"A Cure for Crohn's" is a true-life medical mystery of how the cause of a disease that affects 1.5 million Americans, mostly adolescents, has been kept undercover from the public.
A Cure for Crohn's examines an extremely complex and controversial topic. It explains the radical rethinking of Crohn's disease from an "idiopathic" disease (unknown cause) to a proven zoonotic disease (transmitted from birds to animals to man), caused by the bacterium mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis, or MAP. Flocks of migrating starling (the "vectors") contaminate pasturelands with MAP, causing Johne's disease in dairy cattle ("the reservoirs" of disease). Finally, MAP is transmitted to susceptible individuals as Crohn's disease via contaminated dairy products or runoff water supplies. Whenever, wherever, and however MAP is introduced, Johne's disease emerges, and eventually Crohn's disease surges.
Supposedly to avert a public panic, the link between Johne's disease, Crohn's disease, and milk has been dismissed by government agencies. Originally, MAP could not be identified in Crohn's disease specimens and the theory was dismissed as fearmongering. However, with more modern DNA analysis, MAP's genetic fingerprints have been identified in practically every Crohn's disease specimen examined.
There are numerous unexplained Crohn's "coincidences" throughout the world, "hotspots" and "clusters" which defy conventional medical logic.
Why did twelve children in a single street in Winnipeg develop Crohn's disease out of the blue? Why is Crohn's disease in Australian children escalating when the disease was previously unknown? Why, in the 1990s, did the rate of Crohn's disease in Iceland increase by a factor of twenty, from a standing start? Why did Crohn's disease become a mini epidemic in Czechoslovakia, thirty years after independence from the USSR? Why did twelve children in a French village all develop Crohn's disease, within a few years of each other? Why did seven unrelated pupils at the Mankato, MN Class of 1980 simultaneously develop Crohn's disease?
Finally, after decades of denial by regulatory authorities, disappointment for researchers, and despair from Crohn's disease patients, we have a proven perpetrator- MAP. The mold has been broken: Crohn's disease is a zoonotic disease caused by a bacterium and can be successfully treated by an antibiotic combination - RedHill Biopharma's RHB-104, the first step toward - A Cure for Crohn's.
Bio
Dr. David Armstrong is a colorectal surgeon in Atlanta GA and has extensive experience in treating patients with Crohn's disease. Born on a small dairy farm in North Yorkshire, England he saw cattle die from Johne's disease. Migrating to the US as a surgeon at Yale University, Mayo Clinic, and Atlanta GA, he saw the same wasting disease in his patients, but now the name changes to Crohn's disease. Dr. Armstrong has published extensively on Crohn's disease, has developed multiple innovative surgical devices, and even developed medication for Crohn's disease. He established the first Colorectal Surgical Fellowship teaching program in the Southeastern United States. Dr. Armstrong is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons, and the American Society of Colorectal Surgeons. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and two sons.
