Welcome to the Exposing Mold Podcast, where I, Kealy Severson, Erik Johnson, and Alicia Swamy dive into all things toxic mold. Erik Johnson is known for his history with being an original prototype for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and he also based on his experience in squad tactics for bio weapon protocols in the military, has developed a very unique theory about the effect that could be happening that is affecting us. And this is the foundation of Erik's nanoparticle theory. Erik, would you care to talk a little bit about the decontamination protocols for bio weapons that you learned in the army and how you were able to connect this to your mold theory?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, I had some tangles with black mold prior to my military experience. In fact, as a child, I ran into it and had a growing awareness that I felt better outside and indoors. But the qualities of contamination were still so overwhelming, they were very confusing to me and when I got sick at Truckee High School, which is the site of the original Chronic Fatigue Syndrome cluster, I was aware of that just getting out of the building wasn't enough. I actually had to leave the surrounding area that indicated some kind of contamination was affecting the entire area in front of the school. So over time, I became aware that I needed to put more focus into avoiding these bad zones and developing some kind of strategy to deal with this. Now, my situation kept getting gradually worse over the years, actually influenced my decision to join the army because I hoped that the army doctors might be able to help me with this. I was still pretty athletic and was able to function quite well. And I thought, well, maybe going into the army will toughen me up, beat this horrible thing out of me, and if anything, I might have access to military technology that will help me, you know, assist me in getting through this problem. I soon found that the army knew nothing about it and even though there were certain buildings in the army that affected me, I really wound up in a bad situation by being stationed in a bunker built to be Adolf Hitler's forward headquarters for the invasion of Great Britain. This is about 70 kilometers north of Frankfurt, completely reinforced concrete, multiple levels disguised to look like an office complex when it was really an underground, entire military complex of tanks, and communications equipment would be difficult to spot from the air. But this amazing structure is still there. And they did clean up a lot of the mold. But during my military stint there, I noticed that the vents from the underground bunkers, when I was out for a run out in the woods, I would pass by these vents, and get knocked flat. So I realized that I had to stay away from them. And then in 1976, the place flooded the basement armory got completely soaked, and my entire unit got sick. People started falling apart with viral infections, fungal infections, bacterial infections, it was as if our immune systems had completely disappeared. My commanding officer was scared. He called the division of the biological warfare investigation to come out and take a look. And they looked at the mold and they attached no importance to it. They said, well, you know, it's, it's bad. You've got black mold growing on the cardboard boxes, down in the armory, but we really don't know what's going on. But the advise that we clean it up. So I suggested to my commanding officer, that the mold really was dangerous, toxic, and asked if we could use our M17A1 gas mask during the cleanup. And he said that was a good idea. In fact, he contacted battalion headquarters and asked permission to use gas masks, and they said no, permission denied, hose are reserved for warfare. They're expensive, and you're just cleaning up mold. And it turns out that that probably was a mistake, at least for me it was because I was detailed to go down there and clean up that mold. And within several hours, my squad leader looked over at me and said, Johnson, if you don't get out of here now, we're going to have to carry you out. I went up to my bunk and crashed and literally couldn't move for the next 24 hours. And that was probably a turning point for me because from that point on, I was never able to quite recover from toxic mold again. That's actually why I got out of the military is because I was having so much difficulty, I realized that if I wound up stationed in another moldy area or if this remediation failed to work, I was going to be completely incapacitated. In 1977, an opportunity came up to participate in the military Four Days March, the Nijmegen March, the annual four day folks march in Holland, where teams from all over the world compete, or it's not really a competition. It's sort of a premium meet where everybody goes, and does this march and they said, well, it's not a competition, but don't come in last. The effect of everybody not wanting to be last means that it really is a competition. And I pity the poor people that come in last. So they wanted to make sure everybody was in good shape for this, this march. So I volunteered for this and spent all of our time training away from the Garrison area and out there when I was marching in the field, I was unstoppable. I mean, I could march 25 miles with a 30 pound Ellis Pack 4850, no problem. And then I go back to the Garrison, and I could hardly stand up. So I realized that the Garrison area, the entire area itself was affecting me and in sheer desperation, because the building with its flooded basement was the worst area, I would sneak out to the motorpool, climb under the camouflage nets and sleep out there, so that I could try to recover and get away from the mold for a little while. It was clear from my military experience, that something about this black mold was highly immunosuppressive, it affected my entire unit. And in order to stay away from it, simply walking out of the building wasn't quite sufficient. I had to not only get away from the area, but it was on my clothes. And that really set me up for what happened later with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome incident. When I became aware that there were other people like me, they were highly affected from the sick buildings, the clusters of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, what they call the mystery nowadays at the time, and these people, when I stood next to them, I would get reactions. So I actually led them to the worst areas to the bad buildings. Said there's something there, we really need to look into it. And that's when I found that the CDC, Center for Disease Control the researchers who came to investigate the mystery malady, all doctors, even allergist and immunologist, had absolutely no awareness of the immunosuppressive effects of toxic mold.
