For 15 years, I've lived with a parasitic infection called Protomyxzoa Rheumatica. It was discovered by one lab in Arizona. The CDC doesn't recognize it. Most doctors have never heard of it. And there's growing evidence that the spread of infections like these may not have been entirely accidental.
In 2011, after years of misdiagnosis, I was finally tested at Fry Laboratories in Scottsdale, Arizona. The results showed Protomyxzoa Rheumatica — a biofilm-forming protozoan that lives in your blood vessels, triggers chronic inflammation, reduces blood flow to your brain and organs, and feeds on lipids. Every gram of fat you eat makes it stronger.
I eat less than 10 grams of fat per day. I've done that for years. When I fast for 48 hours, the inflammation drops dramatically. When I eat again, it comes back. The organism goes dormant during fasting but it never fully leaves. It wraps itself in biofilm — a slimy protective matrix that antibiotics can't penetrate — and waits.
The symptoms are relentless. Fatigue that makes simple tasks feel impossible. Brain fog. Muscle spasms. Joint pain. Sensitivity to barometric pressure changes. A thyroid that barely functions. The symptoms are relentless and unpredictable.
I've spent over a decade researching this infection, testing treatments on myself, and trying to find doctors who understand what's happening. I gave up. Most doctors won't even see me. I had to figure out everything by myself. The medical system is designed for problems it can name. When it can't name your problem, you become invisible.
That was years ago. I'm not cured, but I'm functional, I'm building, and I'm not done fighting.
After World War II ended, the United States government brought approximately 1,600 Nazi scientists to America under Operation Paperclip. Among them was Erich Traub — a virologist who had worked directly for Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. Traub's specialty was biological weapons. In the concentration camps, he studied infecting people with diseases including malaria.
The U.S. government gave Traub a new home: Plum Island, off the coast of Long Island, New York. The facility was modeled after Traub's own laboratory in Nazi Germany. He ran the operation. The mission was the same as it had been under the Third Reich — weaponizing pathogens carried by ticks and insects.
The first major outbreak of Lyme disease was identified in Lyme, Connecticut — directly across the water from Plum Island. The pathogen existed before, but it had never spread like that.
One of the other researchers who worked at Plum Island was Willy Burgdorfer — the man who later "discovered" the bacterium that causes Lyme disease and had it named after him. Burgdorfer was a bioweapons researcher. He spent years weaponizing ticks and the pathogens they carry. Documents obtained through FOIA requests and investigative journalism have connected Plum Island's work to the emergence of tick-borne illnesses that now affect millions of people worldwide.
Watch the documentary on Plum Island, bioweapons research, and the origin of Lyme disease.
Protomyxzoa, Lyme, Babesia, Bartonella — these infections share something in common. They're carried by ticks and mosquitoes. They form biofilms. They evade the immune system. They cause chronic, multi-system illness that the mainstream medical community struggles to diagnose, let alone treat. And some of them may have been engineered.
This isn't a conspiracy theory. Congress passed an amendment demanding the Department of Defense investigate whether it conducted offensive bioweapons research using ticks. FOIA requests have connected Plum Island's work to the emergence of tick-borne illness. The questions are on the record. The answers still aren't.
The award-winning documentary Under Our Skin exposed how the medical establishment — with influence from the insurance industry — has denied the existence of chronic Lyme disease while hundreds of thousands of people suffer without treatment.
Under Our Skin — the Academy Award semifinalist documentary exposing the hidden Lyme disease epidemic.
Ren Gill is a Welsh musician who was signed to Sony Records. Then he got sick. Lyme disease — undiagnosed for years. He was bedridden 23 hours a day. His career was over before it started. Doctors told him it was depression. Chronic fatigue. All in his head.
Sound familiar.
Ren eventually got diagnosed, received stem cell treatment, and clawed his way back. He started busking on the streets of Brighton. His song "Hi Ren" — a raw conversation with his illness — went viral. His album "Sick Boi" hit number one in the UK, beating Drake and Rick Astley. All self-released. No label. No industry support.
His story is my story. His story is the story of millions of people around the world who are suffering from chronic infections that nobody can diagnose, nobody will treat, and nobody in power seems to care about.
Ren — "Sick Boi." A musician who lost everything to Lyme disease and rebuilt from nothing.
The CDC estimates 476,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the United States every year. Up to 30% of those patients develop chronic symptoms that persist for months or years after treatment. That's over 140,000 people per year who enter a medical system that has no answers for them.
And that's just Lyme. It doesn't count Protomyxzoa, Babesia, Bartonella, or the dozens of other tick and mosquito-borne infections that aren't even on the CDC's radar yet.
My company sells two software products — MadWords and SpyZooka. Revenue from these products will fund what the government and pharmaceutical industry refuse to fund:
"The US spends $1 trillion per year on a military that created some of these infections. Imagine if even a fraction of that went toward curing them instead."
— Carl Haugen Jr.
This isn't theoretical. I've spent 15 years as my own test subject — reading the research, testing treatments, tracking results. Most doctors I've seen won't spend 15 minutes understanding these infections. I've spent 15 years. I didn't have a choice. The medical system didn't fail me — it never showed up in the first place.
I chose to figure it out. Now I want to get the research started — even if it's small at first — and find others who want to help. Nobody should have to do this alone.
The software is built. The research goals are being defined. The mission is in motion. If you want to follow the journey — or if you're fighting one of these infections yourself — drop your email below.