Woman says faecal transplant saved her and could help many more like her
Mostly, Jane was thinking about how revolted she was by what was about to happen.
But months after her husband Alex, a park ranger with a lifelong interest in ecology, first proposed the "gross" idea to Jane as a way of managing her crippling bipolar, she decided it was worth a try.
"I was at a point of desperation where I felt I can't continue living with this level of suffering," Jane tells Australian Story.
"It was a desperate act."
Eight years ago, Jane began a series of home-administered faecal microbiota transplants (FMT), or "poo transplants", with the hope it would "take the edge off" her mental illness, which had led to her being hospitalised multiple times.
The couple took Alex's faeces, blended it with saline, passed it through a sieve, put the slurry into an enema bottle and "then head down, bum up, squeeze it in".
To Jane's astonishment, as the months went on, she began "to feel joy for no reason".
"I started to have self-esteem for no reason," she says.
"I started to have motivation."
Now, all those years on from that first tentative blending, and without a manic episode since September 2017, Jane feels confident in saying she has been cured of an illness psychiatry labels incurable.
It was a world-first use of FMT to cure bipolar and experts were stunned.
Jane's psychiatrist, Russell Hinton, monitored Jane's progress during the treatment.
He describes the change in Jane as "bordering on miraculous".
Gordon Parker of the University of NSW's psychiatry faculty said Jane's recovery through FMT was one of the most exciting developments in his 50 years of psychiatry.
But Jane and specialists warn that the DIY method she had turned to carries significant risks — including death — if the faecal donor is not properly screened.
There is a risk that serious disease, obesity or antibiotic resistance can be transferred from an unscreened donor to a recipient.
It's why there is now a push to raise $10 million to enable the Food and Mood Centre at Deakin University to run a randomised control trial of faecal transplants for depression.
"The fact that people are finding my story and doing DIY FMT … scares me because I'm worried that people are going to get even sicker, that it's not going to work, or they're going to end up with an autoimmune disease or have a severe reaction, which just speaks to the urgency of why we need clinical trials now," Jane says.
"We need them funded now."
It's a campaign that Jane believes could bring relief to millions of people living with depression and bipolar worldwide — and it all began with a frog.
It was November 2013 when Jane popped her arm through her raincoat and, as her hand emerged, there sat "a very beautiful frog".
Transfixed, she found the name of a frog expert and sent off a message and a photograph to him. His name was Alex Dudley.
Alex quickly advised Jane that the emerald-dotted frog was not rare or endangered, as she imagined, but a Peron's tree frog. A very common frog.
But to the couple, it was a magical frog because from the moment they started talking, their lives were destined to be forever intertwined.
"It was bafflingly fast. Before I even laid eyes on her physical self, I was confident that Jane was the one. We just connected," Alex says.
Within the first 20 minutes of a 10-hour chat, Jane told Alex she had bipolar 1 disorder. He had a loose understanding of the mental illness but no concept of the extreme highs and lows that Jane experienced.
Over the ensuing months, Alex learned how Jane had been a bright, sporty kid with expectations of going to university and becoming a professional soccer player. But, by her teenage years, anxiety crept in.
Then, at age 15, she was sexually abused by an uncle she didn't grow up with.
"It broke me on a fundamental level and was definitely the trigger for me developing serious mental illness," Jane says.
An extended bout of tonsillitis and glandular fever followed and the illness and her mental health conspired to keep her from school. Jane said she dropped out at year 11 and "lost myself for the next 18 years".
For vast chunks of time, Jane's depression was so severe she could not get out of bed or tend to her basic needs, requiring family or friends to look after her. At times, she was suicidal.
Jane would flip into mania, where she would travel to other planets and speak with aliens.
"I would be talking to spirits … I would feel like I had godlike powers and that I was the chosen one," she says.
Alex says it was only when Jane went into psychosis that he realised the severity of her mental illness.
He still becomes emotional when he recalls the lows that Jane would reach.
"She wasn't living … she wasn't living in a way that was sustainable," he says, choking back tears.
Alex became desperate to help the woman he loved.
"I never dreamed about running away from her or being frightened off by this. I was like, 'How can I help?'" he says.
Alex knew that the gut biome — a range of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes in the gut — influenced the production of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that were crucial for mood and motivation.
He recalled Jane's stories of being given large amounts of antibiotics over almost two years to combat her tonsillitis. He figured that her gut biome could have been starved and diminished by the antibiotics.
Alex delved into the scientific literature and came across a study in which the faeces of a depressed human were put into a rat. The rat developed depression. He wondered if that could be reversed.
"Suddenly, everything just fell into place," Alex said.
"This could work."
Professor Parker said the fact that FMT — a procedure already approved to manage a severe gut infection — did cure Jane's bipolar could represent a paradigm shift in the way some mental illnesses were treated.
"Jane's story knocked my socks off," he said.
"It was a story that caused me to say 'wow' and keep on saying 'wow' for quite a long time."
Professor Parker interrogated the details of Jane's recovery — speaking to her psychiatrist Dr Hinton, analysing her medication intake, consulting gut specialists — and it stood up to scrutiny.
