In my health care practice, I look for the toxins that throw our bodies out of balance as Donna so aptly describes in her book. We live in a sea of chemicals and if a health practitioner chooses to go looking for them, they will find them in a patient's body. Just look around at the average American today. It is obvious the medications that simply treat symptoms are not enough.

It seems so basic to clean up our bodies, our environment. Thank you, Donna, for writing such a comprehensive, truthful book about our state of affairs in health and industry today and its impact on all of us.

I am, admittedly, a fan of the book because it tells a powerful story of a neighborhood activism in Buffalo, NY, and I was involved in that story in a small way. But the story of folks with undiagnosed autoimmune disease, how this poor, minority community had the strength of will to ask difficult questions, identify scientific collaborators in the local University, and lead a groundbreaking study of lupus incidence is a lesson that bears repeating all across the US. Along with that chapter, Donna Jackson Nakazawa weaves together impressive scientific review, stories of her personal challenges and why it is relevant for patients all across the US, and clearly states key issues for those wanting to know what they suffer from.

On top of that, she identifies recommendations on health and diet.

A powerful book, because it captures a citizen and journalist describing research, citizen action and health recommendations for this rising tide of unknown diseases, that affect everyone around us.

Why so many MS patients? Why is lupus so hard to diagnose? Why do we only measure asthma and cancer, and not other disease rates? Why do we insist on such a burden of proof of problematic diseases in communities? Jackson Nakazawa identifies and tackles tough science and policy questions in a book that cannot be put down.

Scientists, medical professionals, doctors, researchers, community leaders and members, citizen activists, concerned neighbors. You all should read this book.

I am a 35 yr old woman who has multiple sclerosis. My father and my mother's sister have lupus. My father's brother also has ms... and the story goes on. I know in my heart that the environment we have created definitely affects us. This book was suggested to me by a librarian who has rheumatoid arthritis and we got talking. I feel as if this book backs up everything I have been thinking, but goes on in depth explaining why.

I have learned so much from this book. The book thoroughly explains different factors that all add up to why autoimmune disease seems to be so rampant. There is a great explanation of a barrel filling and overflowing, which really makes sense. It seems that things we eat, use, clean with etc., stuff we take for granted everyday combined with the general environment and possibly genetics all add up to autoimmune disease.

I would suggest this to anyone who is interested in learning more about possible causation of autoimmune disease including physicians and family members of the diseased.

I feel empowered after reading this book as there are things that I can change. I hope that with several small changes (and maybe a few big ones) I can make a difference in the course of my disease or at least try to prevent it in my children.

In the forward to The Autoimmune Epidemic, Dr. Douglas Kerr, Director of the Johns Hopkins Transverse Myelitis Center, states reading this book is "a necessary first step," but rereading it "is a life-altering event." Be prepared, though, even a first pass through these well-written, meticulously researched pages will force you to look at the world around you in a totally different light.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa has managed to synthesize a complex subject, the explosion of diagnosed autoimmune diseases throughout the Western world, with a writing style that's both informative and riveting, producing what will be looked at as THE clarion call for our entire society to make sweeping changes before it's too late.

Every likely contributor to this epidemic is exposed -- from what industry casually pumps into the environment to what we voluntarily put into our own bodies. Ms. Nakazawa not only explores the possible causes and effects of these influences, she successfully bridges the often arcane medical jargon in an intelligent and effective manner.

Ms. Nakazawa introduces a new term to the lexicon - "autogen" - which will become the watchword for all of us as it refers to those triggers we come in contact with that can send our immune systems into self-destruct mode. Becoming alert to potential external autogens is just one important step in preventing the panoply of autoimmune diseases, though. What we eat, drink, do, even how we think and feel, have possible consequences on our future health.

Curious to know what "the barrel" is and how close your personal one is to overflowing? By the time you finish The Autoimmune Epidemic, you may become sufficiently self-aware to address those factors filling your barrel before your own immune system turns against you. Your health and the health of our future generations depends on direct action by all of us to change the course of the coming (or already arrived) autogen storm. Donna Jackson Nakazawa will remembered as the one who sounded the alarm and hopefully, not too late.

The jacket of the book is red; it symbolizes the red flag that autoimmune diseases are waving at us. You know what happens when you ignore a red flag - this is a must read book. Readers who have an autoimmune disease, or suspect that they do, will get a whole new insight into the process of the body attacking itself. Case histories bring the reality of these diseases into focus. She explains why if you have one autoimmune disease, you are at increased risk for more.

