Dr. Kenny de Meirleir

Dr. Kenny de Meirleir is a Belgium CFS/ME doctor who practices vertical medicine. There is no one quite like him in the field. He has developed his own theory about gut dysbiosis being the essential issue with CFS/ME. Other CFS doctors as diverse as Dr. Paul Cheney, Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker and Dr. Dan Peterson have now adopted his ideas. Not too many people have noticed this. Through a special group, funded by an anonymous donor, these doctors and clinicians have regular meetings and exchange of ideas. Dr. De Meirleir is in close touch with Cheney.

Dr. De Meirleir states that the gut wall is abnormal in CFS. As a consequence good bacteria cannot stick to the intestinal wall. This abnormality determines what is in the gut. He suggests aggressive strategies to deal with the problem. It has to be tackled at a fundamental level. He believes that high viral titers have nothing to do with the disease. The gut goes down first. All these antivirals are useless until you take down the cause - and the cause is a neurotoxin that also shuts down the mitochondria.

Dr. De Meirleir believes that the Belgium Red Labs Fecal Microbial test is very precise in measuring pathogens - and it tells us how much bacteria, and which and where. The Red labs test is a fecal microbial test of all the major bacteria that are in the gut. And according to him, this teaches us a lot. Basically all patients shift toward anaerobic metabolism. Once the problem bacteria are identified he kills the pathogens without doing too much damage, and then he begins rebuilding the gut. This might have to be to done 2 or 3 or 4 times because the bad stuff can come back. Because the bowel is a very conservative organism, it doesn’t change very well, so it takes a while.

The bacterial pathogens that cause the most problem are streptococcus, enterococcus and prevotella.

Ampligen is only a treatment for one of the consequences of this disease; it is not treating the basic problem. He now has the evidence for this, and will publish it.

His idea is simple: you shut down the cause and then you start cleaning up. All these gut immune cells, 80% of the immune system, live for a year - so to change the gut it takes a year. In the meantime you keep shutting down H2S so that is does not go in a bad direction.

The idea is to map the problems and then make a decision as to the biggest impact. Detecting this will get better and better. Stanford has this test now where they can see all the active organisms. These in effect are all consequences; they are not causing the disease. The disease is caused by a neurotoxin because the intestinal bacteria have shifted and because they are exposed to heavy metals. In response you do two things: break down the bacteria so they don’t produce heavy metal in this vicious cycle and then you start chelating.

Dr. De Meirleir says that he is seeing 23 severely ill patients in Norway and that eight of them have gotten out of bed since March 2009. He did not want to present this information to a UK audience, preferring to present it to the people concerned in Norway. The conference in Norway is on June 12th.

Dr. De Meirleir will write a book about his treatment. There is 15% who have a brain virus and they will fall out of this gut dybiosis thing. With them the main problem is a neurological problem, although the blood brain barrier difficulties might be connected to the gut. The other 85% have a digestive problem. LPS is a very immunogenic subject. You learn that gut is full of holes. You have to go one step further. According to Dr. De Meirleir, this was the missing link.