He has since written a book, A Gut Mood Solution, presenting five FMT case studies other than Jane's, including one of his own patients. Two of those people have experienced remission.
"The concept of our gut microbiome and how that might be actually influencing our mood for the worst or for the better is the new paradigm and that has huge implications in terms of managing mood disorders," Professor Parker says.
"We've now got strongly suggestive evidence that we have an intervention that will help people with intractable mood disorders, be it depression or bipolar. We now need the science to be put in place."
It confounds Jane that the Food and Mood Centre has been unable to attract funding for a clinical trial despite being ready to launch after conducting a successful pilot study based on her case.
"If we can show with clinical trials that faecal transplant could help a large proportion of people with serious mental illness, the social impact will be huge, but also the financial impact," she says.
Jane says she believes the faecal transplant has saved the government at least $250,000.
No longer is she on medication, no longer does she need the disability support pension, no longer is she being hospitalised every year.
"By resolving my bipolar symptoms, we have saved the government potentially millions of dollars," Jane says.
"And I'm one person."
The way Jane sees it, this is an epic love story that "just happens to involve a bit of poo".
"The reason I am alive and well and can feel joy for no reason and like myself is because of one man, Alex," she says.
"He has saved me … in every way that another human being can be saved."
The weight she gained from bipolar medication has fallen away and she is now focused on a healthy diet to "keep my gut bugs happy".
The couple grow their own vegetables and cook predominantly plant-based food from scratch, eschewing processed food.
"In a very real way, the number twos cured my blues," she says.
Her university ambitions returned and, having completed high school at TAFE, she is now in the second year of an environmental science degree, with plans to become a field ecologist.
Jane calls Alex the hero of her fairytale, a man whose unshakeable love for a broken woman led to a radical hypothesis that, in Jane's case, set her free.
"Woman meets frog, frog leads woman to man, man and woman fall in love," she says.
"Man cures woman's incurable illness with his magic poo, thus breaking the curse."
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For 10 years, Penny was treating her symptoms with the very thing poisoning her
Penny Thompson spent nearly 13 years and thousands of dollars trying to get a diagnosis for her "mystery illness", which paralysed her vocal cords, damaged her nerves and left her unable to work, socialise or study. Finally, last year, with a litany of specialists left scratching their heads, the NSW Illawarra region woman began to suspect that the very things she had been using to ease her symptoms were actually poisoning her. Now, grieving and overwhelmed by all she has lost over more than a decade, Ms Thompson, 61, of Wollongong, south of Sydney, has registered her interest in a class action against supplement giant Blackmores, as health practitioners and patients begin to realise the extent of vitamin B6 poisoning. "Before this happened, I was a bloody fitness instructor and now I struggle to work," she said. "I haven't been out socially at night for 10 years. I can't drive for more than 20 minutes. I can't go travelling, I can't go bushwalking. "I struggle to work in my garden at home and it took me nine-and-a-half years to complete a three year university degree. "I just feel overwhelmed, I get angry, I get full of grief for all I've lost." In recent months, there have been growing reports of toxicity related to vitamin B6, which is naturally found in meat, fruit and vegetables but which is also now added to many vitamin supplements, shakes and energy drinks and is present in thousands of products on the Australian market.. According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, taking too much can cause nerve damage, which many people experience as peripheral neuropathy - or numbness and tingling in the fingers and toes. After an increase in reports about this condition, the regulator recently recommended stricter regulations and stronger warnings. It has also noted that there is no consensus on a safe level of B6. In May, Melbourne's Polaris Lawyers announced it was pursuing a class action investigation against Blackmores, on behalf of anyone who has suffered injuries after taking its supplements "containing higher than recommended levels of vitamin B6". A Blackmores spokesperson said the company was committed to the highest standards of product quality and consumer safety. "All our products, including those containing vitamin B6, are developed in strict accordance with the regulatory requirements of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)," they said. They said the company would "ensure full compliance" with any changes the regulator makes. Ms Thompson's health struggles began back in 2012, when she went to the GP complaining of numbness in her hands and feet. She had recently moved back to Australia, and was busy and tired working three jobs and buying a house, so started taking vitamin supplements "to give me energy". "I just didn't feel right and my hands and feet were a bit numb but my GP said it was my age, or probably menopause," she said. "I said, 'I've seemed to lose weight', and he just went, 'fancy a woman in her 40s complaining of losing weight, ha ha ha', so I just left it." "But I was getting more and more fatigued and so, in 2013, I started keeping a really detailed health diary because I thought maybe I had a food allergy because I thought I was being poisoned." That kicked off a "pretty expensive" 10-year journey of seeing specialists, including neurologists, ENT doctors, cardiologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists and having nerve conduction studies or tests for heavy metals poisoning. "I was always very thorough when I saw them, because I was studying science, and I was keeping these