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Re: Part man, Part Tree?
The man who looks like a tree
He is known simply as Tree Man.
Since he cut his knee as a teenager, strange roots have been growing out of Dede, a 35-year-old Indonesian fisherman.
Now he is hoping his life can be saved from his bizarre affliction.
Now, to be honest, we at Metro Online are not sure if we believe this, but you decide for yourselves.
The strange growths mean he cannot use his hands. He was sacked from his job and his wife left him.
To help raise his two children, at one point he joined a freak show with other victims of peculiar diseases.
An American dermatology expert believes he may be able to cure the warts on Dede's body.
Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland says that a rare genetic fault will not allow Dede's immune system to stop the spread of the growths.
However, he believes a synthetic form of Vitamin A could stop the development of the warts.
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.ht … e_id=76668
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I'd bet my paycheck this is fake... but its still creepy.
EDIT: Okay I'm not sure what to make of this story... after doing a little digging, it looks like this may actually be legit.
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Re: Part man, Part Tree?
ree man 'who grew roots' may be cured
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 2:55am GMT 27/11/2007
An Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body has been given hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A.
Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.
he welts spread across his body unchecked and soon he was left unable to carry out everyday household tasks.
Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, Dede has been raising his two children - now in their late teens - in poverty, resigned to the fact that local doctors had no cure for his condition.
To make ends meet he even joined a local "freak show", parading in front of a paying audience alongside victims of other peculiar diseases.
Although supported by his extended family, he was often a target of abuse and ridicule in his rural fishing village.
But now an American dermatology expert who flew out to Dede's home village south of the capital Jakarta claims to have identified his condition, and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.
After testing samples of the lesions and Dede's blood, Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland concluded that his affliction is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers.
Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts.
The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on his hands and feet.
Dede's counts of a key type of white blood cell are so low that Dr Gaspari initially suspected he may have the Aids virus.
But tests showed he did not, and it became clear that Dede's immune condition was something far rarer and more mysterious.
Warts aside, he had enjoyed remarkable good health throughout his life - which would not be expected of someone with a suppressed immune system - and neither his parents nor his siblings have shown signs of developing lesions.
"The likelihood of having his deficiency is less than one in a million," Dr Gaspari told the Telegraph.
Dr Gaspari, who became involved in the case through a Discovery Channel documentary, believes that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been shown to arrest the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV.
"He won't have a perfectly normal body but the warts should reduce in size to the point where he could use his hands," Dr Gaspari said.
"Over the course of three to six months the warts should be come smaller and fewer in number. He will be living a more normal life."
The most resilient warts could then be frozen off and the growths on his hands and feet surgically removed.
Dr Gaspari hopes to get the necessary drugs free of charge from pharmaceutical firms. They would then be administered by Indonesian doctors under his supervision.
Still intrigued by the origins of Dede's peculiar immune condition, the doctor would like to fly him to the United States for further examination, but fears the financial and bureaucratic barriers would prove too difficult to overcome.
"I would like to bring him to the US to run tests on where his immune condition has come from, but I would need funding and to get him a visa as well as someone to cover the costs of the tests," he said.
"I've never seen anything like this in my entire career."
# "Half Man Half Tree", part of the "My Shocking Story" series, will be shown on the Discovery Channel at 9pm on Nov 15. For more details visit the programme's website.
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh … ree112.xml
Row over 'tree man' virus samples
By Felix Lowe and agencies
Last Updated: 2:10am GMT 28/11/2007
An Indonesian fisherman who developed tree-like growths on his hands and feet is at the centre of an international medical spat after his country's health minister criticised doctors trying to treat him.
Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, lambasted the US doctor currently treating the 35-year-old man, who has the rare affliction caused by the Human Papilloma Virus.
Mrs Supari is angry that Dr Anthony Gaspari has taken blood and tissue samples out of the country to the United States in a bid to diagnose the illness. She claims such samples could be used in the future to make vaccines that the poor could not afford.
Developing nations such as Indonesia risk exploitation unless they maintain control over their virus strains, Mrs Supari said.
But her comments have now offended Dr Gaspari, an American dermatologist at the University of Maryland, who maintains that, while he took the samples without permission, his sole motivation was getting treatment for the man.
Known simply as Dede, the man, who lives in a village south of the capital Jakarta, has massive root-like warts growing from his arms and legs which have gone untreated for years.
"We did take samples, and the reason we did was to render a diagnosis. We did it for humanitarian reasons, to help the patient," Dr Gaspari said, stressing his willingness to put in writing that the samples were not for commercial use.
Mrs Supari, who has famously refused to share bird flu samples with international scientists, made her comments on Sunday after returning from a World Health Organisation (WHO) conference in Geneva.
"We are offended because the samples were taken from Dede without our permission," she told reporters at the hospital where the man was being treated. "If they are taken abroad, they could become lucrative commodities."
The intergovernmental conference was aimed at rebuilding a global system for sharing viruses. Indonesia is the nation the worst hit by bird flu, with a total of 91 human deaths recorded.
Mrs Supari has, however, steadfastly refused to share samples of the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease until she receives assurances they will not be used to make expensive pandemic vaccines.
For its part, WHO wants to make sure the virus has not mutated to a form that spreads more easily between people.
- Jimmy Zig Zag Bobiadis
- Rep: 25
Re: Part man, Part Tree?
ok.. that picture made throw up in my mouth a little bit.
- A Private Eye
- Rep: 77
- DoubleTalkingJive
- Rep: 74
Re: Part man, Part Tree?
how does this doctor know if he won't get it by not wearing gloves. Did anybody watch the video, he doctor says he has never seen this before, yet is sure he won't get it by now wearing gloves 
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Part man, Part Tree?
My god that is horrible. I really hope they can get this guy back to normal.
- luckylittlelady
- Rep: 20
Re: Part man, Part Tree?
I think I would totally lose my mind if anything like that happened to me. If there's a treatment, lets hope it works and quickly. That's one of the freakiest things I've ever seen.
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