There's one thing that I find hard to comprehend WG is found all over the world and yet the experts still don't have a definite cause of this disease. Some theories are possible inhalation of chemical fumes, while others tend to think staph infections might be the causing factor. After all this time and research shouldn't the etiology have been figured out by now?! I am a retired nurse I worked in a State Correctional Facility for 12 years before I retired at 55 last Aug. 2013. Before that I worked in a clinic, nursing home for the elderly, a hospital so who knows how many different exposures I was exposed to over my total years of nursing. I also grew up in a funeral home so I was exposed to formaldehyde fumes on almost a daily basis! I would just like to know how I got this disease and what links all the rest of us around the globe seeing how this is not considered a genetical disorder! Andrew do your doctors in Australia have any clues as to why you contracted WG? It's the curiosity in me that makes me wonder why! In my home town of a population of 25,000 people I was the 6th person diagnosed with WG. Now statistically isn't the new stats saying around 1 out of every 25,000 people will contract WG so why would a small town like mine have that many people diagnosed with a somewhat rare autoimmune disease? And no one at Mayo seems to be interested in doing the research to see if there is some correlation between the six cases! I just find that odd they don't want to figure this out. What are your thoughts on this? I'm not always this serious but this whole thing has me stumped about it and like I said I'm a curious sort of cat and like to figure out the why's and how's of everything, especially where I am directly involved! Let me know what you think. Thanks, Kathy