Boren's Syndrome

Boren's Syndrome is a human disease caused by prolonged exposure to high-yield plasma (and/or high-energy Electromagnetic radiation), such as from a Plasma Grenade. Symptoms include brain tumors, migraines and amnesia. Without proper treatment, death commonly occurs. Effective treatment requires thirty weeks of intensive chemotherapy. Unconfirmed claims as to the cause of the disease include inhaling the gases released when a Type-51 Carbine magazine is ejected and being around Plasma Grenades. This later saves him from the flood.

Sergeant Avery Johnson officially has Boren's Syndrome, supposedly contracted when he used an entire crate of plasma grenades to hold off Covenant forces on Paris IV. This story is apparently a hoax used to hide that Avery Johnson could be a SPARTAN-I, known as the Paris/BS Spoof.

Several members of the United Rebel Front claimed to have this condition, hoping to bargain with the UNSC to gain treatment for the condition in trade for some FENRIS Nuclear Warheads they had in stock.

Long Term Effects
Untreated or unsuccessfully treated, Boren's can be fatal or debilitating. While some direct effects, such as migraines, can be managed with medication, the side effects of chemotherapy to drive tumors into remission can be extremely difficult to deal with. Personal independence and quality/length of life can be curtailed by illness or amnesia. It also shows great resistance to the Flood Super Cell.

The condition has an unexpected, beneficial side effect, total immunity from Flood infection. Boren's Syndrome alters the neural synapses of its victims in a way that makes them too unstable for an Infection Form to manipulate or control. Also the Flood will not manipulate a person or persons with Boren's Syndrome because the Flood only infect healthy organisms, those that do not have damage to tissue, radioactivity and so on. This explains why Sergeant Avery Johnson, although the infection forms on installation 04, could not infect him due to this condition. Any attempt by an Infection form to latch onto the central nervous system of such a host would in effect receive a "dead signal," much as a computer with a damaged Internet connection could not be hacked into, although internally it may be functional.