"A statistical analysis turned up a link between suicide attempts and parasite infection, such that an increasing number of T. gondii antibodies were linked with an increasing risk of attempts, especially violent attempts. When looking at just attempted suicides, researchers found women who were infected were 1.8 times more likely to attempt suicide by violent means than uninfected women.
The researchers were able to control for diagnoses of mental illness, meaning that infection was independently linked to suicide attempts, not just to mental health problems in general."

Yet denial of this crazy thought - a parasite causing a mental health issue - looms all over the news.  Here, Forbes describes the realistic implications:

"About one third of the world’s population is infected with the parasite, which stealthily hides from the human immune system in brain and muscle cells. Often the host will not develop symptoms of the infection (called toxoplasmosis), but a fair amount of research evidence suggests that it is linked to subsequent mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and also increased risk of traffic accidents .......The suicides linked to these high levels of infection were also the most violent. Evidence of previous mental illness did not significantly change the findings."

Then Forbes tries to dismiss it--

"The latest study has a few limitations, not the least of which is an inability to determine a specific cause for the suicidal behavior. “T. gondii infection is likely not a random event and it is conceivable that the results could be alternatively explained by people with psychiatric disturbances having a higher risk of becoming T. gondii-infected prior to contact with the health system,” Dr. Postolache says." 

Another very recent study, so new I don't think it has yet been attacked, is this one regarding vaccines:

Chicken Vaccines Combine to Produce Deadly Virus

"Vaccines aren't supposed to cause disease. But that appears to be what's happening on Australian farms. Scientists have found that two virus strains used to vaccinate chickens that may have recombined to form a virus that is sickening and killing the animals. "This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to think about it," says Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, in Australia and one of the co-authors on the paper. .....Chickens worldwide are susceptible to a group of herpesviruses called ILTV, which target their upper respiratory tract......To combat ILTV, farmers vaccinate their chickens with attenuated herpesviruses that can still infect and replicate but do not lead to disease. Australia has used two vaccines, which are produced by Pfizer and called SA2 and A20. In 2006, however, the country purchased a new vaccine from European company Intervet called Serva. Two years later, new strains of ILTV, called class 8 and 9, appeared. They are just as deadly as other strains. "But they seem to be dominating over the strains that were reported prior to 2007," says Browning. .....But when the researchers sequenced the genomes of the two new strains and the three vaccine strains, they found that the new viruses were actually stitched together from the European and Australian vaccines. The data for the recombination is "convincing," says Walter Fuchs, who heads the National Reference Laboratory for Infectious Laryngotracheitis of Poultry on the island of Riems in Germany. The combination of vaccine strains to form a new virus is "a problem that needs to be taken seriously,"   

 ----- Then denial enters as if saying that it is possible it could happen in humans but it is just too damn scary to say out loud ---- We can call this blaming the panic.

"Live-attenuated vaccines are also used in humans, but a lot less than in poultry, and their sequence is usually known. "This is not a panic-button on vaccines," says Browning. And Farrell stresses vaccines have been one of the great success stories of medicine. "The type of important technicality raised in this article should not be allowed to detract from the enormous health benefit generally provided by vaccines," he wrote. "

Lastly, a recent news article came out that is very similar to what I and many others keep saying about Autism and its connection to the IMMUNE SYSTEM.  Another to add to the list:

New Approach to Diagnosing and Treating Dementia 

"Some dementia patients show symptoms of a malfunctioning immune system and can receive appropriate treatment.....Scientists at Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin have succeeded in recommending a new type of therapeutic approach to dementia. The study published in the journal Neurology shows that immune reactions against the body's own nerve cells can be the cause of advanced dementia and an appropriate immune suppressive therapy can develop with significant effectiveness.....It was proven that a number of patients in this study who suffered from advanced memory loss had developed an immune defense response with antibodies against an ion channel in the brain, a so-called NMDA-type glutamate channel. Particular proteins in the nerve cell membrane are reduced leading to the characteristic disruption in nerve function and synapsis loss. Those affected exhibit memory problems and abnormalities in mood and emotion. Eliminating these antibodies through hemodialysis improved the symptoms in cerebral metabolism in the hippocampus region -- a part of the brain that is relevant for memory performance and particularly affected by dementia. "Through the study results, a completely new approach to diagnosing dementia can possibly result...."The potential promise of this new approach is that completely new perspectives could result for an entire group of people suffering from dementia for whom no specific therapeutic option exists."

Wonderful news and promising for so many but what is causing their dementia via NMDA and GLUTAMATES?  I need to mention that Autism has many similarities here, especially NMDA receptors and Glutamate.  My daughter with an Autism diagnosis and seizures has had a recent autoimmune diagnosis of antibodies to GAD65  which converts Glutamate to GABA.  The MMR vaccine, as I reported, looks to be a candidate and also, let's not forget Hornig et al with NMDA receptors and Thimerosal, the vaccine mercury:

"Hippocampal architectu­re and glutamate receptor and transporte­r immunoreac­tivity are disrupted in SJL mice by postnatal thimerosal­".......NR­1 and NR2b glutamate receptor immunoreac­tivity patterns are abnormal in the hippocampi of thimerosal treated SJL mice...­Seizure related increases in extracellu­lar glutamate are noted in temporal lobe epilepsy." 

There are patterns here from bacteria to viruses to heavy metals and then to things like AUTISM, DEMENTIA and the IMMUNE SYSTEM.  These honest scientists often become targets as they have followed the truth only to find themselves in the den of attack dogs, usually there protecting money interests, like vaccines and the companies that profit.  I'm waiting for the counter arguments to start appearing over the internet from bloggers and those DSM friendly sites claiming that dementia is NOT an immune system issue but just a degeneration, a regression in skills that nobody knows why or how it happens -- it just happens -- blaming the unknown -- Sound familiar?

Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.