are being mistreated as psychiatric patients; some of those patients misdiagnosed with CFS actually do have psychological illnesses. There is no such distinct disease/s as 'CFS' - that is the entire issue.
Due to outrageous political influences on medicine and govermnent policy, the vast majority of M.E. patients will not be able to be correctly diagnosed with M.E. Most M.E. patients will unfortunately be misdiagnosed with 'CFS.' It is extremely important to note, however, that only a very tiny percentage of those told they have 'CFS' will be M.E. patients. The overwhelming majority of those misdiagnosed with 'CFS' do NOT have M.E. 'CFS' is NOT just another term for M.E.
The name Myalgic Encephalomyelitis must be fully restored (to the exclusion of all others) and the World Health Organization classification of M.E. (as a distinct neurological disease) must be accepted and adhered to in all official documentations and government policy. M.E. patients must again be diagnosed with M.E. and treated appropriately for M.E. based on actual M.E. research. For this to happen, there is a real need for patients (and others) to participate in genuine advocacy and activism.
The bogus disease category of 'CFS' must be abandoned. All those misdiagnosed with 'CFS' must immediately reject this harmful misdiagnosis and begin the search to find their correct diagnosis whether this be M.E., PVFS, depression, cancer, or any other disease. Correct diagnosis is vital in obtaining the correct treatment.
-------
Mould taxes or stresses the system as do excessive environmental chemcial exposures, overexertion and lack of rest, food allergies, antibiotics and other drugs and many other things. These factors can all play a role in causing illness or predisposing one to different viruses and other issues. They are part of the 'total load.'
The chapter on 'CFS' was so self aggrandising it was hard to read. It tried to paint the author as a genius that saw things that nobody else saw. But he has his facts completely and utterly wrong and denigrated unfairly Dr Cheney, a man that knows far more about M.E. and the cardiac insufficiency it causes than the author of this book.
This book could easily cause harm by convincing readers that anyone who has M.E. or a 'CFS' misdiagnosis can be cured by mere mould removal.
This book is not recommended, unless you genuinely do have a mould related illness (it may well be a high quality book in that context) and you ignore totally the chapter on 'CFS.' It is such a shame the auther had to so extremely overstate the case for mould causing so many diseases which we know have other causes. Mould IS an issue if you are ill, but it is not true that it is the number one causative issue for everyone. It is just one part of the mix.
Jodi Bassett, HFME
April 3, 2009
Good book showing western medicine's lack of treatment for mold victims and alternatives to health.
July 1, 2023
A memoir, not a treatment guide
I was looking for treatment guidelines. This is more of a lengthy memoir. Very long and repetitive. Some useful anecdotes.
I was looking for treatment guidelines. This is more of a lengthy memoir. Very long and repetitive. Some useful anecdotes.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews