Question: 70 + y o male. No known toxicological exposure except; I had exposure as a youth to cadmium and lead. Lead was pervasive when we were young, being in auto fuel. Cadmium (radioactive) was dispersed near my neighborhood in the late 1950's by the US military as part of a secret test. To see the paper Google “THE MANHATTAN-ROCHESTER COALITION, RESEARCH ON THE HEALTH
EFFECTS OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS, AND TESTS ON VULNERABLE” It will be the top Google link. My overarching question: Is there a possible common cause to my various symptoms of unknown etiology?

My long developing symptoms over more than a decade, include something that looks like Raynoud's, first in toes, more recently fingers and nose, “idiopathic” severe neutropenia (diagnosed), intermittent first degree to complete heart block at bundle of his (noted first about 3 years ago). Since stopping administration of CGSF more than one year ago, I have not noted any opportunistic infection. Biopsy of finger swelling showed neutrophilic tissue infiltration. All of these medical conditions seem (I am not a doctor) atypical.

Recently my finger symptoms became much worse, so I have been researching. I have thought that autoimmunity may be involved. A couple of years ago my haematologist ordered a Lupus panel; Lupus Anticoagulant Comp
, Lupus Anticoagulant Reflex
, Anticardiolip Ab, IgA/G/M, Qn
, XXXXXXX w/Reflex was negative. Reading on the topic it seems those tests may not have covered all the possibilities. Then my attention turned to lead. Then I found that I was unwittingly involved in the above reference military experiment. Interestingly my brother died of myelofibrosis.

So, this is a lot for a free public forum, but a really knowledgeable part doc part researcher might find this interesting. And if I knew a cause, it might lead to a treatment. Maybe even cure. And maybe an interesting medical paper for the doc! Or many these are unrelated medical conditions. Your opinion?


Reviewing the category I see it is " User Selected Category : Medicines and Side Effects" Uh, probably should be environmental + rhumatological. I did not select that category. Unless you consider military administered radioactive cadmium to be a medicine! LOL

Hello and good day to you. Thank you for your opinion. I agree. It is not Lupus. I read all that stuff and other auto immune symptoms. Not any seem to fit all that well. What I suspect is that everybody is different, and autoimmunity expresses itself in many individual ways. Even heart electrical function is sometimes mentioned. But I get ahead of myself.

My fingers are better now, but this is long term. They get better and worse. My first G-CSF injection was after my hematologist saw them. He thought it was infection. So, Nupogen 300 u gm and an antibiotic. And the finger got better. Recently my fingers have gotten worse, with joint stiffness. That prompted me to start thinking about researching my health a bit more.

Yes, maybe all the symptoms are not auto-immunological. I consider it possible these symptoms are unrelated, and if related and not immunological, then caused by an infectious agent. Or not?

As to the heart block, I was told "it never gets better" by two cardiology specialists, and then it did. That was a surprise. One it just got a lot better. That was while I was injecting the C-GSF, so I thought maybe the injections mahy have something to do with my hart improvement. I found nothing much (scientific) to support that theory.

WWW.WWWW.WW should start a download of the PDF on cadmium sulfide dispersal in St. XXXXXXX The download takes a long while, as it is 600 pages. Cadmium exposure may not be important to my health, and certainly you need not read all that. It does represent an interesting and sad piece of American history. When I looked at the map and saw I grew up near the border of one of the two test areas, I was in a bit of a state of shock. One thing I have found on the net are papers that say heavy metal exposure when young can result in autoimmunity when older, and that the metals, well, lead, resided in bone for decades. However, I know that proves nothing. Maybe a clue?

Yes, I had in depth heamatology, including a Neutropenia International Registry, and saw Dr. XXXXXXX XXXXXXX in Seattle Washington USA, who is co-director of the registry. He said adult male onset of neutropenia is very rare, and offered no suggestion as to what may have caused it. Of course, early exposure to toxins is on the list, but I did not think at that time about toxins. A few days ago I read an article in Scientific American on lead, and that started me looking on the net to learn more, which turned up the cadmium experiment. (That it was allegedly radioactive does not seem to me to be important).

I was a regular user of G-CSF, self injecting and keeping a log of injections and then collecting all my test reports, and got a copy of my GP files going back to 1998 (I think). So all that is available & on the hard drive on this laptop.

One day I just quit the injections and blood tests. My last injection was 2012-03-10 300 u grams and the ANC on blood drawn 2012-03-16 11:52 was 500 per u/l. I have not checked since then. I expected to see infections. Although some counts were <300 u/l I just never noted a problem. Not yet. Though G-CSF did seem to eliminate occasional cold sores. It is a bit expensive for that purpose!!

I called it Raynaud's (fingers and toes) because what I read of that diagnosis fits my observations. But I never got a diagnosis on the toes or fingers.

I will send you more information. I can upload my entire medical file. The bone marrow workup was expensive.

One hope I had that was getting away and reducing stress would help. Well, I feel pretty good! But I have no idea if my ANC is improved. Do you think I should find someone here in the Western Cape to order a WBC workup?

What is your time zone? Here it is GMT+2. I will get you more information. I think I can send you one CBC pretty quickly.

I saw your in healthcare magic personal page, and then noted you are on Facebook (as am I)

If you wish to continue a dialog outside of healthcare magic, my personal email is YYYY@YYYY .

I will get a local doc to write a prescription for a blood panel. I am curious. I can send you a lot more. Just ask. Or the whole batch.

No need to apologize for being slow to get back to me. I paid a fee to a company I never heard of, and did not trust it. Now I do. Take as much time as seems reasonable.

What might be interesting is exchange of links to papers related to the topic. If you are interested in that, let me know.

The paper on cadmium dispersal in St. XXXXXXX has some numbers regarding maximum possible exposure. I have not really studied that, or put it into context for other cadmium exposure, such as secondhand smoke from cigarettes. I have lived a good long life, so things going wrong are to be expected. Still, no reason not to look more deeply.