Alicia Swamy:Thank you for that, Erik. One thing that you had mentioned to Kealy and I was when you were in the army, your commander or your leader had mentioned to you that another country or the opposing party that you're fighting against could possibly use low level immune system agents. Can you talk a bit more about that?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, that actually came from basic biological warfare training. First lecture from the instructor talked about some of the characteristics of biological weapons, and got into the application of low level immune suppressants on the population. They said, it was possible that the enemy would attempt to demoralize the population, not just the soldiers from the battlefield, but the entire civilian population, by spreading these low level immune suppressants that would allow any infection to get out of control. And this would weaken the morale and cause confusion among doctors who would see infections lighting up for no apparent reason. And I asked my trainer, well, if doctors see a pattern of everybody getting sick from anything and everything all at once, then they'll know to look for something deeper. They'll realize that there's something else going on, maybe a biological weapon of harassment has been deployed. And my trainer said something really surprising. He said, "No Johnson, doctors will not notice. They will blame whatever infection comes up the first thing they detect, and they will fight for that as being the primary cause." I said, "Well won't they compare their experience to other doctors who see other infections lining up in the same area, and realize that there's a broader picture to this?" And I was told, "No Johnson, some doctors might, but they will be suppressed, because all the doctors will fight each other and they will neutralize each other, until only the doctors who have a test that detects something like an activated virus will prevail. All the ones that see a broad picture of immune suppression, they'll be knocked out, their perspective will be suppressed by all this confusion from competing doctors." I was really amazed by this, that this was actually factored into military intel that they knew they can set doctors to work fighting each other by application of these agents. So during the Tahoe outbreak, when doctors all saw different infections and fought for them, I realized this was the exact same scenario that my trainers that prepared me for.
Alicia Swamy:Very, very interesting. Now, going back to that bunker that made you sick, and going back to our episode that we just recorded, you had said that the mold was not the issue, it is the nanoparticles. So what do you think was happening in that bunker that caused that toxic mold to get out of hand?
Erik Johnson:At the time, I blamed pesticides. The Nazi's were well known for dousing everything with DDT. I mean, they were literally dusting their entire location. So it seemed conceivable that they had inundated this entire bunker complex with DDT residue, and my speculations and like many obversation was that the combination of the pesticide plus the black mold that somehow works synergistically to create a super toxin, that was my working hypothesis, and stayed that way for many years. And it wasn't until I learned about nanoparticles later that I realized that this actually fit the profile a little better than the super toxin concept did because nanoparticles fit the rapidly emerging atmospheric pollution that we're putting out from the human industry, from smelters, and warfare, explosions create clouds of nanoparticles, and human industry. High heat, in particular, are required to produce these metallic nanoparticles, normal fires aren't hot enough to do it, takes extremely high heat. And when you create cement, or you generate electricity by coal burning, electrical generation plants, you're producing a lot of heat, and probably putting a lot of nanoparticles into the atmosphere. And the Nanomedicine, the idea that you can use nanoparticles because they penetrate the lungs, get into the blood and brain, that seemed to go and fit nicely, dovetail with the concept that these mold toxins are now being introduced into the body with the ease that is unprecedented. As this kind of illness isn't recorded in the literature. It's only within the last 30 years, we're really seeing people complain about mold and chemicals in the way they are now. So it seemed like nanoparticles, increasing nanoparticle pollution as a vector for toxin transport kind of fit and explained everything all in one fell swoop.
