Why Don't More Physicians Know About Wilson's Syndrome?

Does Wilson's Syndrome exist?

Over a hundred thousand patients who have been diagnosed, treated and restored to health since 1992 persuade us that it does. Yet word has spread very slowly through the medical community.

A real breakthrough, but too few practitioners are knowledgeable

From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Denis Wilson, practicing in Longwood Florida, successfully treated more than 5,000 patients for a thyroid condition he discovered. He called it Wilson's Temperature Syndrome. The symptoms were largely the same symptoms as hypothyroidism. Yet sufferer's thyroid tests came back negative, or normal. In recent years at least 6 physician/authors have described seeing frequent patients with hypothyroidism symptoms but normal blood tests. Several have referred to it as hidden hypothyroidism. The condition can diminish an adult's health (most frequently a women's) for months or even decades without relief. Wilson identified the new hypothyroid condition as well as a relatively easy, inexpensive, highly effective and easily tolerated treatment. In the years since his pioneering breakthrough over 2,000 doctors have duplicated his success. Eight years after learning about Wilson's Thyroid Syndrome (it's name has had several variations over the years), Dr. Charles Resseger, the president-elect of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, reported that he had successfully treated more than 500 patients. I have found that there are patients with Wilson's Temperature Syndrome everywhere. [1]

Unfortunately, we can't say the same for most primary care physicians and endocrinologists. It is estimated that less than 1 percent of America's M.D.s diagnose and treat for Wilson's Syndrome. Osteopaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and other 'alternative healers' are more knowledgeable and receptive to the diagnosis, but for them, too, awareness is probably less than 5 percent.

Why should this be true if the Syndrome is potentially widespread, as many treating doctors report, and methods for identifying and treating it were published in Dr. Wilson's groundbreaking book 20 years ago? And why are many doctors who have heard of Wilson's Syndrome inclined to dismiss it?

The handicap of being unconventional

The primary reason is that the identification of Wilson's Syndrome and the development and verification of a treatment procedure were all accomplished outside the conventional medical pathways that lead to broad acceptance.

Pharmaceutical companies fund expensive research and its publication in medical journals for patentable products. It's how they recover their substantial investments. But the patent on the hormone T3 that Wilson used for treatment had run out years earlier. Government-funded research focuses mostly on conditions that are life-threatening or which extend knowledge within 'generally accepted theory.' Wilson's Syndrome, as the American Thyroid Association stated in 2005, cannot be explained within accepted theory.

Unfortunately, without published research, diagnoses and therapies developed outside of the conventional pathways are likely to be deemed 'not credible,' or worse, by the medical establishment (see Wilson's Syndrome: A Response to the American Thyroid Association). Therefore it is unlikely doctors will hear about them through the normal information channels, in which the pharmaceutical companies play a central role.

Censuring the pioneer

Other circumstances also have contributed to the resistance to Wilson's groundbreaking hypothesis and treatment procedure. One is that Wilson, practicing in Florida between 1988 and 1992, sought patients that might have Wilson's Syndrome through advertising. His purpose was to treat large numbers of patients in order to refine his procedure, making it safe and effective for as many as possible. Medical researchers advertise for 'subjects' for the same reason. For them, it is acceptable practice. For general practitioners, at the time, it was not. By tradition, practicing physicians were constrained to doing small 'case studies.'

In 1992, the Florida Medical Board suspended Wilson's license for six months for using a treatment that was not an 'accepted standard of care' within the medical community. How could it be 'an accepted standard of care'? He had just finished developing and refining it. He was also censured for advertising as a general practitioner, something that was seriously frowned upon, at the time, if not considered unethical. Today, perusal of any yellow pages will demonstrate how far medical ethical practices have changed since 1990. But the medical board censure, without the benefit of a clear explanation for its actions, cast a cloud of skepticism over Wilson's reputation and his discovery.

The cloud darkened in 2005 when the American Thyroid Association published its position regarding Wilson's Syndrome. Without research validation, the ATA said, both the syndrome and its treatment were 'unsubstantiated.' The implication: 'not legitimate.'

These censures against Wilson's unconventional approach to making a medical discovery confuse the issue - the issue being whether Wilson's Syndrome is a diagnosable, fully treatable illness. Doctors report treatment success rates typically between sixty and eighty percent, much higher than those that can be attributable to the placebo effect. Does Wilson's Syndrome exist? Tens of thousands of women and men who have been restored to health persuade us that it does.

Unfortunately, the medical establishment's refusal to give Wilson's claims a fair hearing leaves millions of those afflicted without a physician to diagnose and treat their condition.

__________________
[1] Wilson, D. (1991 - 2005) Doctor's Manual for Wilson's Temperature Syndrome. Lady Lake: WilsonsTemperatureSyndrome.com