diaries and they'd always ask you on the new patient form, please list all your medications, prescription and non-prescription so I'd write this huge list of stuff down, but none of them said anything." By late 2019, when she was working as an English teacher at TAFE, she noticed her voice changing. "I was working about three days a week and I just noticed that my voice was starting to get very, very soft, very weak, very tired," she said. "It was when the drought was happening and there were lots of bushfires, smoke and dust and I thought that's what was causing it. "But that winter I'd had a doctor who said taking zinc was good for preventing respiratory disease - I wanted to choose the best and so I bought Blackmores Bio Zinc, but what I didn't realise was that it had 50mg of B6 in it." "I was popping these things every day, and I can see now that my symptoms - like headaches and migraines and gut pain and constipation were adding up, and by September my voice had become really weak and strained. "I just thought it was the dust and the bushfires and I just kept taking the B6, and then I'd lost my voice completely and had to give up work." As COVID hit, she was diagnosed with a completely paralysed left vocal cord, but was left without medical support. She began experiencing cramps, and started taking another supplement called Super Magnesium. "It also had 50 mg of B6 and, because I was getting all these migraines and I was pretty stressed because I'd lost my job and the whole COVID crap was starting, I was also taking Blackmores Executive Stress, which had another 25 milligrams of B6," Ms Thompson said. "At one stage that I was taking 125mg per day of B6, and just feeling worse and worse and worse." Years and many more appointments on, in September 2024, Ms Thompson saw a warning on the Therapeutic Goods Administration that made her suspect that her vitamins may have been poisoning her. She stopped taking them. "Magically, the gut pain, the constipation, the food intolerances all just disappeared within a couple of months," she said. "The anxiety lifted, the migraines eased off, the twitching and all that stuff just disappeared." "I've still got a base level of numb hands and feet, my voice hasn't improved and the fatigue hasn't improved. The weight loss and the muscle wasting has, in fact, got worse. "So I still can't work because I'm so fatigued and my voice is pretty crappy." In January, B6 poisoning hit the news, with the ABC's 730 running a report featuring patients who had similar symptoms and experiences to Ms Thompson. "I recognised my story and I just went, 'oh God, that's it'," she said. "I went back through all my diaries, 10 years of diaries, with orange highlighter and calculated all the B6 and just went, 'Oh my God'." Then, armed with a print-out of an Illawarra Mercury -an ACM mastheadarticle on the issue, in which Fairy Meadow, Wollongong, GP Kate McCullough issued a warning about high doses of the vitamin, she managed to convince her doctor to run a test. She has since been diagnosed with "B6 hypervitaminosis", and in recent months registered her interest in Polaris' proposed class action, which she hopes might stop others from going through her ordeal. Already the law firm says its has received more than 900 inquiries about the class action. "I just remember at one point, my doctor said, 'oh gee, Penny, I hate to think we're missing something'," Ms Thompson said. "Of course, I'd given him all the big lists of all the supplements I was taking, but he didn't know anything about it. None of the specialists knew about it." "Despite all the media coverage this year, and repeated alerts from the TGA, most doctors and allied health professionals are still completely unaware of B6 toxicity, how serious the resulting symptoms can be and how widespread it is becoming. "I'm really hoping the class action will generate enough publicity to turn this issue around." "And I'm hoping that this kicks up so much of a stink that all of these vitamin companies and the energy drink companies and the processed food manufacturers, they all stop putting more than the recommended daily dose into their products. "I want everybody to know about it, so every doctor in Australia knows about it and we can stop the tide of this epidemic of poisoning." A Blackmores spokesperson said it had received no formal legal claim, but was aware of reports about the class action. Penny Thompson spent nearly 13 years and thousands of dollars trying to get a diagnosis for her "mystery illness", which paralysed her vocal cords, damaged her nerves and left her unable to work, socialise or study. Finally, last year, with a litany of specialists left scratching their heads, the NSW Illawarra region woman began to suspect that the very things she had been using to ease her symptoms were actually poisoning her. Now, grieving and overwhelmed by all she has lost over more than a decade, Ms Thompson, 61, of Wollongong, south of Sydney, has registered her interest in a class action against supplement giant Blackmores, as health practitioners and patients begin to realise the extent of vitamin B6 poisoning. "Before this happened, I was a bloody fitness instructor and now I struggle to work," she said. "I haven't been out socially at night for 10 years. I can't drive for more than 20 minutes. I can't go travelling, I can't go bushwalking. "I struggle to work in my garden at home and it took me nine-and-a-half years to complete a three year university degree. "I just feel overwhelmed, I get angry, I get full of grief for all I've lost." In recent months, there have been growing reports of toxicity related to vitamin B6, which is naturally found in meat, fruit and vegetables but which is also now added to many vitamin supplements, shakes and energy drinks and is present in thousands of products on the Australian market.. According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, taking too much can cause nerve damage, which many people experience as peripheral neuropathy - or numbness and tingling in the fingers and toes. After an increase in reports about this condition, the regulator recently recommended stricter regulations and stronger warnings. It has also noted that there is no consensus on a safe level of B6. In May, Melbourne's Polaris Lawyers announced it was pursuing a class action investigation against Blackmores, on behalf of anyone who has suffered injuries after taking its supplements "containing higher than recommended levels of vitamin B6". A Blackmores spokesperson said the company was committed to the highest standards of product quality and consumer safety. "All our products, including those containing vitamin B6, are developed in strict accordance with the regulatory requirements of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)," they said. They said the company would "ensure full compliance" with any changes the regulator makes. Ms Thompson's health struggles began back in 2012, when she went to the GP complaining of numbness in her hands and feet. She had recently moved back to Australia, and was busy and tired working three jobs and buying a house, so started taking vitamin supplements "to give me energy". "I just didn't feel right and my hands and feet were a bit numb but my GP said it was my age, or probably menopause," she said. "I said, 'I've seemed to lose weight', and he just went, 'fancy a woman in her 40s complaining of losing weight, ha ha ha', so I just left it." "But I was getting more and more fatigued and so, in 2013, I started keeping a really detailed health diary because I thought maybe I had a food allergy because I thought I was being poisoned." That kicked off a "pretty expensive" 10-year journey of seeing specialists, including neurologists, ENT doctors, cardiologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists and having nerve conduction studies or tests for heavy metals poisoning. "I was always very thorough when I saw them, because I was studying science, and I was keeping these diaries and they'd always ask you on the new patient form, please list all your medications, prescription and non-prescription so I'd write this huge list of stuff down, but none of them said anything." By late 2019, when she was working as an English teacher at TAFE, she noticed her voice changing. "I was working about three days a week and I just noticed that my voice was starting to get very, very soft, very weak, very tired," she said. "It was when the drought was happening and there were lots of bushfires, smoke and dust and I thought that's what was causing it. "But that winter I'd had a doctor who said taking zinc was good for preventing respiratory disease - I wanted to choose the best and so I bought Blackmores Bio Zinc, but what I didn't realise was that it had 50mg of B6 in it." "I was popping these things every day, and I can see now that my symptoms - like headaches and migraines and gut pain and constipation were adding up, and by September my voice had become really weak and strained. "I just thought it was the dust and the bushfires and I just kept taking the B6, and then I'd lost my voice completely and had to give up work." As COVID hit, she was diagnosed with a completely paralysed left vocal cord, but was left without medical support. She began experiencing cramps, and started taking another supplement called Super Magnesium. "It also had 50 mg of B6 and, because I was getting all these migraines and I was pretty stressed because I'd lost my job and the whole COVID crap was starting, I was also taking Blackmores Executive Stress, which had another 25 milligrams of B6," Ms Thompson said. "At one stage that I was taking 125mg per day of B6, and just feeling worse and worse and worse." Years and many more appointments on, in September 2024, Ms Thompson saw a warning on the Therapeutic Goods Administration that made her suspect that her vitamins may have been poisoning her. She stopped taking them. "Magically, the gut pain, the constipation, the food intolerances all just disappeared within a couple of months," she said. "The anxiety lifted, the migraines eased off, the twitching and all that stuff just disappeared." "I've still got a base level of numb hands and feet, my voice hasn't improved and the fatigue hasn't improved. The weight loss and the muscle wasting has, in fact, got worse. "So I still can't work because I'm so fatigued and my voice is pretty crappy." In January, B6 poisoning hit the news, with the ABC's 730 running a report featuring patients who had similar symptoms and experiences to Ms Thompson. "I recognised my story and I just went, 'oh God, that's it'," she said. "I went back through all my diaries, 10 years of diaries, with orange highlighter and calculated all the B6 and just went, 'Oh my God'." Then, armed with a print-out of an Illawarra Mercury -an ACM mastheadarticle on the issue, in which Fairy Meadow, Wollongong, GP Kate McCullough issued a warning about high doses of the vitamin, she managed to convince her doctor to run a test. She has since been diagnosed with "B6 hypervitaminosis", and in recent months registered her interest in Polaris' proposed class action, which she hopes might stop others from going through her ordeal. Already the law firm says its has received more than 900 inquiries about the class action. "I just remember at one point, my doctor said, 'oh gee, Penny, I hate to think we're missing something'," Ms Thompson said. "Of course, I'd given him all the big lists of all the supplements I was taking, but he didn't know anything about it. None of the specialists knew about it." "Despite all the media coverage this year, and repeated alerts from the TGA, most doctors and allied health professionals are still completely unaware of B6 toxicity, how serious the resulting symptoms can be and how widespread it is becoming. "I'm really hoping the class action will generate enough publicity to turn this issue around." "And I'm hoping that this kicks up so much of a stink that all of these vitamin companies and the energy drink companies and the processed food manufacturers, they all stop putting more than the recommended daily dose into their products. "I want everybody to know about it, so every doctor in Australia knows about it and we can stop the tide of this epidemic of poisoning." A Blackmores spokesperson said it had received no formal legal claim, but was aware of reports about the class action. Penny Thompson spent nearly 13 years and thousands of dollars trying to get a diagnosis for her "mystery illness", which paralysed her vocal cords, damaged her nerves and left her unable to work, socialise or study. Finally, last year, with a litany of specialists left scratching their heads, the NSW Illawarra region woman began to suspect that the very things she had been using to ease her symptoms were actually poisoning her. Now, grieving and overwhelmed by all she has lost over more than a decade, Ms Thompson, 61, of Wollongong, south of Sydney, has registered her interest in a class action against supplement giant Blackmores, as health practitioners and patients begin to realise the extent of vitamin B6 poisoning. "Before this happened, I was a bloody fitness instructor and now I struggle to work," she said. "I haven't been out socially at night for 10 years. I can't drive for more than 20 minutes. I can't go travelling, I can't go bushwalking. "I struggle to work in my garden at home and it took me nine-and-a-half years to complete a three year university degree. "I just feel overwhelmed, I get angry, I get full of grief for all I've lost." In recent months, there have been growing reports of toxicity related to vitamin B6, which is naturally found in meat, fruit and vegetables but which is also now added to many vitamin supplements, shakes and energy drinks and is present in thousands of products on the Australian market.. According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, taking too much can cause nerve damage, which many people experience as peripheral neuropathy - or numbness and tingling in the fingers and toes. After an increase in reports about this condition, the regulator recently recommended stricter regulations and stronger warnings. It has also noted that there is no consensus on a safe level of B6. In May, Melbourne's Polaris Lawyers announced it was pursuing a class action investigation against Blackmores, on behalf of anyone who has suffered injuries after taking its supplements "containing higher than recommended levels of vitamin B6". A Blackmores spokesperson said the company was committed to the highest standards of product quality and consumer safety. "All our products, including those containing vitamin B6, are developed in strict accordance with the regulatory requirements of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)," they said. They said the company would "ensure full compliance" with any changes the regulator makes. Ms Thompson's health struggles began back in 2012, when she went to the GP complaining of numbness in her hands and feet. She had recently moved back to Australia, and was busy and tired working three jobs and buying a house, so started taking vitamin supplements "to give me energy". "I just didn't feel right and my hands and feet were a bit numb but my GP said it was my age, or probably menopause," she said. "I said, 'I've seemed to lose weight', and he just went, 'fancy a woman in her 40s complaining of losing weight, ha ha ha', so I just left it." "But I was getting more and more fatigued and so, in 2013, I started keeping a really detailed health diary because I thought maybe I had a food allergy because I thought I was being poisoned." That kicked off a "pretty expensive" 10-year journey of seeing specialists, including neurologists, ENT doctors, cardiologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists and having nerve conduction studies or tests for heavy metals poisoning. "I was always very thorough when I saw them, because I was studying science, and I was keeping these diaries and they'd always ask you on the new patient form, please list all your medications, prescription and non-prescription so I'd write this huge list of stuff down, but none of them said anything." By late 2019, when she was working as an English teacher at TAFE, she noticed her voice changing. "I was working about three days a week and I just noticed that my voice was starting to get very, very soft, very weak, very tired," she said. "It was when the drought was happening and there were lots of bushfires, smoke and dust and I thought that's what was causing it. "But that winter I'd had a doctor who said taking zinc was good for preventing respiratory disease - I wanted to choose the best and so I bought Blackmores Bio Zinc, but what I didn't realise was that it had 50mg of B6 in it." "I was popping these things every day, and I can see now that my symptoms - like headaches and migraines and gut pain and constipation were adding up, and by September my voice had become really weak and strained. "I just thought it was the dust and the bushfires and I just kept taking the B6, and then I'd lost my voice completely and had to give up work." As COVID hit, she was diagnosed with a completely paralysed left vocal cord, but was left without medical support. She began experiencing cramps, and started taking another supplement called Super Magnesium. "It also had 50 mg of B6 and, because I was getting all these migraines and I was pretty stressed because I'd lost my job and the whole COVID crap was starting, I was also taking Blackmores Executive Stress, which had another 25 milligrams of B6," Ms Thompson said. "At one stage that I was taking 125mg per day of B6, and just feeling worse and worse and worse." Years and many more appointments on, in September 2024, Ms Thompson saw a warning on the Therapeutic Goods Administration that made her suspect that her vitamins may have been poisoning her. She stopped taking them. "Magically, the gut pain, the constipation, the food intolerances all just disappeared within a couple of months," she said. "The anxiety lifted, the migraines eased off, the twitching and all that stuff just disappeared." "I've still got a base level of numb hands and feet, my voice hasn't improved and the fatigue hasn't improved. The weight loss and the muscle wasting has, in fact, got worse. "So I still can't work because I'm so fatigued and my voice is pretty crappy." In January, B6 poisoning hit the news, with the ABC's 730 running a report featuring patients who had similar symptoms and experiences to Ms Thompson. "I