By A Midwestern Doctor
The Forgotten Side of Medicine
March 1, 2025
California just experienced a devastating set of wildfires that is on its way to becoming the costliest disaster in US history. As such, a significant national focus has been directed to the series of reprehensible errors and policies that gave rise to the disaster.
However, while a significant focus has gone into the political failings that led to these fires and their immense costs, very little attention has been given to another critical facet of the disaster-the health impacts of this disaster.
Note: as I show here, many of those "mistakes" are remarkably similar to what caused the devastating Lahaina fire. For example, in both Maui and Los Angeles, numerous close calls led to residents in each area asking for the same infrastructure repairs, but in both cases, those requests were repeatedly ignored, and had they not been, the disaster would have never happened. Likewise, in the aftermath, the local governments have blocked the reconstruction efforts (which has been even more devastating for those who lost their homes).
Wildfire Toxicity
Whenever a wildfire (or another event that releases a significant amount of aerial toxicity, such as the Twin Towers collapsing on 9/11) occurs, we regularly see a significant number of people develop long-term illnesses from inhaling that smoke. Furthermore, individuals who already have sensitivities (e.g., from chronic inflammatory diseases) tend to become significantly worse after these events happen.
Because of this, I typically advise doing one or more of the following:
•Leave the area until the fire is over.
•Try to stay inside.
•Wear an N-95 mask or respirator while outside.
•Consider getting a filter for your house (e.g., a decent HEPA filter) that can filter out the smoke particles.
Note: in the days after 9/11, first responders were deceptively told the air was "safe." Many who breathed it became severely ill (e.g., over 63,500 registered a 9/11 illness, roughly 10,000 developed cancer and over 2,000 died), and are still struggling to get medical or financial support over 20 years later. 1, 2, 3,
Sensitive Patients
One of the biggest problems of our current age (and RFK Jr.'s reason for running for president) has been an "unexplained" explosion of chronic illness-particularly autoimmune, psychiatric, and neurological disorders (e.g., over half of Americans now have a chronic illness). However, because these illnesses have primarily resulted from modern technologies that diminish human vitality, there has been immense resistance to acknowledging them (as doing so would threaten all of the markets for those technologies).
Since individual susceptibility to an environmental toxin varies greatly, the most sensitive members of society tend to be the ones who initially develop these illnesses (and are the ones who suffer the most severe injuries from toxic pharmaceuticals).
As such, there is a large portion of "sensitive" patients (discussed here) living with debilitating chronic inflammatory illnesses (e.g., mold toxicity, Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue) who are misunderstood and largely neglected by the medical system. In turn, many of us believe this neglect to be incredibly shortsighted as they represent the "canaries in the coal mine" who can warn us about the grave dangers of our modern environment and provide pivotal insights on how to treat these challenging diseases (e.g., the lessons I learned from them were directly applicable to COVID-19 vaccine injuries).
Note: the two best frameworks I have found to account for the myriad of challenging symptoms these patients face are an unresolved " cell danger response" and fluid obstructions throughout the body (e.g., blood clots) triggered by an impaired physiologic zeta potential-both of which amongst other things can be caused by vaccination.
From these patients, we've learned chronic inflammatory illnesses often develop or dramatically worsen once a person surpasses their toxicity threshold (which is often caused by factors like impaired circulation or detoxification), and once this threshold is crossed, it becomes much harder to reverse the damage. Wildfire smoke, for example, exacerbates existing circulatory disorders and inflammatory conditions, often triggering flare-ups and periods of prolonged debility for sensitive patients with these illnesses, but also can be " the straw that broke the camel's back" and trigger these illnesses.
Note: This entire situation is analogous to one of the most common side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines: either a new autoimmune disorder or a worsening of a pre-existing condition. To illustrate- an Israeli study found that 24.2% of those receiving a booster developed an exacerbation of a pre-existing autoimmune condition.
Wildfire Illness
From working with patients who were adversely affected by wildfires, we've seen that:
•Early treatment and avoiding smoke exposure can reduce long-term health impacts (especially for those who are already on the verge of a chronic illness).
•In younger individuals, wildfire smoke exposure will cause respiratory conditions like asthma or COPD to worsen (or onset if they were already on their way to developing them).