Alicia Swamy:And I highly encourage our listeners to check out our resources below because we will link to studies and information that proves what Erik had just said. That nanoparticles do have the ability to bypass the blood brain barrier and affect the body. And this research has been going on since, I don't know Erik, when the early 2000s, maybe even before?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, right around 2000s when this new bridge, this new field really started to emerge. So it was by the mid 2000s, about 2005, 2006 where we finally started seeing articles about Nanomedicine and the observation that fungi are, they can actually be used. Very species like Aspergillus, are known to create nanoparticles, you can feed metal metallic ions to fungal colonies and they will produce clouds of nanoparticles. So if one considers that nanoparticles have these amazing capabilities. It just seemed logical to put it together, put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Alicia Swamy:Yeah, what was an interesting study or an observation that we had talked about in a recording prior to the podcast was the reactor in Chernobyl. They were finding a ton of mold around the reactor and the hypothesis is that that mold is feeding upon that radiation that that reactor still emitting.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, and the reactor obviously is going to be putting out a lot of nanoparticles. However, the field of Nanomedicine, isn't really based on radiation as we think of it. It's more based upon the surface energy of nanoparticles, which is a separate matter. So it may be possible when they describe the way black mold has really taken off at the Chernobyl reactor and is growing so prolificly. That may not be the gamma radiation. It might actually be that the mold is capitalizing on its own natural properties of processing nanoparticles and using the surface imagery. Now this idea of mold processing nanoparticles is not like something new in alien form, it's just mold doing what mold has always done it always used them to particles. In fact, nanoparticles are a normal part of our environment. They've always been around. They come from volcanoes. So it's not as if this is something completely separate to normal processes. But it may be that we have fed microbial colonies, rocket fuel by denser alloys, nanoparticles that have much more density, the nanoparticles of the past. So it's essentially getting rocket fuel.
Alicia Swamy:Some scary stuff, I would have to say. But what I wanted to go back to was how you and your squad dealt with contamination of this kind of sort of, you know, mold of these low level immune suppressing agents. Did you guys have a protocol in place?
Erik Johnson:Absolutely. The idea is that every squad becomes a self sufficient family. You're protecting your comrades. You all work together to mitigate the exposure from the battlefield scenario. So you remove yourself from the contamination zone, the hot zone, and the protocol is to set up an isolation area at a decontamination station, where every member of the squad has to pass through a vetting procedure to make sure that they aren't contaminated, assess their potential for contamination, and they in essence, have to take a shower, strip off their gear before they can enter the sleeping area, so that everybody can get healthful restorative sleep. And meanwhile, keep your equipment nearby, even though it is still contaminated for use in case of attack. So essentially, it's just creating a safe zone, where you monitor everything that goes in and out of your safe zone, to try to limit the contamination to the maximum possible extent. When I realized that toxic mold was doing this exact same thing to me, merely passing through a plume, not just buildings. But in the storm drains, where it was giving me a lingering effect, my training kicked in. I just went through the same thing that I was trained to do, I set up a safe zone, and started controlling contamination. It is as simple as that, it's not really complicated. It was just what every soldier is trained to do. Now I had special training because I was in a nuclear missile unit. The basic biological warfare protocol is something that every soldier has to learn. But my specialty was in low level radiation and we were trained that contaminated objects would be discernible, that you actually could feel metallic objects that are contaminated. And it would be a big burning sensation, a sense of unease, and proximity to it would give headaches and people just sort of have a subtle psychological recoil. And you have to take into account that radiation is going to affect denser objects, such as tanks, steel, your weapon, your helmet, differentially from seeing your cotton clothing. The same exposure to radiation is going to affect metal more than cotton. So whereas your cotton clothing might not react on the Geiger Counter, your metal objects would. Amazingly enough it seemed to me that mold had this same exact quality. That objects that had been in a contamination or you know, in a bad building, that certain objects seem to have a greater propensity for attracting mold than others. And in fact, it seems like cotton was a fairly low level as an attractant, whereas certain types of plastics that have high electrostatic energy, were like super magnets for the mold toxin. So there again, my specialized training in radiation actually assisted me in making this observation, that plastics which people think can be easily cleaned of mold, were actually some of the worst and most highly contaminated objects, because of their electrostatic affinity to glom on to these scores and fragments from toxic mold.
