AN ECODETECTIVE’S JOURNEY INTO THE CENTER OF NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE

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http://www.redflagsweekly.com/conferences/mad_cow/2004_jan13.html

 

 

AN ECODETECTIVE’S JOURNEY INTO THE CENTER OF NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE

 

By RFD Columnist, Mark Purdey

 

High Barn Farm, Elworthy, Taunton, TA43PX, UK.

Tel; 00 44 1984 656832.

MadCowPurdey

 

 

 

For several years now, a US research team has pointed to the cause of the

world’s most intensive cluster of neurodegenerative disease on the isle of Guam

as the traditional consumption of ‘natural toxins’ found in the fruit of the

cycad tree (1)(2) – a rather innocuous looking miniature palm tree that has

outlived the dinosaurs and provided a staple flour product for the indigenous

people who populate the South Pacific islands.

 

But I remember watching a BBC2 documentary “Poison in Paradise” featuring Oliver

Sack’s own investigation (3) into this mysterious epidemic of Parkinson’s,

Alzheimer’s and motor neurone-based neurodegenerative conditions amongst the

Chamorro natives. The majority of cases were confined to three adjoining coastal

villages on the southern tip of Guam (See map). Since no cases of the disease

had surfaced prior to the 1950s, and few cases have as yet appeared in any

person born after the mid 1950s, the key epidemiological factors suggest that

this cluster represents a delayed neurotoxic reaction to the introduction of

some alien toxic agent into the local environment during the 1940s/1950s.

 

But the only ring of truth that resonated from Sack’s 50 minute programme, was

peeled out by the wife of one of the Chamorro victims exhibited on the film. In

a 30 second sound bite that had surprisingly escaped the cutting room floor, Mrs

Santos challenged the ‘cycad’ dogma head on; protesting that they had been

eating this fruit for eternity, so why the sudden emergence of this crippling

disease during the 1950s? She went on; “My husband’s auntie said it was during

the American invasion of Guam when they were bombing the waters. There was

something in the bomb that was polluting the water. The children at that time

were bathing in it and drinking it.”

 

So I travelled to Guam in September 2003 to carry out a total environmental

analyses and eco-detective investigation of the environment supporting the three

neighbouring coastal villages of Umatac, Merizo and Inarajan – the epicentre of

this neurodegenerative cluster (2).

 

Hocus Cocus.

 

With guidance from the Chamorro people, I rapidly found my investigations

focusing upon the history of Cocus island – an eerie, elongated islet rising out

of the coral reef and located a couple of miles offshore from the mainland

villages of Umatac and Merizo (See map). I sailed out to the once-upon-a-time

tropical ‘paradise’ island, and quickly realised that the health of the coral

reef around the former naval base was way below standard. It was kind of

cankered and decrepit, like a derelict moonscape devoid of any life. The only

evidence of activity was the solitary skeleton of a juvenile crab that appeared

to have been frozen ‘mid scuttle’ across the top of a coral block - as if some

powerful poison had compelled the poor crustacea to terminate its life force

prematurely. The ecosystem of the former base was no better. It supported little

more than a rag-bag ecology of sickly looking vegetation.

 

The previous evening I had attended an enlightening meeting with ex-serviceman

and atomic veteran, Robert Celestial and colleagues. Although I was initially

suspected of being a ‘CIA plant’, I convinced them to the contrary and spent the

rest of the evening listening intently to Robert’s catalogue of nuclear exposure

incidents during the clean-up of the US atomic bomb test sites out at Enewetak

and Bikini atolls (4). He had subsequently survived a series of grotesque

cancers, which motivated him to devote the rest of his ‘half life’ to

campaigning. He handed me the sworn statement of another ex serviceman, Vancil

Sanderson (5), that offered a plausible explanation for the ‘leukaemic’ state of

the life on Cocus isle. Vancil had been stationed at the former mini naval

station on Cocus island, and his statement told the tale of a continuous stream

of small naval ships entering Cocus lagoon - the waters that lay between the

Cocus isle coral reef and the diseased coastal villages on

mainland Guam. Disturbingly, these boats had all been involved in monitoring

the atomic bomb tests on the atolls between 1946 and 1963. After each

detonation, they were sailed back to Cocus for decontamination of their

radioactive fall out. Acidic detergents and sand blasting were used in the

decontaminating procedure, and the resulting radioactive debris was discharged

directly off the decks and into the open sea (6). The life of the coral reef was

subsequently exterminated (5) due to the infiltration of the marine foodchain

with a radioactive cocktail of strontium 90, barium 137, cesium 137, etc. A high

peak of radioactivity was detected in the surface waters around Guam during a

radioecological study carried out by the University of Washington in 1959 (7).

 

The naval boats had left a toxic legacy of radioactive decay in their wake; a

fall-out effect that could last for up to 60 years plus. More disturbingly, the

radioactive alkali earth metals that were involved, eg; strontium and barium,

are readily incorporated into the calcium of the coral beds, since the atomic

arrangement of these metals is near identical to that of calcium (8).

 

My inspection of Cocus – albeit forty years later - seemed to confirm the

statements made in Sanderson’s report about the annihilation of the coral beds.

I found that the ratio of sand to coral on the local seabed was still only about

9:1 – clearly abnormal, since reports written before the US navy arrival in the

late 1940s referred to a blanketing of coral across the Cocus seabed (5).

 

I even witnessed a rusting bulldozer blade, slumped up at the top of the old

naval section of Cocus beach – presumably one of the last remnants of the

military tackle used to push the contaminated waste into the hollow that had

been hewn out from the backbone at the former navy base.

 

Despite the tropical heat of that afternoon, I felt a chilly shiver down my

spine as I watched the arrival of yet another boatload of ‘uninformed’ Japanese

tourist girls onto the newly developed ‘Cocus Island Resort’. I wondered whether

they would still be so eager to sprawl themselves out along the sand or water

ski around the lagoon if the toxic secrets of this island’s murky history had

been publicly unveiled?

 

But the very real toxic dangers posed by the decontamination of the boats in

Cocus lagoon was no doubt a negligible threat today. For the risks of

radioactive intoxication would have been concentrated into the period when the

highest levels of contamination existed fifty years ago – the precise window

period of exposure that fits the aetiological model of prediction made by the

‘experts’ who have been studying the origins of this epidemic (1-3).

 

It seems that the entire epidemic could have been avoided if the local

population had been informed of the true purpose behind the US military presence

on Cocus. Whilst the villagers can remember the steady trickle of vessels

sailing into the lagoon for these ‘cleansing’ operations during the 1950s and

1960s, they knew nothing about the true nature of the operations at the Cocus

station. So the Chamorros had continued to draw their mainstay foods from the

last remaining morsels of marine life that had survived the toxic contamination.

More disturbingly, they continued to pulverise the chunks of local coral into a

fine powder for mixing up with the betel nut and papula leaf – a traditional

concoction that is habitually chewed for its stimulatory effects. The Chamorros’

unwitting use of the radioactive coral with the betel could represent the most

concentrated source of strontium 90 contamination that has ever been endured by

the human race.

 

Perhaps, it was with no surprise that the collection and consumption of

shellfish, coral , etc, from any part of the Guam coastline was outlawed during

the 1980s.

 

NEXT PAGE: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES - THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF NEURODEGENERATION

 

See References On Final Page

 

 

 

 

 

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