
today
8:30 a.m. Audubon Society Field Trip See Event Description
read >8:30 a.m. Alzheimer’s Resource Center Volunteer Training See Event Description
read >9 a.m. Arcata Farmers' Market Arcata Plaza
read >9 a.m. Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens Foundation Speakers’ Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Humboldt Botanical Gardens' Speakers' Symposium College of the Redwoods
read >9 a.m. Fall Rummage Sale Arcata United Methodist Church
read >9:30 a.m. AAUW Meeting See Event Description
read >9:30 a.m. Little River State Beach Restoration See Event Description
read >9:30 a.m. Sierra Club Headwaters Hike See Event Description
read >10 a.m. Lanphere Dunes Guided Walk See Event Description
read >10 a.m. 5th Annual Synergy Fair Arcata Community Center
read >10 a.m. Go Green and Boost Your Bottom Line Wharfinger Building
read >11 a.m. Sustaining Excellence and Enthusiasm in Health, Relationships and Work Carlo Theater (Dell'Arte)
read >noon KEET's Kids Club Morris Graves Museum of Art
read >1:30 p.m. Humboldt County Historical Society Humboldt County Library
read >2 p.m. Arcata Marsh Field Trip Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary Interpretive Center
read >4 p.m. Woodside Preschool’s 36th Wine and Ale Tasting Gala Adorni Recreation Center
read >4:30 p.m. Harvest Dinner and Bazaar Humboldt Grange
read >5 p.m. A Toast to Music Christ Episcopal Church
read >5:30 p.m. Elvis and the Hound Dogs + Stolen Taxi Trinidad Town Hall
read >6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Arts Alive! Various Locations
read >6 p.m. Day of the Dead Exhibition Ink People Center for the Arts
read >6 p.m. Bar None 10th Anniversary Eureka Labor Temple
read >6 p.m. Randy Spicer Piante Gallery
read >6 p.m. Gallery Open for Arts Alive! Four Paths Gallery and Studio
read >6:30 p.m. ShinBone (Blues R&B) Eureka Theater
read >7 p.m. Mike Craighead and Sari Baker Old Town Coffee & Chocolates
read >7 p.m. Harvest Concert Arcata Presbyterian Church
read >7 p.m. 2 Left Feet Dance Project Redwood Raks World Dance Studio
read >7:30 p.m. Joe & Me Cafe Mokka
read >7:30 p.m. Cyrano de Begerac Eureka High School Auditorium
read >7:30 p.m. Torch Song Summit Eureka Women's Club
read >7:30 p.m. Jeff DeMark and the LaPatinas Westhaven Center for the Arts
read >8 p.m. Stones in His Pockets Arcata Playhouse
read >8 p.m. Humboldt Bay Brass Band Fulkerson Recital Hall at HSU
read >9 p.m. Synergy Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. Arts Alive! with Akaboom Sound Pearl Lounge
read >9 p.m. Tempest WAVE @ blue lake casino
read >9 p.m. Back In The Daze Dance Party Central Station Cocktail Lounge
read >9 p.m. Swingin' Country Band (country) Bear River Casino
read >9 p.m. The Zygoats + Alder Camp (rock) The Lil' Red Lion
read >9 p.m. DJ Knutz (funk) Muddy's Hot Cup
read >10 p.m. Music by DJ Sidelines
read >10 p.m. DJ Icy Hot Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >10 p.m. These United States (indie folk) Humboldt Brews
read >11 p.m. Hellbound Glory The Alibi Lounge and Restaurant
read >previous columns
April 23, 2009
A Measure of Tea
It's a sunny but blustery April 15 in Humboldt County. ...
read >April 16, 2009
New Community Clinic in FTA?
The Redwood Memorial Hospital Foundation may undertake the construction of ...
read >Photos
The Turkey Tail Cure
By Heidi Walters
When an appealing fellow -- bright blue eyes and long, strawberry blond locks that tumble from a floppy brown hat stitched with colorful mushrooms, plus a tidy beard and mustache -- wanders into the office from the Arcata Marsh holding a small brown paper bag, from which he shakes out onto his palm several pretty fungus pieces, and tells you that with this mushroom he's gonna kick that swine flu back to the pig wallow it came from -- you listen.
You listen because this is Humboldt County and we love our Tom Bombadils -- and our mushrooms. You listen because every morning, of late, you've awakened to bed-time-story NPR voices gleefully heralding a coming pandemic. You listen because the Bombadil character -- actually, his name's David Jonsson -- doesn't rant or shake the bag in your face or act all jittery and weird. He's calm, seems smart -- and is determined.
"See this?" he says. "This is Trametes versicolor: Turkey Tail mushroom. It's the answer to the swine flu. Actually, it does many things. It cures Candida. It's anti-bacterial. It's a liver and kidney tonic. It will reduce cancer tumors in size. And it grows everywhere in the world on downed logs. I was just down in the swamp, where I got these."
OK, maybe the cure-all claim does deserve pause, a moment to lunge after that fleeting sanity you could swear you possessed just moments ago. But Jonsson's earnestness is transfixing. He shows you the pretty fungus again -- velvety, striped, fan-shaped chunks which do look like turkey tails and, you recall now, en masse on a log resemble those ruffled Mexican folklorico dresses. Plus, Jonsson seems so healthy -- these young-old medicine-man types tend to, though.
"I'm about to start from here, as soon as I can find a horse, and do a medicine run," he says.
Eh?
"Remember, with the scarlet fever, how they carried the cure along the trail and treated people?" he says. "I'm going to do that with turkey tail. I'm going to go to the schools, I'm going to go to the hospitals, I'm going to go to the churches. And I'm going to give it away free for a month. Because we've got to beat this thing, this swine flu. In fact, that's what I'm doing now: I'm bringing these to a hippie who has the Humboldt crud."
He says a turkey tail tea helped him recover from a bout of food poisoning. He says there've been studies how this fungus boosts the immune system. And there are virtually no side effects, other than maybe yellow fingernails, he says. It's been used in China and Japan for ages to treat a variety of ills, including some forms of cancer. Look it up, he says.
And he's right, to a point. According to the literature, a substance found in Trametes versicolor, polysaccharide-Krestin (PSK), has been found to aid the immune system, especially in some cancer patients, when administered in conjunction with traditional treatments such as chemotherapy -- and as such it's even a prescription drug in Japan. You can find it in the U.S. as a supplement. Researchers are conducting trials with it. But, the FDA hasn't issued its stamp of approval yet.
Now, a guy like Jonsson, he just wants to help the world be well. And that's great. However, a word of caution for those inclined to self-treat for potentially serious conditions.
"I think that there's validity in what we would call non-Western medicine," says Steve Moore, Humboldt County public health nurse. But, he adds, he personally isn't familiar with this particular mushroom and so can neither credit nor discredit it. "What I do know, and what's most concerning to me about this, is that I know we have accidental poisonings around mushrooms and funguses with some regularity. So, I would just really caution people if they were going to imbibe in something like that and are hoping to be cured. It's not something that would be recommended by the health department. ... But, I know people who've suffered from chronic illnesses and tried all kinds of traditional western therapies and then had some success with alternative therapies, and so I definitely wouldn't want to minimize their success."
Moore's official advice? "Follow the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and your medical advisor."
For the swine flu or any flu or cold-type crud, at minimum, just please wash your hands frequently and don't go coughing all over everybody.



















1. Bodie:
May 8, 9:56 p.m.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html
Watch this video for more information on the powers of fungi.
2. Leo:
June 2, 10:59 p.m.
This site rocks I met David and he knows a lot about fungi and is very calm and keep a cool deposition. He really is a "fun-guy".
post a comment