recognised my story and I just went, 'oh God, that's it'," she said. "I went back through all my diaries, 10 years of diaries, with orange highlighter and calculated all the B6 and just went, 'Oh my God'." Then, armed with a print-out of an Illawarra Mercury -an ACM mastheadarticle on the issue, in which Fairy Meadow, Wollongong, GP Kate McCullough issued a warning about high doses of the vitamin, she managed to convince her doctor to run a test. She has since been diagnosed with "B6 hypervitaminosis", and in recent months registered her interest in Polaris' proposed class action, which she hopes might stop others from going through her ordeal. Already the law firm says its has received more than 900 inquiries about the class action. "I just remember at one point, my doctor said, 'oh gee, Penny, I hate to think we're missing something'," Ms Thompson said. "Of course, I'd given him all the big lists of all the supplements I was taking, but he didn't know anything about it. None of the specialists knew about it." "Despite all the media coverage this year, and repeated alerts from the TGA, most doctors and allied health professionals are still completely unaware of B6 toxicity, how serious the resulting symptoms can be and how widespread it is becoming. "I'm really hoping the class action will generate enough publicity to turn this issue around." "And I'm hoping that this kicks up so much of a stink that all of these vitamin companies and the energy drink companies and the processed food manufacturers, they all stop putting more than the recommended daily dose into their products. "I want everybody to know about it, so every doctor in Australia knows about it and we can stop the tide of this epidemic of poisoning." A Blackmores spokesperson said it had received no formal legal claim, but was aware of reports about the class action. Penny Thompson spent nearly 13 years and thousands of dollars trying to get a diagnosis for her "mystery illness", which paralysed her vocal cords, damaged her nerves and left her unable to work, socialise or study. Finally, last year, with a litany of specialists left scratching their heads, the NSW Illawarra region woman began to suspect that the very things she had been using to ease her symptoms were actually poisoning her. Now, grieving and overwhelmed by all she has lost over more than a decade, Ms Thompson, 61, of Wollongong, south of Sydney, has registered her interest in a class action against supplement giant Blackmores, as health practitioners and patients begin to realise the extent of vitamin B6 poisoning. "Before this happened, I was a bloody fitness instructor and now I struggle to work," she said. "I haven't been out socially at night for 10 years. I can't drive for more than 20 minutes. I can't go travelling, I can't go bushwalking. "I struggle to work in my garden at home and it took me nine-and-a-half years to complete a three year university degree. "I just feel overwhelmed, I get angry, I get full of grief for all I've lost." In recent months, there have been growing reports of toxicity related to vitamin B6, which is naturally found in meat, fruit and vegetables but which is also now added to many vitamin supplements, shakes and energy drinks and is present in thousands of products on the Australian market.. According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, taking too much can cause nerve damage, which many people experience as peripheral neuropathy - or numbness and tingling in the fingers and toes. After an increase in reports about this condition, the regulator recently recommended stricter regulations and stronger warnings. It has also noted that there is no consensus on a safe level of B6. In May, Melbourne's Polaris Lawyers announced it was pursuing a class action investigation against Blackmores, on behalf of anyone who has suffered injuries after taking its supplements "containing higher than recommended levels of vitamin B6". A Blackmores spokesperson said the company was committed to the highest standards of product quality and consumer safety. "All our products, including those containing vitamin B6, are developed in strict accordance with the regulatory requirements of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)," they said. They said the company would "ensure full compliance" with any changes the regulator makes. Ms Thompson's health struggles began back in 2012, when she went to the GP complaining of numbness in her hands and feet. She had recently moved back to Australia, and was busy and tired working three jobs and buying a house, so started taking vitamin supplements "to give me energy". "I just didn't feel right and my hands and feet were a bit numb but my GP said it was my age, or probably menopause," she said. "I said, 'I've seemed to lose weight', and he just went, 'fancy a woman in her 40s complaining of losing weight, ha ha ha', so I just left it." "But I was getting more and more fatigued and so, in 2013, I started keeping a really detailed health diary because I thought maybe I had a food allergy because I thought I was being poisoned." That kicked off a "pretty expensive" 10-year journey of seeing specialists, including neurologists, ENT doctors, cardiologists, pain specialists, rheumatologists and having nerve conduction studies or tests for heavy metals poisoning. "I was always very thorough when I saw them, because I was studying science, and I was keeping these diaries and they'd always ask you on the new patient form, please list all your medications, prescription and non-prescription so I'd write this huge list of stuff down, but none of them said anything." By late 2019, when she was working as an English teacher at TAFE, she noticed her voice changing. "I was working about three days a week and I just noticed that my voice was starting to get very, very soft, very weak, very tired," she said. "It was when the drought was happening and there were lots of bushfires, smoke and dust and I thought that's what was causing it. "But that winter I'd had a doctor who said taking zinc was good for preventing respiratory disease - I wanted to choose the best and so I bought Blackmores Bio Zinc, but what I didn't