Readers who do not have an autoimmune disease will get the same kind of heads-up coal miners get when they send a canary into a mine shaft... and it doesn't come out. Donna Nakazawa has provided enough scientific information in an area of public health that is sketchy at best and mysterious at least to give the reader many "aha" moments. Nakazawa's writing style is perfect for this topic. She has taken a highly complex medical condition and made it easy for people without a medical or science background to understand.

Why is diagnosing autoimmune diseases so difficult?
Why is finding cause and effect so challenging?
Why is treatment so elusive?
How could we not have seen this coming: OR why did we see it and ignore it?

There is a chapter on cutting edge research being done for treatment of some of the most debilitating autoimmune conditions. This is a chapter of hope. In my opinion, the prospect of patching up serious body malfunctions doesn't compensate for the damage already done by negligence of our society. But Nakazawa does give us that hope and additional suggestions for lifestyle adaptations in diet, stress management and environmental awareness. That is probably the best we can do with what we have before us.

I agree with many of the other reviews - everyone in the medical community should read this book. It is not only extremely well-written and thoroughly researched, but it also conveys the true anguish and fear that patients with autoimmune disease experience. I had to take numerous breaks from reading because it was so emotionally draining. Donna is a phenomenol writer who is able to truly get to the heart of this problem by enabling the reader to "feel" the impact of autoimmune disease through the personal stories of several people (not just her own, and not just lupus as another reviewer implied). I have actually found a real appreciation for my own body, as I have 4 different autoimmune disorders, but thankfully none have caused me the severe disability that others have experienced.

I am happy Donna covered the dietary approaches to managing immune function. I am a dietitian and I have long suspected that diet plays a key role. Personally, I have found relief in many of the supplements that are mentioned in Chapter 6- fish oil (omega 3), ginger, turmeric (curcumin), and vitamin D. And, although I know there is truth to the need to focus on a whole foods diet, I think this is going to be very challenging to achieve in a country that runs on processed foods. Regardless, being mindful of everything we put in our bodies really is the only way to insure optimal health. I used to take the stance that we can't be obsessed with every little thing, but I am definitely changing my mind about that. It seems that all the little things - pesticides, chemicals, food colorings, preservatives - are adding up to big problems.

Before reading this book I thought I knew a lot about autoimmune disease. But, the truths surrounding our toxic environment and the ignorance surrounding treating this problem are far beyond what I could ever imagine. This book truly is life changing.

As a reader with MS, this book changed my life. The author presents amazing science on a variety of common autoimmune diseases like MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Type I Diabetes, and Guillain Barre syndrome and many many other. It opened my eyes about the way that - as the author points out - we are each like a barrel and everything that goes into our bodies effects our immune system. I don't think any doctor could have explained this better to me than the author does. I feel like she did me the greatest favor of my life, she follows the work of many of the top autoimmune experts around the country and translates every bit of cutting edge research a patient needs to know into news I can really use. She's changed the way that I look at what's in my barrel but the most amazing thing is that she makes it easy for me to make those changes. I rarely buy and give away books but I have already bought and given away seven copies because I think it's the most important health book of the year!

On one level, this book is about suffering from autoimmune illness and our dark fears of living in a chemical sea. But on a deeper level, this is a book about hope. On her last page, author and lecturer Donna Jackson Nakazawa writes, "As Albert Einstein once said, the most important decision you ever have to make is whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile one." In "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson sounded a hostile environmental warning. Nakazawa echoes this warning, but in the end goes beyond it, pointing the way to a friendly universe of healing and hope.

Recently diagnosed with Polymyalgia Rheumatiaca and Giant Cell Arteritis. I found this book to be very repitious, recounted too many personal experiences(author has lupus)and generally difficult to read.

I was in Vietnam for a year during the war. In 1991, I received a heart transplant therefore my immune system is suppressed to prevent it from rejecting my new heart. Since then, I have viral type symptoms that have become more acute over the years. Infectious disease doctors cannot seem to figure out what is wrong.

This book may help answer some of my questions. Did exposure to Agent Orange cause my present symptoms? Did surpression of my immune system allow the condition to surface after 20 years? The Veterans Administration admits that many cancers and other conditions are a likely result of Agent Orange exposure.

I look forward to the read. Will I find the answer?

Author of: Mr. NewHeart (New Heart): Heart Attack to Transplant and Beyond

The Autoimmune Epidemic is essential reading for anyone with an autoimmune disorder and their families. The sheer numbers of people who are afflicted is staggering--23 million Americans--and the numbers are rising. This book explains why we hear so little about these diseases, why it typically takes 6 visits to a doctor before someone gets the correct diagnosis, and what you can do to protect yourself in future. The real life stories are moving. The science reporting is impeccably documented and the writing is thoroughly engaging.

