These responses have been interesting. You might find the following easily-found website quotes from Scientific American articles interesting. I’ve cut out a lot but you can find these quotations in context in the articles linked:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=recruiting-a-dangerous-foe&sc=rss
May 21, 2008
Recruiting a Dangerous Foe to Fight Cancer and HIV

“… Listeria monocytogenes bacterium is the infectious agent responsible for the food borne illness Listeriosis.”

“… L. monocytogenes replicates in a host cell’s cytoplasm (its gelatinous fluid filling) and can move from one cell to another.”

… “Listeria lives within cells, instead of floating around the bloodstream.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-pathogens-wily-ways
November 6, 2000
A Pathogen’s Wily WaysA Pathogen’s Wily Ways

… “the world’s top three infectious killers, … convert the cell into a microbial manufacturing plant. After multiplying, the microbes break out of the cell and go on to invade other cells, repeating the process. Details of these events have eluded investigators because such intracellular pathogens are difficult to study.”

… “scientists have finally learned how one microbe, the food-borne bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (which can lead to meningitis and death), accomplishes this feat. The new findings could shed light on how other deadly pathogens operate.”

“Listeria bacteria, it turns out, have a remarkable mechanism for establishing infection. First they prompt immune system scavenger cells called macrophages to ingest them such that they wind up enclosed in bubbles called vacuoles inside the cells. The Listeria then make a toxin known as listeriolysin O, which is used to rupture the vacuole, gaining entry into the cell’s interior. It subsequently coopts the cell machinery in order to replicate.”

David, the last reference I am going to give here is to the Wikipedia article on Listeria at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listeria

It covers much the same territory (and many other aspects) and gives numerous references.

Here is a relevant section:

/***

Mechanism of infection

The majority of Listeria bacteria are targeted by the immune system before they are able to cause infection. Those that escape the immune system’s initial response, however, spread though intracellular mechanisms and are therefore guarded against circulating immune factors (AMI).[2]

To invade, Listeria induces macrophage phagocytic uptake by displaying D-galactose in their teichoic acids that are then bound by the macrophage’s polysaccharide receptors . Other important adhesins are the internalins. [3] Once phagocytosed, the bacteria is encapsulated by the host cell’s acidic phagolysosome organelle. [1] Listeria, however, escapes the phagolysosome by lysing the vacuole’s entire membrane with secreted hemolysin, [4] now characterized as the exotoxin listeriolysin O.[1] The bacteria then replicate inside the host cell’s cytoplasm. [2]

Listeria must then navigate to the cell’s periphery to spread the infection to other cells. Outside of the body, Listeria has flagellar-driven motility, sometimes described as a “tumbling motility.” However, at 37°C, flagella cease to develop and the bacteria instead usurps the host cell’s cytoskeleton to move. [2] Listeria, inventively, polymerizes an actin tail or “comet” [4], using host-produced actin filaments [5] with the promotion of virulence factor ActA[2]. The comet forms in a polar manner [6] and aids the bacteria’s migration to the host cell’s outer membrane. Gelsolin, an actin filament severing protein, localizes at the tail of Listeria and accelerates the bacterium’s motility.[6] Once at the cell surface, the actin-propelled Listeria pushes against the cell’s membrane to form protrusions called filopods[1] or “rockets”. The protrusions are guided by the cell’s leading edge [7] to contact adjacent cells which subsequently engulf the Listeria rocket and the process is repeated, perpetuating the infection.[2] Once phagocytosed, the Listeria is never again extracellular: it is an intracytoplasmic parasite [4] like Shigella flexneri and Rickettsia.[2]

***/

The implication that struck me the hardest is that Listeria not only lives intracellularly inside human macrophages, but actually seems to “try” hard to get eaten! It seems this comfy existence inside our own cells, hijacking our cells’ machinery, is not unusual, but something of the norm.

I hope I’m not violating copyright laws to give these quotes without permission. The links will take you to the originals. When I said you could find many references on the web to L-form bacteria, I was referring to quotes like these. There are others.

One researcher who is currently working with the L-form is Nadya Markova, who was interviewed by Amy on Bacteriality:
http://bacteriality.com/2007/09/09/markova-interview/

Another researcher who retired within the last ten years is Gerald Domingue, who was also profiled by Amy:
http://bacteriality.com/2007/08/22/domingue/

Why hasn’t there been more recent work on l-forms? I’m not sure exactly. I do know that culturing these “wee beasties” is difficult and that many researchers still adhere to Koch’s Postulates, which Amy has also discussed on good ol’ Bacteriality.

Sorry about the dead links. I have to update the links on that page.

By the way, for the record the Marshall Pathogenesis implicates other bacterial forms in disease including biofilm bacteria. Biofilm bacteria produce Capnine, which downregulates Vitamin D Receptor activity. Recent research has shown that other pathogens including M. tuberculosis, EBV, etc. downregulate VDR transcriptional activity as well But I digress.

I hope you (and your readers who see your your July 24th post) will not only read the Science-Based Medicine article, but will also carefully review the many responses that readers have sent in, including people who have tried the MP, and others who have not. To say that the MP is “untested” does not invalidate the existence of many people who have tried the MP for themselves. It does not invalidate the experience of doctors who have been surprised to find that (1,25-D) levels can be elevated even if (25-D) levels are depressed. It only means the MP hasn’t been tested in a narrow sense. There is more than in-silico evidence. You can find many reliable links on the web that refer to intracellular L-form bacteria. One significant element of a typical SCAM that is missing from the MP is profit-making. You can’t buy any medicines at the MP websites. No charges are made for services. There are no hollywood celebrity endorsements, no infomercials, no affiliations with drug companies. I encourage you to read the readers’ comments in full. Thank you.

“The Marshall Protocol has all the characteristics of modern alternative therapy: a single discoverer, a hitherto undiscovered biology, an unproven therapeutic intervention and one of the most aggravating issues in SCAM’s: Taking a scientific truth the size of a molehill and transmogrifying it into a Cascade Range of exaggerated disease etiology and treatment. Unlike most SCAM’s, however, as best as I can tell Dr Marshall does not seem to be in the business of making a business from his discovery, although he does have patent applications for his protocol.”