Immune Systems Advisor

Medically reviewed by Editorial Team | Last updated: July 21, 2026 Quick Answer Cyclosporiasis is a diarrheal illness caused by the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis , usually picked up from contaminated fresh produce. A large 2026 outbreak has pushed Michigan's case count past 6,000 (102 hospitalized), with additional cases confirmed in states including Ohio, New York, and Texas. The source of contamination has been traced to a lettuce supplier in Mexico. Most healthy people recover, and the antibiotic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) is the CDC's recommended treatment. A fast-moving outbreak of cyclosporiasis — an intestinal infection caused by a microscopic parasite typically carried on fresh produce — has become one of the largest seen in the United States in years. Michigan has borne the brunt of it, but health departments in several other states are reporting cases as investigators work to trace the contamination back to its source. FDA managed to trace con...

Measles is making headlines again. A tragic death in Texas. Rising case numbers. Experts warning of an impending crisis. As we heard the tragic story on CHD-TV told by the Mennonite parents of a little girl who died of an inadequately treated secondary bacterial pneumonia, Dr Peter McCullough wondered if there have been trials of early antibiotics  to cover secondary bacterial pathogens complicating measles viral pneumonia. What are measles? According to the World Health Organization “Measles is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus. It spreads easily when an infected person breathes, coughs, or sneezes. It can cause severe disease, complications, and even death. Measles can affect anyone but is most common in children. Measles infects the respiratory tract and then spreads throughout the body. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, runny nose, and a rash all over the body. Symptoms of measles usually begin 10–14 days after exposure to the virus. A prominent rash is the m...

Expert-recommended treatments for respiratory illness that actually work Be ready for the next pandemic, and don’t worry about access to life-saving medications. Keep The Wellness Company's Contagion Emergency Kit at the ready. Backed by research and endorsed by experts like Dr. Peter McCullough, consultation for The Wellness Company's prescription-only Contagion Emergency Kit provides you with a carefully selected assortment of effective medications for COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses. Our kit ensures quick, low-cost access to proven treatments including Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin (generic Z-Pak™), and Budesonide along with a nebulizer. Our kit also comes with the Contagion Emergency Kit Guidebook as an educational resource for safe emergency use. The Wellness Company’s  Contagion Emergency Kit  includes: Hydroxychloroquine 200mg – 20 tablets Ivermectin 12mg – 25 tablets Azithromycin (generic Z-pakTM) 250mg – 12 tablets ( R ) Budesonide 0.5mg/20 mL ...

Inpatient COVID-19 protocol-driven care has been heavily criticized for being nihilistic, use of unsafe and ineffective remdesivir, and cruel in it’s treatment of patients and families. Now a new concern has been brought forward by the National Institutes of Health Autopsy Consortium—secondary bacterial and in some cases invasive fungal infections not recognized clinically before death. Platt et al summarized autopsy findings in 55 fatal cases where death occurred on average 18 days after admission to the hospital. “Pulmonary co-infection was detected premortem in significantly fewer cases (15/55, 27%) than were detected postmortem (36/55, 65%; p < 0.0001). Among cases in which co-infection was detected postmortem by histopathology, an organism was identified in 27/36 (75%) of cases. Pseudomonas, Enterobacter, and Staphylococcus aureus were the most frequently identified bacteria both premortem and postmortem. Invasive pulmonary fungal infection was detected in five cases postmorte...

Secondary bacterial infection of the lung (pneumonia) was extremely common in patients with COVID-19, affecting almost half the patients who required support from mechanical ventilation. By applying machine learning to medical record data, scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found that secondary bacterial pneumonia that does not resolve was a key driver of death in patients with COVID-19. It may even exceed death rates from the viral infection itself. The scientists also found evidence that COVID-19 does not cause a "cytokine storm," so often believed to cause death. The  April 2023 study was published in the  Journal of Clinical Investigation . "Our study highlights the importance of preventing, looking for and aggressively treating secondary  bacterial pneumonia  in  critically ill patients  with severe pneumonia, including those with COVID-19," said senior author Dr. Benjamin Singer, an associate professor of medicine at Nor...

The first evidence of lost knowledge in 2020 concerned natural immunity. How in the world did it come to be that people did not generally know that for respiratory viruses, infection and recovery is the best vaccine? This was the counterintuitive wisdom taught for generations in public school in the postwar period. The point was underscored by early exposure to chickenpox. But by the 21st century, it seemed like the knowledge had oddly vanished. Even those with natural immunity were forced to get the shot or lose their jobs. I  wrote at the time  that the issue reminded me of the case of scurvy, the cure and prevention of which kept being lost and found throughout history. The standard protocol (lemons) was so effective that people forgot the problem. When the problem reappeared, they forgot the solution. Apparently this happened with natural immunity too, which is why so many in the population were convinced that hiding under the sofa—reappearing only with a mask to stan...