Doctors Garth and Nancy Nicolson are prime examples of what can happen when one questions authority. They have been hounded from prestigious jobs and threatened, both physically and professionally; their labs have been vandalized, irreplaceable specimens destroyed, correspondence intercepted and phones tapped. Why? Because they had the audacity to suggest, and evidence to indicate that many sick gulf war vets are suffering from exposure to a bio-warfare, weaponized organism, a mycoplasma named incognitus. Mycoplasma are the smallest and perhaps the oldest life forms. These cell wall deficient bacteria, one cause of “walking pneumonia”, have been implicated in a variety of other “emerging” diseases. A form of mycoplasma, a spiroplasma, is implicated in Mad Cow Disease but is being ignored by most BSE researchers. Multiple Sclerosis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Alzheimers are also being investigated as possibly caused by mycoplasmic type bacteria. Mycoplasma are thought by many to be rather fragile, but nothing could be further from the truth. They tolerate extreme fluctuations in temperature, lay dormant in the soil for generations and survive the harshest elements; only drano-like chemicals kill them effectively outside the body. Under normal circumstances our immune system efficiently deals with mycoplasmas and other life-threatening bacteria; we evolved from this complicated, membrane enclosed piece of DNA and up until now have developed defenses that keep these critters in check. The new strains seem different. Difficult to spot in tissue, they do not react to normal bacterial tests. There has been no sure way to test for these organisms in living tissue since they are often not a problem until the immune system is exposed to stress. The symptoms are flu-like but to the extreme: headaches, sore joints, rashes, chest pain, heart problems, and neurological disorders. Dementia is common in advanced stages of these gruesome afflictions. (7)