Alicia Swamy:In other words, plastic is extremely deadly. Not only does it harbor, all of this toxicity, it also you know, emits its own chemical toxicities in our food and everything, you know. But thank you for that information. There was another thing that you, Kealy, and I had talked about that was really interesting, and it was the nerve agents that could be used. Could you describe a little bit more about that?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, the nerve agent has a special quality that can easily be observed in the battlefield, where an extremely low level will cause pinpoint pupils, reddening of the skin, muscle contractions, and psychological behaviors that are extremely distinctive. The main one being that it will cause a rejection of the very proposition that wasn't one has been exposed to nerve agent. In essence, as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, it shuts off the nervous system that allows you to think the very portion of the brain necessary to perceive the danger and this causes anger. And as the mental processes fall back on the more primitive parts of the brain, it creates an anger response. And this automatic denial is said to be so powerful, that if you try to convince somebody that they have been exposed at a very low level to nerve agent, they will actually fight you. They will attack you, physically. We saw signs of nerve agent exposure, never approach somebody on your own, because they might attack you, and overpower you and try to rip off your gas mask. The protocol is, whenever you suspect somebody might be suffering low level, for example, the you know, a nerve agent exposure is going on, and you see somebody behaving in a strange manner, drunken, they refuse to put on their gas masks, they won't follow orders. Those who have already put on the gas mask, are to tackle them as a team to take them down and force them to wear a gas mask, we were actually equipped with restraints, ziplock ties, to restrain somebody, keep their hands behind their back. Otherwise, don't simply take off their gas mask again. And one of the peculiar things I noticed in sick buildings was the same type of denial behavior, where people launch into an incredible rejection of the very proposition that the buildings are making them sick. So while I have no proof that toxic mold is equivalent to a nerve agent, the behaviors that we were trained to observe for, are very consistent with this effect. In the military, the biowarfare trainers also made it clear to us that in a battlefield scenario, while we do have detection capabilities for toxins and radiation, they will be difficult to access, they will be few and far between, and they'll probably break down into the harsh battlefield conditions. So the primary mechanism for our response was observation. They said, we don't want you to rely on testing, on these systems that are bound to break down. Observation will keep you alive. So forget testing, use your observation, and treat your observations as primary over everything else. Because if you are, if, say a tank is exposed to blister agent, nerve agent, or radiation, detection equipment at a distance is not going to give you information about it. If you get near that tank without equipment, that pile of equipment, that makes you sick, trust your observations first.
Alicia Swamy:And so this was basically instinctual for you because you've had this extensive training, this extensive knowledge, when you were being slammed by these moldy buildings in Tahoe, that training and that light, that observation, all that kind of turned on for you. Right?
Erik Johnson:Yeah, people try to give me credit for having figured this out. But actually, I have to admit, it was strictly my army training. I was drilled into this constantly, it was a way of life for us. This is what we practiced out in the field. And when I ran into the same situation in civilian life, my training automatically kicked in, simple as that.
