July 22) -- A man suffering from asthma and allergies traveled to Africa in 2006 to infect himself with parasites in an apparently successful bid to cure his ailments. Now, he's running a company that sells parasites to others.
Jasper Lawrence, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, said he got the idea after seeing a documentary by a British scientist who researched why people who live in places where hookworm is common have virtually no allergies or asthma.

Jasper Lawrence went to Africa to become infected with a hookworm in an effort to cure his severe allergies and asthma.
A "desperate" Lawrence said he spent hours researching the idea on the Internet, and then made his trip to Cameroon in 2006, where he walked barefoot in open-air latrines, hoping to get infected with hookworms.
"It's perfectly normal to be freaked out by it," Lawrence said, adding that he "still had gray, wormy, slimy nightmares" about the unusual treatment even after all his research.
"While I was there my feet were very itchy, so I felt very confident that I was infected," he told ABC News.
Lawrence said that within months, his asthma and allergy symptoms disappeared, and he was able to stop taking the powerful drug prednisone.
Since then, he and at least one other company have gone into business selling parasites to others as therapy for people with allergies and asthma and diseases like Crohn's and multiple sclerosis.
But some doctors say that although parasite therapy is promising, there's not enough research to back up the treatment, which has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ABC reported.
"It is a legitimate field, but it's been bootlegged," said Dr. Joel Weinstock, a professor of medicine at Tufts University who's studied parasitic treatment and is working to test the therapy. "The question is, what are you actually buying [from these companies]?"
Weinstock told ABC that selling parasites online "hurts the science, and when people do this it makes people skeptical."
Lawrence said he thinks enough research has been done, and that the people using parasites don't have the time to wait for more to be done.
"No one chooses parasites as their first treatment option, nobody," he said. "Our typical patient has been sick for 15 to 20 years and has tried everything."
For $2,900, customers of Lawrence's Autoimmune Therapies can take a dose of whipworm or put on a Band-aid with hookworms to penetrate their skin, and the effect will last for about five years.
Experts warn that using parasites can cause illness itself. Dr. Henry Milgrom, professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health University of Colorado in Denver, told ABC that although the idea of parasite therapy "is not completely off the wall," parasites "suck blood and cause pain and diarrhea and congestive failure."
"We're talking about a therapy option that is very safe," Lawrence argued, saying that hookworms can be eliminated easily if necessary.

http://news.aol.com/health/article/p...erapy%2F579115