Alzheimer’s Expert Was Treated Like A Heretic Until Now
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
For decades Professor Ruth Itzhaki believed there was a link between Alzheimer’s and the virus that causes shingles, and has just been vindicated
These two paragraphs outline an amazing story.
Ruth Itzhaki does not, she says, refer to it as her time “in the wilderness”. When she reflects on the decades investigating — often almost alone — whether Alzheimer’s could be triggered by viruses, she prefers a different term. “I’d call it, ‘repeated burning as a heretic at the stake’. ” For much of her career she was treated “contemptuously”.
Today, as yet another study finds that the shingles vaccine appears to cut dementia risk, that has changed. At a stage in life when most researchers are retired, Itzhaki, an emeritus professor at Manchester University, finds herself reviewing studies from around the world. She is treated with contempt no more. But, she says, it has not been fun. “I just have to stop myself from being bitter.”
Sad to say, it is not an unusual story.
This was the comment, I appended to the Times web site.
There was a wonderful BBC Panorama about a Glasgow Veterinary professor, who believed the messenger of the body was an oxide of nitrogen, at least twenty years ago.
He was ostrasised for being a heretic.
Eventually, he was proved to be right.
I might have exposed how a simple treatment for stroke is ignored in the UK.
I was found to be coeliac at fifty and Addenbrooke’s hospital said that I should have B12 injections every three months.
In my sixties, I had a serious stroke and if I lived in the States, I would have been given B12 injections to aid my recovery. But that simple treatment is not used here, as it is considered American quackery.
However, several doctors have said, I have made a remarkable recovery. Was that because of the B12 injections, I still have?
More research needs to be done and I’ll travel anywhere to help any doctor, who is doing serious research.
It could just be, that as a London Mongrel, I have more survival genes, than a small field of Japanese Knotweed.
I should add, that as the date of my next B12 injection approaches, I can almost feel, the various parts of my body fighting for what little I have left.
But what do I know? I’m just a slightly crazy engineer/scientist and mathematician, with no medical training, who has been given an unusual body to investigate.
Moorgate’s New Light-Controlled Crossing – 5th April 2025
I was on Moorgate this morning and took these extra pictures of the new pedestrian crossing.
It will certainly make it easier to cross the road.
The Anonymous Widower 