This is a book I stumbled on by accident but it has been a real eyeopener. Very informative, well written and useful. It lacks a fuller section on measure that could be taken in everyday life but it is a very good tool in improving our way of life.

The Autoimmune Epidemic is an extraordinary book. "Extraordinary" may be an understatement. My wife suffers from an undiagnosed form of autoimmune. She has gone through many years of excruciating pain and uncertainty. We visited countless doctors, had more medical test than seemed humanly possible, searched through volumes of articles and professionals journals (we both have extensive professional experience doing research), learned the trials (so many of them) and tribulations of steroid therapy and, of course, began exploring an array of alternative approaches, all to limited avail. This is all to simply say we fortunately or unfortunately know a lot about autoimmune disease and better yet, know when we have found a resource that it comprehensive, timely and thoroughly researched (48 pages of citations). The Autoimmune Epidemic provides a comprehensive review of the evolution, impact, potential causes and potential strategies for managing and possibly dealing with various forms of autoimmune disease. Many of the major types of autoimmune disease (Lupus, Crohn's Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, etc.) are explored in detail. The damaging affect environmental factors, some that we control and some that we don't, play on our immune systems are thoroughly analyzed. The personal stories are riveting. The connection and statistics related to the various diseases are made clear. The author, Donna Jackson Nakazawa is not only an accomplished writer (Parade Magazine, AARP the Magazine and author of Does Anyone Else Look Like Me), she is another victim, a statistic but not a quiet statistic in what we are learning is a serious and growing epidemic. If you have one of the many autoimmune diseases, if you know someone who has one or if you are looking for a well documented analysis of the evolution, present status, research and potential breakthroughs, this book is for you. You will be educated, informed and possibly enraged.

If you're like most people in this country, you know someone who has an autoimmune disease. Did you know, for instance, that more people in the United States suffer from autoimmune disease than from cancer? I was shocked to learn this from Donna Jackson Nakazawa's brilliantly written book, The Autoimmune Epidemic. And if you are most people in this country, you MUST read this book - we all need the information that Ms. Nakazawa has painstakingly researched and accessibly written. She not only shares what scientists are saying about how and why autoimmune disease rates are rising, but what we can do to reduce our own - and perhaps more importantly - our children's risks of developing autoimmune disease. I think her message and her research are so important that I have already bought copies of this book for my children, for my parents and for several friends.

The librarians in my community have had the insight to purchase three copies and have them on our shelves in the month that this book was published. Important? Yes, quite.

There's a web site referenced in the book, from Chapter Three, entitled "Dirty Little Secrets," that includes history about what happened to children in a Buffalo, NY neighborhood. Nakazawa refers you to a web site and invites you to type in the zip code for Buffalo and then read the story that unfolds about it.

Try this now! Go to the web site - [...] and type in YOUR zip code, then look at the map that pops up. It's color coded with all the locations being monitored by the EPA right now. The water was RED in mine.

So many people I know and love have had autoimmune diseases and/or cancer. This book has made me wonder even more than I already had how this all fits together - nutrition, the environment, our health, our children, our sick or already lost loved ones. If you read this book, perhaps the puzzle will begin to fit together for you too.

Have you noticed how many CHILDREN you see in WHEELCHAIRS these days? I see several children every day in wheelchairs at our elementary school. Was it like that where you grew up as a child?

I picked up a flyer at my son's school last week about dealing with ASTHMA in your school-aged child that's being presented here this week to teachers and parents and families in our county school system. How many children did you know with ASTHMA or DIABETES when you were growing up? I lived in a community where there were 5,000 people in my church alone. I don't recall a single person with asthma in my group of friends, and there was one person that I knew of in that group of 5,000 with Type 1 diabetes - he was my family doctor.

Now, in our 740 student primary school, there are 17 children that I know with asthma and several with Type 1 diabetes and more with significant allergies and even more with some level of autism. All of these are autoimmune or related issues and are addressed in this book. What has caused this and how many more will have to happen before we get it?

This book's footnoted current facts and information about the environment, current medical advances, and many details about individuals with autoimmune conditions and progressions, including cancer will educate many people.

