Slide 38:
Many papers are written about the immune abnormalities I was discussing.
I think a key battle that perhaps is still going on but shouldn’t be, is which is
first; the immune system or some of the metabolic factors being discussed. What I’ve
said over the years but I can now say to all of you safely, is this is not a metabolic
disorder. There is no pattern of metabolic disease that accounts for this large number of
children, or accounts for what has happened. What you do see, however, is what was brought
out at that NIH / CDC sponsored meeting in Albany in 1992. That when your immune system is
off, you throw off the mitochondria of the cells. When you throw off the mitochondria of
the cells, you create multiple metabolic abnormalities. But, I will stress to all of you
that chasing, as some people are starting to do, mitochondrial disease is not going to be
the answer.
You could not have all these adults normal for 20, 30, 40 years of their
life and go into this if they started off with defective mitochondria. The same with your
children; they could not be normal that first 12 or 15 months of their life if they had
defective mitochondria. The metabolic abnormalities are secondary problems. At the same
time, we need to start thinking of the immune system in higher orders than we ever have
before.