For older patients, the most significant issues were cognitive issues (e.g., my colleague had numerous patients receiving long-term treatment for their cognition who became significantly worse after the systemic inflammation triggered by the wildfires). Heart attacks and strokes could also occur in those predisposed to them.
Note: there is quite a bit of research showing particulate exposure (e.g., from pollution) causes cognitive impairment in all ages and accelerates the progression toward Alzheimer's. 1, 2, 3, 4
The Consequences of a Wildfire
After the deeply traumatic Lahaina fire occurred in 2023, Hawaii decided to comprehensively study the health effects on the survivors (which is fairly unusual). This unique dataset, in turn, provides some helpful insights into what those in Los Angeles may experience in the coming years.
That study found that six months after the fires:
•Only 24% of the participants remain in their pre-wildfire homes, 65%, are in temporary homes (e.g., hotels), and 11% have moved to new permanent homes.
•58% lost their jobs, 24% are still jobless and searching, and 74% reported a drop in their household income. Additionally, 35% of households reported difficulties having enough food for the family (compared to a baseline of 20.5-23.7%).
•49% said their health is now worse than it was prior to the wildfires, 24% reported that they do not have steady access to medical care, and 13% reported not having health insurance (compared to 1.7% of Maui residents being uninsured in 2022).
•Over 20% had elevated blood pressure, 8-18% of participants had blood work indicating compromised kidney function, and up to 74% of participants had signs of poor respiratory health (49% exhibited signs of mild to severe lung obstruction, and 33% had compromised lung function linked to impaired tissue oxygenation).
Note: lung injuries often follow wildfire smoke exposure, but this is the first time I've seen the extent of this problem quantified. Presently, I believe many of those issues result from the positively charged smoke particulates destroying the glutathione lining of the lungs, injuring the endothelium and impairing the physiologic zeta potential.
•55% reported depressive symptoms (compared to a baseline of 33%), with the rates increasing with age (e.g., depression was reported by 75% of those between 50-59 years old). Additionally, 34.6% reported low self-esteem (compared to a 13-14% baseline), and 1.3% reported suicidal thoughts compared to a 0.8% baseline). Finally, the majority of respondents reported anxiety, but no comparative baseline was provided.
•The participants reported that they found community aid organizations to be more helpful than FEMA, state aid agencies, or county aid agencies.
In the University of Hawaii's most recent data release, they found that the majority of the fire survivors were still experiencing significant symptoms (associated with wildfire smoke exposure) at least once a month and that the majority (60.4%) had not received medical attention for their symptoms.
Note: a few months later (in a subsequent update of the report) the physical health outcomes stayed the same, but the mental ones worsened (e.g., 30% of participants reported symptoms of moderate or severe anxiety, and 4.4% had suicidal thoughts). Likewise, years after, many are still struggling with finding housing ( with many families simply leaving Hawaii).
Why Do Wildfires Make People Sick?
In addition to the immense stress created by having your home burn down, there are three models that explain why the smoke from wildfires makes patients ill.
The Kendrick Model:
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick has made a convincing argument that heart disease arises from inflammatory or mechanical damage to the protective lining of the blood vessels. This is because blood clots form to patch that damage, and over time, those clots transform into the atherosclerotic plaques classically associated with heart disease.
In the case of wildfires (and the particulates they release):
- Particulate matter exposure (e.g., from car exhaust, air pollution, or cigarettes) damages the endothelium and is well known to increase cardiovascular disease and death. 1, 2, 3 Coal miners with a high coal particulate exposure for example, are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease, and in rats, coal dust inhalation has been found to cause atherosclerosis.
- Dense wildfire smoke exposure has been shown to increase ER visits amongst adults 65 and older by 42 percent for heart attacks and 22 percent for ischemic heart disease.
The Klinghardt Model:
Chronic illnesses often result from a mix of factors, including heavy metals, infections, and environmental stressors.
- Dietrich Klinghardt has proposed that wildfires release heavy metals stored in trees (which are then inhaled), contributing to increased toxicity in already vulnerable individuals.
- Research confirms that wildfires release mercury and other toxins, adding to environmental stress, particularly in areas with past mining and during the hottest wildfires.
- Many toxic materials are released from combusted buildings (including now banned building materials like lead paint and asbestos, both of which cause significant health issues when inhaled).