realise was that it had 50mg of B6 in it." "I was popping these things every day, and I can see now that my symptoms - like headaches and migraines and gut pain and constipation were adding up, and by September my voice had become really weak and strained. "I just thought it was the dust and the bushfires and I just kept taking the B6, and then I'd lost my voice completely and had to give up work." As COVID hit, she was diagnosed with a completely paralysed left vocal cord, but was left without medical support. She began experiencing cramps, and started taking another supplement called Super Magnesium. "It also had 50 mg of B6 and, because I was getting all these migraines and I was pretty stressed because I'd lost my job and the whole COVID crap was starting, I was also taking Blackmores Executive Stress, which had another 25 milligrams of B6," Ms Thompson said. "At one stage that I was taking 125mg per day of B6, and just feeling worse and worse and worse." Years and many more appointments on, in September 2024, Ms Thompson saw a warning on the Therapeutic Goods Administration that made her suspect that her vitamins may have been poisoning her. She stopped taking them. "Magically, the gut pain, the constipation, the food intolerances all just disappeared within a couple of months," she said. "The anxiety lifted, the migraines eased off, the twitching and all that stuff just disappeared." "I've still got a base level of numb hands and feet, my voice hasn't improved and the fatigue hasn't improved. The weight loss and the muscle wasting has, in fact, got worse. "So I still can't work because I'm so fatigued and my voice is pretty crappy." In January, B6 poisoning hit the news, with the ABC's 730 running a report featuring patients who had similar symptoms and experiences to Ms Thompson. "I recognised my story and I just went, 'oh God, that's it'," she said. "I went back through all my diaries, 10 years of diaries, with orange highlighter and calculated all the B6 and just went, 'Oh my God'." Then, armed with a print-out of an Illawarra Mercury -an ACM mastheadarticle on the issue, in which Fairy Meadow, Wollongong, GP Kate McCullough issued a warning about high doses of the vitamin, she managed to convince her doctor to run a test. She has since been diagnosed with "B6 hypervitaminosis", and in recent months registered her interest in Polaris' proposed class action, which she hopes might stop others from going through her ordeal. Already the law firm says its has received more than 900 inquiries about the class action. "I just remember at one point, my doctor said, 'oh gee, Penny, I hate to think we're missing something'," Ms Thompson said. "Of course, I'd given him all the big lists of all the supplements I was taking, but he didn't know anything about it. None of the specialists knew about it." "Despite all the media coverage this year, and repeated alerts from the TGA, most doctors and allied health professionals are still completely unaware of B6 toxicity, how serious the resulting symptoms can be and how widespread it is becoming. "I'm really hoping the class action will generate enough publicity to turn this issue around." "And I'm hoping that this kicks up so much of a stink that all of these vitamin companies and the energy drink companies and the processed food manufacturers, they all stop putting more than the recommended daily dose into their products. "I want everybody to know about it, so every doctor in Australia knows about it and we can stop the tide of this epidemic of poisoning." A Blackmores spokesperson said it had received no formal legal claim, but was aware of reports about the class action.
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AFL and Carlton player Zac Williams signs up to become a registered organ donor after finding out his wife already was
Zac Williams has kicked plenty of goals in his career as an AFL star. But a recent shift off the field has lead him to quite a different goal in his personal life. After a converstaion with wife Rachel Lucas, the Carlton Football player has signed up as a registered organ donor with DonateLife. 'I'm probably one of those people that have been oblivious for so long about organ donation,' Williams told Lucas, a former Ballerina, was already a registered organ donor and helped encourage the former GWS Giant to do the same, along with other family and close friends. 'It was actually a very passionate conversation that we had about it,' Williams said. 'Hearing stories from people that have received organ donations and how it saved their lives, was really inspirational. 'I was pretty easily convinced that if you become an organ donor how much you can help others.' The pair, who married in 2024 share two children, son Beckham and daughter Ayla. Williams' decision to register as a donor comes as the median time people currently on the kidney transplant wait list has risen to 2.6 years. The waiting period is dependant on individual's blood type and location, but is significantly higher than the average wait time for a liver transplant which is eight to 12 months. More than 200 Australians have died in the past five years waiting for a transplant, but there are concerns the figure may actually be higher as patients are removed from waitlists as they're conditions worsen. Williams is speaking ahead of DonateLife Week which aims to raise national awareness about organ and tissue donation between July 27 and August 3. Williams even let his good friend and rival AFL player from Port Adelaide Jeremy Finlayson know he'd made the move. Finlayson's wife Kellie was diagnosed with Stage four bowel cancel at 25 years old in 2021, after giving birth to their daughter Sophia just three months prior. Not long later in 2022 after experiencing shortness of breath, it was confirmed the disease had spread to her colon. Kellie has been receiving blood from donors helping save her life following surgeries and ongoing treatment. Williams meanwhile is facing a tough uphill battle with a struggling Carlton side that have slumped to 12th in this season's standings. The 2013 AFL rising star has seen a positional shift at times and has been a consistent member of the squad.
