All About NIDS
The History
In the early eighties, Dr Goldberg had a busy pediatric practice. He was guided by principles learned at UCLA Medical School, where the best practice for children guided his decisions, rather than economics as has unfortunately become increasingly more common. For example, children who were ill were not vaccinated. Vaccinations were not given to fragile newborn babies. Preventative treatment was emphasized, rather than just waiting to treat resultant illnesses and their complications.
A Search for Answers
In his early practice Dr Goldberg’s wife developed what is now called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a new and mysterious illness at the time. She was very ill with physical symptoms, as well as debilitating cognitive effects, such as loss of short-term memory. When looking at her tests, he discovered markers that clearly indicated an immune/viral-based illness. Unfortunately, consultation with a variety of experts did not uncover any causes or suggest any treatments.
Increasingly, Dr. Goldberg began to discover the presence of similar findings in children in his practice. These children came to him with the formerly, extremely rare labels of “autism” or a new variant of ADHD. This added to the realization that these conditions were connected, and furthermore, had to be associated with a disease process.
These surprising observations led to a continuing search for causes, connections, and treatments for these diseases. By the late 80s—through research, attending conferences and presentations, and consulting with experts in the fields of immunology and radiology— Dr. Goldberg realized that what he was seeing was a neuro-immune disease process. It was throwing off the brain, central nervous system, and the overall physical function in adult patients being discussed at conferences and in the children he was treating in his practice. Family histories of these children also had shown a high incidence of immune-mediated disorders, so it all made sense.
The Goldberg Approach™ is Born
Armed with this knowledge, Dr Goldberg started using the techniques and medications that were available at the time, which jump started the process of developing the Goldberg Approach™, an approach that was safe and based on medical principles and logic. The approach worked, and kids started getting better! Dr Goldberg had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Ismael Mena, one of the foremost authorities on the use of a new diagnostic tool called NeuroSPECT scans. Results seen on the scans and comparisons with scans after treatment showed clear disease effects and clear results of successful treatments.
Despite his successes, Dr. Goldberg realized that not everything could be treated fully, so he and a dedicated group of parents conceived of the NIDS Research Institute and the NIDS Coalition. Their mission was and is to fight for formal recognition of this disease by the medical establishment, to demand appropriate treatment for all affected children, and to ensure funding of medical research and clinical trials of treatments. For a more detailed tale of this discovery and the medical reality of this disease, read “The Myth of Autism” by Dr Goldberg.