This nationwide study from Taiwan of 14,024 children and adolescents, brings into sharp focus the withering viability of the medical bigots who still challenge the link between infection and mental health disorders. My memoir, Saving Sammy, was published thirteen years ago. It brought national attention to the fact that strep can cause OCD. In my book, I explain that medicine moves at a snail’s pace, and that it took 20 years for doctors to accept the fact that infections were the cause of peptic (stomach) ulcers. As the chorus of bigoted physicians slowly dies, history dictates that we probably have another seven years to go before they are firmly and forever extinguished. The tragedy is the number of children and families forced to bear debilitating illness and, sometimes, cope with suicide for no reason other than to satisfy the hubris of those few.