In Chapter six, called Shielding Your Immune System: Rethinking Food, Stress and Everyday Chemicals, there's a life-altering story about a 43 year old M.D. named Gerard Mullin. Mullin was a specialist in autoimmune disease as head of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division at North Shore University Hospital in New York. "He became a 43 year old disabled, unmarried, living alone, unemployed patient with a roaring autoimmune disease of his own, almost overnight." He says that for the first time, he "had become just another hard-to-treat patient that doctors didn't know what to do with." Mullin's personal experiences with his own health and the outcomes that he found to heal himself is wonderfully enlightening for anyone who takes the time to read this book.

Thank you, Donna Jackson Nakazawa for your work. I am awed at the clarity and skill in sharing this very technical information with excellent story-telling about the individuals whose lives have been forever affected, and many lost by their struggles with autoimmune diseases. Ms. Nakazawa has equaled the caliber of writing by the New York Times Reporter David Kirby, [Evidence of Harm] maybe even better.

I just finished this book from our local library and it's not even a month old yet. Our local librarians have had the insight to purchase three copies and have them on our shelves in the month that this book was published. Important? Yes, quite. I have just ordered my own copy and am sharing this information with many friends and neighbors.

There's a web site referenced in the book, from Chapter Three, which is entitled "Dirty Little Secrets," that tells a story about a Buffalo, NY neighborhood where she refers you to a web site and invites you to type in the zip code for Buffalo and then read the story that unfolds about it. Try this now! Go to the web site - www.epa.gov/enviro/emef and type in YOUR zip code, then look at the map that pops up. It's color coded with all the locations being monitored by the EPA right now. The water was RED in mine.

So many people I know and love have had autoimmune diseases and/or cancer. This book has made me wonder even more than I already had how this all fits together - nutrition, the environment, our health, our children, our sick or already lost loved ones. If you read this book, perhaps the puzzle will begin to fit together for you too.

Have you noticed how many CHILDREN you see in WHEELCHAIRS these days? I see several children every day in wheelchairs at our elementary school. Was it like that where you grew up as a child?

I picked up a flyer at my son's school last week about dealing with ASTHMA in your school-aged child that's being presented here this week to teachers and parents and families in our county school system. How many children did you know with ASTHMA or DIABETES when you were growing up? I lived in a community where there were 5000 people in my church alone. I don't recall a single person with asthma in my group of friends, and there was one person that I knew of in that group of 5000 with Type 1 diabetes - he was my family doctor.

Now, in our 740 student primary school, there are 17 children that I know with asthma and several with Type 1 diabetes and more with significant allergies and even more with some level of autism. All of these are autoimmune issues and are addressed in this book. What has caused this and how many more will have to happen before we get it?

Thank you, Donna Jackson Nakazawa for your work on this book. I am awed at the clarity and skill in sharing this very technical information with excellent story telling about the individuals whose lives have been forever affected, and many lost by their struggles with autoimmune diseases. Ms. Nakazawa has done as good a job as the New York Times Reporter David Kirby, maybe even better.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa has just about done the impossible! As a medical librarian for the past 25 years, I was curious as to how a lay person could possibly tackle the complexities of the workings of the immune system and the myriad autoimmune diseases that spin off from a system gone awry. Although everyone should read this book, I think the main audience for this book should be all physicians! Donna's research is impeccable - there are no flaws in her interpretation of very complex medical studies. This highly intelligent work has taken the research and made it understandable without "dumbing it down" - and that's harder to do than to write a medical text. Donna writes with a beautiful, natural flair and sprinkles the book with real people (including herself) who have struggled with autoimmune diseases, and explains the synergistic interaction of our toxic, polluted environment with genetics, and perhaps a "triggering event" such as a virus that presents the unsuspecting individual with a "barreling effect" that sends the body into sometimes a fight for one's life as the body attacks it's own cells. That these diseases have increased so dramatically over the past few decades gives us all cause to pause and question what we are exposed to environmentally on a daily basis. I urge every physician to read this book.

I've been learning about nutrition and whole foods (instead of processed), "diseases of civilization", and brain health lately. This book really brings all those subjects together.

Full of thought-provoking, frightening, but hopeful examples of how - in the last several decades - we have created a toxic environment.

The most striking image was that of the "barrel effect." If one fills a rain barrel full of water - even above the top - the water will stay within. But when one more drop is added, the water just cascades down the sides. Many people, mainly women, seem to just fall apart suddenly with one autoimmune disease after another. We live in and consume this toxic soup for years and years, our body fighting it off as best as it can, until it just can't complete with the onslaught anymore.

If you wonder why each succeeding generation is suffering from more allergies, arthritis, neurological disorders, ms, etc. read this book.

If you have had doctors or family tell you that you are crazy or a hypochondriac, read this book.

Identify those things in your environment and diet you CAN change.

Change them.