Alicia Swamy:And that you guys is what makes Erik, the mold expert. Haha. Everyone sees what you post and they understand, you know, the story of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or not, but they don't know you. You know, they don't know what you went through, your training your background, and I see a lot of people trying to discredit you. And it's not right, because you are in a way an expert in this because you do have formal training just because you might not be a PhD, doctoral, of whatever. I mean, you understand what's going on, you're making these connections that are being missed. And so far, you've helped a lot of people. So thank you for that, Erik. I really do appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. There was one last thing I wanted to ask you was the sociological implications of all of this that's been going on.
Erik Johnson:Yea, my trainers said that in addition to the doctors, the civilian population will act in the same denialistic manner. That they will support their doctors and they will fight against the people who are obviously surviving better than others, it will actually make them angry. And I was astonished that people followed this same exact pattern that was predicted by my trainers, where they rejected all the stories of those of us who became mold avoiders. And the more we tried to get through to them, the angrier they became. Now, my trainer said, eventually society will reach a point where they will notice that some of you are surviving the situation better than others and they will eventually, after a period of much argument, start to approach you and ask, okay, what is it you're doing? And they said, because you have this training, you will survive, while others will fall. And now that you have this knowledge, it is your responsibility to tell them when the time comes when they eventually start to ask why you can master the situation better than they can.
Alicia Swamy:Yeah, you posted something funny on your page the other day, can you talk about it? It's about Darwinism.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, the natural selection at work. Look at any sport, any endeavor, any skill, the people who are more successful, are going to rise to the top, they'll become noticeable by how well they perform. And that's not just for mold. I mean, in hanggliding, the people who are more skilled at finding thermals, working the lift, are going to wind up at the top of top of the path. So if you look for who is the best at a certain skill, regardless of what it is, you look at the people who distinguish themselves by their success. And I expected that because people understand this about other sports, they would apply this to mold avoidance as well. But so far, we're still in the phase where people are so angry, that they're not ready to look at those of us who are getting a little better results. In effect, they are going through the process of natural selection and by their their behavior of becoming angry, rather than interested. They tend to like be less successful, and weed themselves out.
Alicia Swamy:I thought that was funny and the simple fact, because I think I'm just tired of seeing or hearing people mock you and what you do, because it's it's probably one of the most simplest things you can do. Right? It's not a magic potion pill. It's not $1,000 treatment in a oxygen tank, it's literally getting out of toxicity, going to a place that makes you feel good and staying there to get better. That's really what it is.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, I think the important point to make about the squad training, is that people tell me, well, this is impossible. You can't do it. It's impossible to practice mold avoidance. Well, on some level, it's always possible, simply stepping away from the narrative that bothers you is the initial underpinnings of the strategy. But can a family do it? You bet. If a squad can do it, the family can do it. It probably calls for a higher degree of cooperation than you would expect from a normal family setting. But under harsh circumstances, yes, it can't be done.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. And I just want to shout out to Bryan Rosner, he's one that has been doing it successfully with his family.
Erik Johnson:Yeah, that's a perfect demonstration. I mean, it goes to show that if people are determined enough, if they want to take control of their illness, there is something they can do about it. It's all up to them.
Alicia Swamy:Absolutely. Well, thank you again, Erik, for a great episode. It's just, it's been wonderful. I am really excited for what's to come. We do have a very special guest that we are interviewing tomorrow and Wednesday, two special guests. And we look forward to providing that information to you guys. I don't want to say exactly who it is. So we'll keep the suspense running here. But anyways, please Like, Share, Comment o our content. Also, feel free o donate to our Patreon a d GoFundMe pages to keep th s podcast rolling, we will have it linked below. Thank you ag in for all those that have dona ed, Kathleen, I'm calling you out there girl, I just got your donation. Thank you so so uch. We really appreciate you. A d on our next episode, we wi l be diving more into Nanopatho ogy and nanoparticles and how hey affect the body. And from t ere, we will release our interv ew with our special guests to confirm that and yeah, we look forward to recording another epi ode and providing you guys with he most up to date information n toxic mold and your health. Thanks