Steven Phillips - Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic and How to Get Healthy Again

The information contained in this book is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subject addressed. It is not intended to serve as a replacement for professional medical advice. Any use of the information in this book is at the readers discretion. The authors and publisher disclaim any and all liability arising directly and indirectly from the use or application of any information contained in this book.

Copyright 2020 by Steven Phillips, MD, and Dana Parish

All rights reserved

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ISBN 978-0-358-06471-8

Cover design by Kelly Blair

eISBN 978-0-358-06669-9
v3.0121

To the broken ones.

May this book empower you to feel whole again.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

Imagine a pandemic that has affected 50 million Americans. The underlying cause is unknown and therefore theres no cure. No one is immune and there is nowhere to hide. It has already spread throughout all 50 states and across the globe. This could easily be the storyline for a Michael Crichton or Stephen King novel. Unfortunately, this is not fiction.

In Chronic: The Hidden Cause of the Autoimmune Pandemic and How to Get Healthy Again, Dr. Steven Phillips and Dana Parish issue a clarion call that an autoimmune pandemic is ravaging America and other parts of the world. The estimated 50 million Americans diagnosed with an autoimmune disease is not a number concocted by someone on social media but rather statistics from the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association. You would expect that government agencies and scientists would be feverishly working to determine the cause of this steadily growing scourge. Sadly, that doesnt appear to be the case.

Contrast this rather anemic effort to that of the mysterious disease that was killing its victims by suppressing their immune systems in the 1980s and 1990s. The fear that no one was immune triggered an all-out race to find its cause and a cure. Without that intensive research effort in AIDS/HIV, we would not have developed the combination HAART therapy, which has effectively controlled the disease. This begs the question raised in Chronic: Why is the medical community complacently treating patients with inflammatory autoimmune diseases with immunosuppressives when these drugs only treat symptomsnot root causeand put patients at greater risk for developing potentially life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers?

To do this is contradictory to the principles of precision medicine, which is based upon the notion that development of effective therapeutic interventions requires an understanding of the processes underlying the pathogenesis of the disease. How can we expect to cure autoimmune diseases when we dont even know what we are treating?

In Chronic, Phillips and Parish provide compelling evidence that infections play a prominent role in the cause of autoimmune diseases. They illustrate how MS, RA, lupus, fibromyalgia, and others are simply names given to a set of symptoms rather than identifying the underlying cause.

This book also reveals the fact that the rise of these infections mirrors the spreading pandemic of autoimmune diseases. The sad reality is that patients with unrecognized infections are being labeled as having autoimmune diseases and sentenced to lifelong treatment with powerful immunosuppressive drugs, while their physicians wont consider the possibility that pathogens play a causative role in chronic inflammatory illness. And some of these doctors, to whom patients entrust their lives, are ridiculing them for even suggesting they be tested.

Blind allegiance to what you are spoon-fed by a professional medical society is the antithesis of being intellectually curious and scientific. Chronic looks at the field of autoimmunity with new eyes. Its filled with useful information for readers at all levels of medical and scientific background. It is extensively researched, thoroughly vetted, and contains information you can use to educate your doctor, family, and friends.

As a survivor of a chronic infection that nearly claimed my life, and a physician for nearly 30 years, I cant help but mourn the dying practice of the Art of Medicine. Here, we see it on full display in Dr. Steven Phillips, who still relies on his clinical skills and judgment as a practitioner of the healing art of medicine. I know Steven personally and can attest to the fact that he spends hours with his patients, learning through observation and being an attentive listener.

Dr. Phillips adapts his treatment to the needs of the individual patient. That is personalized medicine in its purest form. There is a detailed description of the rationale for the antibiotics he uses and his approach to administering them, and an equally informative section on non-antibiotic antimicrobials and medicinal herbs. Perhaps most importantly, Chronic describes a therapeutic approach that considers the patient as a human being, and addresses emotional healing using a variety of techniques that have proven effective. As reinforced in this book, healing the mind and body are equally important.

Chronic is a beautiful blend of the perspectives of two highly respected professionals who come from different backgrounds but share a common journey. Anyone who knows Dana Parish can see her influence in this book, a humanistic approach articulated through the lens of a prolific singer/songwriter whose life was derailed by chronic infections. Thats how she met Steven, and the two have since been on a singular mission to educate others through the press, public lectures, and social media. Danas song, I See You, which she wrote for Idina Menzel, has become somewhat of an anthem for those suffering in silence, alienated by family and friends, and shunned by much of the medical field. Dana, perhaps as much as any individual, has elevated the conversation and visibility of these patients in the public eye.

Ive been involved in biomedical research at prestigious academic cancer centers where we have published our work in top-tier journals, and was fortunate to have led translational research programs for two cancer therapies that were approved by the FDA. Ive seen excellent science, and conversely, lots of people who talk a good game but have nothing to support their claims. Chronic is extensively backed by published scientific research. If you are looking for a book that provides facts that you can use to counter naysayers point by point, want to understand how pathogens can play a causative role in autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and psychiatric illnesses, and catch a glimpse of how this pre-eminent physician treats his patients with complex chronic infections, mind and body, look no further than this book.

Neil Spector, MD,
Medical Oncologist / Cancer Biologist,
Duke University School of Medicine

Three things cannot long be hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Buddha

It was the 3:00 am request that would stop any mothers heart: Mommy, you need to take the knives out of my room... and the scissors... because Im going to hurt myself.

Dr. Marna Eriksons son was only sixteen years old at the time, and the keeper of those long-forgotten but dangerously sharp family heirlooms. His symptoms had started two years earlierjoint pain, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, an intolerance to light, and sensitivity to sound. This was all due to a devastating but wily infection that doctors had failed to recognize. That night, Marna realized just how bad things had gotten and rushed her son to the local hospital, where he would spend the following week in the psych ward. By then hed already seen fifty doctors, including at one of the worlds most prestigious medical clinics, who turned him away because they could not diagnose his infection using their methods. Three positive tests from North Carolina State University, a leader in infectious disease research, had already come in. But it didnt matter. They still refused to treat him.