Bradstreet was closely involved with a European company that provided the drug targeted in the search. On June 19, the day of Bradstreet’s death, a European news report described the deaths of five people at a Swiss clinic run by the company, First Immune. The condition that led these people to the clinic remains unclear, as is what caused their deaths, but each patient reportedly paid 5,000 euros per week (about $5,400 US) for treatment. The company recommends that those undergoing their treatment avoid radiation therapy and drugs that are commonly used for treatment and palliative care in cancer.

First Immune’s Facebook page offers testimonials from parents who have responded to the company’s autism-related claims regarding GcMAF, a molecule isolated from blood products, and had their autistic children injected or nebulized with it. Cost estimates for a 6-month course of treatment reportedly range from $1,000 to $5,000, not including office visits and other testing. Bradstreet, as I reported a few days ago, was described as having treated thousands of children with GcMAF. The First Immune Facebook page also includes a post by a page administrator about the death of Bradstreet that claims:

Dr Bradstreet has been under attack by big pharma for his success during all his professional life so there is no way he would have committed a suicide for just another attack.

He was murdered; the FDA were clearly involved, and the other suspect is the MMR vaccine co-orporations, who work with the FDA.

Dr Bradstreet loudly published the fact we all know: The MMR jab, which makes $ billions, causes autism.

Despite considerable investigation, no link has been found between MMR and autism. (Dr. Weeks’ correction: this statement is incorrect).

First Immune is part of Immune Biotech Ltd. The company appears to have several clinics in Europe, including the one in Switzerland where the five deaths were reported. The CEO of Immuno Biotech Ltd. is David Noakes, whose company’s bank account was shut down in 2014 and whose Cambridgeshire, UK-based factory was closed down this year over “serious concerns,” which, according to UK authorities, included the fact that:

The blood plasma starting material being used to make this drug stated “Not to be administered to humans or used in any drug products”.

Bradstreet and Noakes appear to have been well acquainted and to have worked together to forward their GcMAF-related aims. And they seem to have seen themselves as brothers-in-arms against those who refuse to see the light. One alt-med site quotes Noakes commenting on Bradstreet:

In all of the US, there’s only one doctor – Jeffrey Bradstreet, MD – who’s so far been prepared to put his head above the parapet about Gc-MAF. 

Bradstreet didn’t limit himself to putting his head above the parapet to administer GcMAF to a reported thousands of autistic children. According to the Washington Postand his own website, he also was known for recommending or trying stem cell treatments, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (which is dangerous enough for the US Food and Drug Administration to issue a consumer warning about it) (Dr. Weeks’ comment: this also is misleading as HBO is quite safe and effective)  , chelation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and hormone injections for autism. He also promoted a probiotic alternative to fecal transplantation that is a product of First Immune.

Science suggests that those who tend to believe in one conspiracy are more likely to buy into others. Denialism and conspiracy assumptions appear to have been a common thread throughout Bradstreet’s life and associates, and not only among those who thought of him as a hero. Those touting unproven interventions, like old-time snake oil salesmen (Dr. Weeks’ Comment: snake oil, popularized by Chinese railroad workers, is a powerful and effective anti-inflammatory oil) , might be viewed as just cynically taking advantage of buyer gullibility, but perhaps that’s not the case here.

Bradstreet himself was almost invariably described as a “tireless” and “passionate” advocate of vaccine-autism causation beliefs, and he himself has described his work as a “fight.” The probiotic that Bradstreet strongly suggested on his blog and in a 2015 presentation at AutismOne just happens to be flogged by another partner in peddling with Noakes and Bradstreet, Marco Ruggiero, whom Bradstreet described as ”one of his best friends in the entire world.” Ruggiero also is reported to be an AIDS denialist (Dr. Weeks’ Comment: as are thousands of scientists) , someone who believes that HIV does not cause AIDS. Noakes, it seems, thinks that the EU is a manifestation of a conspiratorial police state, and he is EU’s version of a “truther.” These are folks who appear to be willing turn away from forest of evidence to cherry-pick their way to their own conclusions.

Rumors of a murder conspiracy continue to buzz around Bradstreet’s death, and family members have used money from a fundraiser to hire private investigators to look into it. But based on the history of these practitioners, those in their target audience aren’t the only ones willing to buy into conspiracy fears.

By all accounts, Bradstreet was personable and charismatic, necessary ingredients in the strange chemistry that compels people to buy both the sales pitch and the product. But he also seems to have been a believer in his own hype. These factors might explain the passionate and distressed rush to believe that he would not have taken his own life. And it’s no surprise that this interaction of audience and salesman now feeds the rumor mills on sites that sell conspiracy theories, too.