The Faulkner Foundation: Vision Statement

This foundation is aimed at out-of-the-box solutions which are not being funded due to current paradigms. At this point, the Faulkner Foundation is only an idea. There is a lot of paperwork involved with forming a 501c3. I am considering creating a doing-business-as registration under Rethink Technologies called Rethink ALS to simplify the reporting requirements. This would allow me to get started on the first few projects without forming a nonprofit corporation first.

We are devoted to the concept of improving health care and health maintenance while also lowering health care costs through innovation. Our first project will be to advance research and treatment of ALS patients via fecal transplantation.

I am the founder, Roger Faulkner, and I have been living with ALS since 2013, diagnosed in 2015. I spent my life as a research scientist and have been pursuing the idea that many cases of ALS are caused by a disturbed gut microbiome which is producing the neurotoxin BMAA since 2015.

Backing this foundation will support a creative research agenda aimed at developing lab techniques and treatment methods to address this possible root cause of ALS. Once we succeed at this venture we will be addressing other problems using an out-of-the-box approach.

Current ALS research follows the same old paradigms and I’m in favor of looking in new places. I find it very distressing that the causation of ALS due to BMAA originating in the colon has not been fully studied.

I honor the work of Paul Allen Cox and his consortium (Paul Allen Cox TEDx Talk & Bo Landin’s documentary displaying Cox’s work: The Toxic Puzzle), but I find it distressing that there is still no way to test human stool for BMAA, nor is there a genetic test to assay whether bacteria in the colon may be producing BMAA. In fact, we don’t even have ways to culture pure strains of melainabacteria for study. Addressing these unmet needs is the starting point for the work of this foundation.

In February of 2019, I replaced my gut microbiome and stopped getting worse. I had tried fecal transplantation 7 previous times before that, but in February 2019, I first killed off my microbiome with three different antibiotics before performing the fecal transplantation. Since then, my ALS progression has been halted.

I hypothesize that stem cell treatments to regrow neurons would be more effective if the source of low-level BMAA poisoning by the gut microbiome is first eliminated. Paul Allen Cox has organized a worldwide consortium pursuing the idea that BMAA is a causative agent for ALS and Alzheimer’s. His work has focused on dietary sources of BMAA, but the gut microbiome can also be the source; I think this is the root cause for my ALS and my experiments with fecal transplantation have backed this up.

If this ALS Research Foundation achieves adequate funding, we will develop a test that can be applied to the human stool to quantify BMAA. We will also find the genes used to synthesize BMAA so that a genetic lab test can be used to determine if a strain of bacteria producing BMAA is present in a patient’s colon.

We will also engage in fecal transplantation research aimed at developing methods and protocols for efficiently replacing BMAA-producing bacteria with a healthy gut microbiome.

Our initial area of focus will be on the gut microbiome in relation to BMAA. This is research that I have advocated since 2015, and I’m tired of waiting for it to happen. so I’m putting myself out there as the coordinator of a research project to make it so.

I have been on a medical plateau since February 2019, after I did a fecal transplant coupled with antibiotics to clear out my imbalanced microbiome. If I get funded I will use some of that money to scientifically study this with other ALS patients.

I propose to begin fecal transplant treatment experiments well before we have answers to the problem of analysis of BMAA in the stool. We will keep samples from before and after the fecal transplants so that we can do retrospective analysis once we get the methods developed.

I will begin developing analytical tests for BMAA in stool and also for detection of the genes that synthesize BMAA in cyanobacteria and melainabacteria as soon as I identify particular research groups to work with on these problems and get enough funding to be able to hire them.

It is reasonable to assume that the same genes are involved in the synthesis of BMAA in both cyanobacteria and melainabacteria. Cyanobacteria, which are the original photosynthesizers on Earth, can be easily cultured as pure strains whereas melainabacteria cannot. It is believed that melainabacteria are obligate synergistic strains that require other bacteria to make vital intermediate chemicals upon which they depend for reproduction and growth.

Because melainabacteria are currently impossible to culture, the BMAA synthesis genes would be detected by looking at well-characterized strains of cyanobacteria that do and do not produce BMAA.

My observation is that medical research that doesn’t have a profit motive, and which does not depend on advanced medical techniques simply doesn’t get funded. I believe that current ALS research is looking in the wrong place for a solution to this deadly disease.

There are various nutraceutical companies doing good work, but there are also many shysters in that area. I think that my own case of ALS has been helped greatly by the fecal transplant that I received in February 2019, as well as the various nutritional supplements, cannabinoids, l-serine, and mushrooms that I’ve been eating. Our initial research agenda would include foods and fecal transplantation for example.

FDA rules make research ridiculously expensive in the medical area. FDA has virtually banned fecal transplantation in the US for no good reason. It is only allowed for severe cases of clostridium difficile and a few other conditions. But it causes far less harm than the antibiotics that are allowed. Therefore, a part of our strategy will be to develop a clinic in another country to perform research related to fecal transplantation.

The clinic that we establish for fecal transplantation research will also be a for-profit arm of the foundation. I envision a structure for this foundation similar to Newman’s Own Foods. We expect that perhaps the largest number of people treated in our overseas fecal transplantation clinic will be treated for other conditions rather than ALS or Alzheimer’s such as obesity. This will throw out enough profit to finance being able to offer the treatment for reduced cost or free to poor people with ALS.

Although the initial focus will be on ALS, the foundation is not limited to that problem. If ALS Research is successful enough I intend to form the Faulkner Foundation to pursue other out-of-the-box ideas.

There is a lot of excitement about the microbiome effects on health, especially long-lasting lifestyle-related diseases like type 2 diabetes and obesity. It is clear that there is a dietary connection between the gut microbiome and many diseases.

Within 30 years we will appreciate that we are actually synergistic creatures in which many of our vital functions are performed by bacteria in our guts and on our skin and all over our bodies. I don’t want to wait for that realization to sink in before applying it to ALS.