News.com.au
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Health Check: Clarity shares surge after ‘fast and sizeable' $203m raise
• Clarity Pharmaceuticals rocket up to 12% after its blitzkrieg placement • Artrya, Botanix and Imricor are among today's quarterly updates • Lumos outlines US market potential Radiopharmaceutical group Clarity Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CU6) has surprised investors with a monstrous $203 million institutional placement, struck at a 15% premium to the company's 15-day average price. None will be more surprised than the short sellers, who account for close to 10% of the company's register. Executive chairman Dr Alan Taylor says the 'fast, well executed and sizeable' placement was to a small group of local instos 'close to the company'. Unusually, no-one blabbed and the shares did not enter trading halt. 'I have never done a deal that fast,' Taylor told Stockhead. 'A week ago, I would have said we were not doing a capital raising, but there was a lot of interest from a very concentrated group . "The raising was struck at $4.20 a share, a 2.2% premium to Friday's close and a hefty 18% more than the 15-day weighted average price. The raising comes amid what Taylor dubs 'an incredibly tumultuous' period driven by US politics, as well as some 'unfortunate news' from local biotechs (read: Opthea's (ASX:OPT) phase III trial failure). In December Clarity shares were promoted to the ASX200, which was good for enhancing Clarity's profile. But it also contributed to shorting activity. Given the share gains, these investors are likely to be buying up stock to cover their positions. Well funded for trials Clarity emerges from the raising with $288 million of cash, which will fund the company's packed slate of trials. These include two phase III prostate cancer imaging trial aimed at US Food & Drug Administration registration, dubbed Amplify and Clarify. Amplify is for patients with biochemical recurrence post treatment; Clarify is for those intended to undertake prostate removal. Both are open label and single-arm (with no placebo and comparison cohort). Another trial on the sidelines, Co-PSMA compares Clarity's tool with the standard-of-care diagnosis methods. The company expects an initial data readout on this one before the end of the year, with Amplify and Clarify readouts next year. Clarity listed in August 2021, raising a record $92 million at $1.40 apiece. The company then went one better in April last year, raising $121 million in a right issue and placement (at $2.55 a share). The raising is one of the biggest in biotech history and the chunkiest since Mesoblast gathered $260 million in a placement in January. Imricor confident of US approval Imricor Medical Systems (ASX:IMR) is confident of US approval of its world-first ablation catheter this year. We say 'world's first' because the device is the only one capable of being guided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as opposed to x-ray fluoroscopy. Imricor's submission is by way of a staggered, modular process. The company reports the second module is under review and the company expects to submit the third module in the December quarter. 'We expect a steady string of 510(k) product submissions and approvals , which in turn helps accelerate the commercial launch across the US," the company says. In the March quarter European regulators approved Vision-MR, the company's updated catheter for type 1 atrial flutter, under the Continent's bolstered Medical Devices Regulation. In the June quarter they also gave the nod to Advantage-MR, which enables a physician to use a recording system and cardiac stimulator while ablating. The European gatekeepers also approved Northstar, 'the world's only MRI-native 3D mapping and guidance system.' With June quarter receipts of US$85,000, Imricor is yet to start European sales in earnest. The company posted June quarter outflows of US$4.43 million, taking cash on hand to a handy US$50.3 million. Sales will flow this quarter, says plaque-buster Artrya Still on matters of the heart, Artrya (ASX:AYA) expects first US subscription revenue from its AI-enabled Salix coronary plaque detection platform in the current quarter. An algorithm-based artificial intelligence tool, Salix detects the plaque deposits on x-ray coronary computed tomography angiograph (CCTA) images. Despite vulnerable plaque being the cause of most heart attacks, plaque currently is not routinely reported in cardiac imaging and diagnostics. It's difficult to detect with the naked eye in traditional images. In March the FDA approved Salix Coronary Anatomy (SCA) and Artrya is now seeking the agency's consent for Salix Coronary Plaque (SCP). SCP expands applicability to detecting and quantifying coronary arterial plaque for those patients who have undergone a coronary CT angiogram. The SCP module will integrate automatically with SCA. SCA already is being trialled and in clinical use, by Artrya's customers and partners, generating a symbolic $8000 in receipts of the quarter. Earlier this month Artrya inked its first commercial deal, a five-year minimum $600,000 contract with Tanner Health. Artrya expended $5.44 million for the quarter, taking cash to $11.3 million. The company expects a $4.5-5 million R&D tax refund by the end of the year. Botanix reports 600% revenue uptick Botanix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:BOT) reports net revenue of $4.3 million from US sales of Sofdra, compared with $700,000 in the March quarter. The company launched the drug – which treat an excessive sweating condition – in the US in March quarter. The 'net' descriptor is relevant, because some folks were taken aback after the company's July 8 update which showed the extent to which other parties clipped the revenue ticket, Doctors wrote 7053 prescriptions during the quarter, 324% higher than 2975 in the March stanza. The number of prescribers rose 11%, to 2316 from 1075 previously. Launching a drug is not cheap and the company burnt $28.4 million, leaving cash of $64.9 million. Let's be CLIA, it's a big market says Lumos Lumos Diagnostics (ASX:LDX) expects its Febridx virus-versus-bacterial diagnostic tool to capture eight million US patients within three years, via its company making distribution deal with Phase Scientific. Announcing the tie up on July 16, Lumos said the deal would deliver US$2 million immediately – cash the company has, indeed, banked – and a total of US$317 million ($487 million) over six years. Detailing the arrangement on Friday, CEO Doug Ward said the company expected a total addressable market of 80 million, assuming the FDA grants a so-called CLIA waiver. The number consists of patients present with acute respiratory infections. 'Our thinking is that in years two to three we will be 2% or 3% of that,' Ward said. 'In year six, that ramps up to 10%.' As in Clinical Laboratories Improvement Act, CLIA requires hospitals and labs to operate under government accreditation Exemption from CLIA enables parties such as GPs and medical assistants to carry out the low-complexity lateral-flow assays. In financial terms, the market increases tenfold, to US$1 billion a year. Lumos is carrying out a trial to support its FDA application and has recruited close to 120 of the bacterial-positive patients required. Coming back to the finances, Phase pays Lumos another US$1.5 million on its CLIA application, expected next month. On FDA approval, Phase pays another US$5 million. That leaves US$308 million over years three to six, which Ward says is based on minimum order volumes. Lumos shares rocketed 133% on the back of the Phase announcement and have held their gains.
