Chapter Eight
The Immune System
155 Limited knowledge of the immune system.
This article published by Dr. Eric Harvill of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease at The Pennsylvania State University discusses the need for a broader understanding of immunology in light of the discoveries of the recent past. It was published in 2013 and can be found in the National Library of Medicine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622920/
“'From the standpoint of the practicing clinician the immune system remains a black box,' says Garry Fathman, MD, a professor of immunology and rheumatology and associate director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection.
'If a patient were to ask me, ‘How’s my immune system doing today?’ I would have no idea how to answer that, and I’m an immunologist. None of us can answer that. Right now we’re still doing the same tests I did when I was a medical student in the late 1960s,' he says.”
Here is the article from the website of Stanford University discussing this lack of knowledge of the immune system.
http://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2011summer/article7.html
In this study, Dr. Arturo Casadevall, then at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, now at Johns Hopkins, discusses the “unfathomable complexity” of antibody mediated immunity, just one aspect of the entire immune system. He goes on to write, “Clearly, defining protective efficacy of an antibody molecule in a predictive fashion is currently beyond the state of immunological sciences and may not be possible with current reductionist approaches to scientific problems.”
Here is the abstract of this study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16938537
The extended quote can be found in the full version and is also quoted in the book, “Dissolving Illusions” on page 369. That book can be found at the website and is highly recommended.
www.dissolvingillusions.com
156 Dr. Ehrlich's antigen antibody hypothesis.
You can read about Dr. Ehrlich on his Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
See Note 155 for a little insight into how he was wrong, or at least very limited in his perception. This is the nature of science. We are always learning more. His contributions were big at the time. We have surpassed them and should not allow our gratitude for his discoveries to keep us from moving forward.
157 Bacterial proteins in immunology.
Here you can read the Wikipedia page on bacteria. In the section on Cellular Structure they discuss membrane and cell wall proteins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria
You can read more about how the immune system works on the Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system
158 Viral proteins in immunology.
You can read more about viral proteins on their Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_protein
159 Antibodies do not confer immune memory.
Here is one review of the literature on the subject out of the University of Zurich. The author concludes:
“A key conclusion is that 'immunological memory' of course exists, but only in particular experimental laboratory models measuring 'quicker and better' responses after an earlier immunization. These often do correlate with, but are not the key mechanisms of, protection. Protection depends on pre-existing neutralizing antibodies or pre-activated T cells at the time of infection-as documented by the importance of maternal antibodies around birth for survival of the offspring. Importantly, both high levels of antibodies and of activated T cells are antigen driven. This conclusion has serious implications for our thinking about vaccines and maintaining a level of protection in the population to deal with old and new infectious diseases.”
You can read the abstract of his review here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22481438
160 Antibodies do not confer immunity.
161 Antibody production as measure of vaccine effectiveness.
162 Inserts and boxes showing effectiveness is measured by antibody production, not clinical results.
163 Vaccinated people getting a worse form of the disease.
164 Small pox vaccine history from the 19th century.
165 People getting sick after receiving the flu shot. Piers Morgan.
166 Studies showing vaccine version to be more dangerous than natural version.
This article published by Dr. Eric Harvill of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences in the Center for Molecular Immunology and Infectious Disease at The Pennsylvania State University discusses the need for a broader understanding of immunology in light of the discoveries of the recent past. It was published in 2013 and can be found in the National Library of Medicine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622920/
“'From the standpoint of the practicing clinician the immune system remains a black box,' says Garry Fathman, MD, a professor of immunology and rheumatology and associate director of the Institute for Immunology, Transplantation and Infection.
'If a patient were to ask me, ‘How’s my immune system doing today?’ I would have no idea how to answer that, and I’m an immunologist. None of us can answer that. Right now we’re still doing the same tests I did when I was a medical student in the late 1960s,' he says.”
Here is the article from the website of Stanford University discussing this lack of knowledge of the immune system.
http://sm.stanford.edu/archive/stanmed/2011summer/article7.html
In this study, Dr. Arturo Casadevall, then at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, now at Johns Hopkins, discusses the “unfathomable complexity” of antibody mediated immunity, just one aspect of the entire immune system. He goes on to write, “Clearly, defining protective efficacy of an antibody molecule in a predictive fashion is currently beyond the state of immunological sciences and may not be possible with current reductionist approaches to scientific problems.”
Here is the abstract of this study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16938537
The extended quote can be found in the full version and is also quoted in the book, “Dissolving Illusions” on page 369. That book can be found at the website and is highly recommended.
www.dissolvingillusions.com
156 Dr. Ehrlich's antigen antibody hypothesis.
You can read about Dr. Ehrlich on his Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ehrlich
See Note 155 for a little insight into how he was wrong, or at least very limited in his perception. This is the nature of science. We are always learning more. His contributions were big at the time. We have surpassed them and should not allow our gratitude for his discoveries to keep us from moving forward.
157 Bacterial proteins in immunology.
Here you can read the Wikipedia page on bacteria. In the section on Cellular Structure they discuss membrane and cell wall proteins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria
You can read more about how the immune system works on the Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system
158 Viral proteins in immunology.
You can read more about viral proteins on their Wikipedia page here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_protein
159 Antibodies do not confer immune memory.
Here is one review of the literature on the subject out of the University of Zurich. The author concludes:
“A key conclusion is that 'immunological memory' of course exists, but only in particular experimental laboratory models measuring 'quicker and better' responses after an earlier immunization. These often do correlate with, but are not the key mechanisms of, protection. Protection depends on pre-existing neutralizing antibodies or pre-activated T cells at the time of infection-as documented by the importance of maternal antibodies around birth for survival of the offspring. Importantly, both high levels of antibodies and of activated T cells are antigen driven. This conclusion has serious implications for our thinking about vaccines and maintaining a level of protection in the population to deal with old and new infectious diseases.”
You can read the abstract of his review here.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22481438
160 Antibodies do not confer immunity.
161 Antibody production as measure of vaccine effectiveness.
162 Inserts and boxes showing effectiveness is measured by antibody production, not clinical results.
163 Vaccinated people getting a worse form of the disease.
164 Small pox vaccine history from the 19th century.
165 People getting sick after receiving the flu shot. Piers Morgan.
166 Studies showing vaccine version to be more dangerous than natural version.