Doctors give "tree man" hope

The Telegraph and Channel Five reported a shocking story of a tree man of Java who suffered from a bizarre condition for 20 years with bark-like growths spreading uncontrollably from his hands and feet. He was known "tree man" in a travelling freak show alongside victims of other peculiar diseases to make ends meet.


His plight was highlighted in a Discovery Channel documentary last year and the team took an American dermatologist, Anthony Gaspari of University of Maryland, to Indonesia to see if he could identify the condition and find a cure.


After months' investigation, Dr Gaspari found that the affliction was caused by an extreme case of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) in combination with a rare immune system deficiency and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.

HPV vaccine does not treat HPV

HPV (Human papillomavirus) is a very common virus, some types cause cervical cancer, some cause gential warts. There has been confusion about whether women who have been infected with HPV could benefit from vaccination.

A study of more than 2000 women who already have HPV infection in Costa Rica found that Cervarix, a cervical-cancer vaccines, did not clear the virus from the bodies of the HPV-infected women. The author suggested that the vaccine "should not be used for the purposes of treating prevalent infections" and shoud target young women prior to their sexual debut because the infection happens shortly after sexual initiation.

Read the free article "Effect of Human Papillomavirus 16/18 L1 Viruslike Particle Vaccine Among Young Women With Pre-existing Infection: A Randomized Trial" JAMA. 2007 (7) ;298:743-753. August 15.