One woman’s journey into medical hell and the lessons that will help cure millions....

Life has always been a personal battle for Julia Hugo Rachel - but, hey, she is typical of millions of people. A fun-loving, outdoorsy American girl, Julia lived close to the military community and saw early on how conflict and the trauma of war can scar a person - on the inside as well as outside. 

Her own demons began to appear as a child at the hands of a spiteful mother. Unable to understand, Julia slipped unnoticed into the grip of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Meanwhile, she watched as the lives of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq she had befriended were crushed by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

When her sport-loving son, Blake, came close to death after succumbing to CFS, she decided something had to change. She had to fight medical ignorance and government cover-ups. Perhaps her fight with her mother was worst.

But Viral Assault is Julia Hugo Rachel’s powerful response: Debilitating diseases like CFS and PTSD are not all in the mind. In her own words: "There are millions of men and women who have been lumped together under the general heading of ‘mentally ill’ as a convenient way of evading the diagnosis of more complex illnesses." Julia’s story will be felt and understood by every family that has suffered from years of misdiagnosis and frustration.

Julia Hugo Rachel has spent a lifetime in intelligence working with various agencies both in America and overseas. She is close to many members of the Special Forces and has experienced firsthand the cost of war for veterans and their families. Julia has applied all of her training in intelligence and analysis to peel back the veil of denial and secrecy that surrounds a whole family of illnesses from CFS to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Gulf War illness (GWI) that seem to have common cause and that impact millions of active military personnel, veterans, and ordinary citizens each year.