Our immune system. Are we dropping it?

[Specter_]

Well we can't really do anything about asteroids hitting us and we can only warn people of tsunamis.
Just like an asteroid hitting Earth, the evolution of a new pandemic is just a matter of time. We can only slow it with quarantine rules but it will happen. And disastrous flu epidemics are a lot more common than tsunamis and asteroids.

It's not yet clear if we could do anything about an asteroid, but it would be a good start to have the funding to detect them.
Besides, diabetes and cardiovascular (sp?) problems are far more deadly than a possible avian flu epidemic. I'd rather worry about and fund an existing medical problem than rely on inprobable circumstances leading to a potentialy (!) deadly disease.

 

[DragunovHUN]

Alright thanks for the replies.

Now, some of you guys said that we have to take care of our own immune system. You know that isn't going to work. Human nature. Or should i say human stupidity. I don't expect many mothers would be willing to artificially "sabotage" their child to build their immune system, even if it's for their own good.

What i'm thinking would be a good idea is to extend artificial immunization. You know the thing when they inject you with a weakened virus to train your immune system against it. Extend that to more diseases and make it compulsory. Actually, here in Hungary it already IS compulsory for some diseases, but i heard it goes differently in other countries.

 

[Jovlo]

It's not yet clear if we could do anything about an asteroid, but it would be a good start to have the funding to detect them.
Besides, diabetes and cardiovascular (sp?) problems are far more deadly than a possible avian flu epidemic. I'd rather worry about and fund an existing medical problem than rely on inprobable circumstances leading to a potentialy (!) deadly disease.

The chances are far from improbable. Many other diseases evolve fast through antigenic shift and the flu is just one of them. Hundreds if not thousands of new types of flu evolve every year. This makes pandemics unpredictable. It doesn't need to be bird flu.
Thousands of viruses are present in one cell when properly infected and it is highly probable that there will be antigenic shift.
It is only a matter of time before a deadly virus emerges. It has happened many times before, it will happen again.
The question is when. And we probably won't even see it coming.
We can protect ourselves from pandemics unlike asteroids by staying vigilant, quarantines and developing vaccinations and because we can, we should.

Sure diabetes and heart diseases kill a lot more people, but they do it gradually.
A pandemic could crash economies in weeks. We have to be prepared.

I've got a link to the wikipedia article on antigenic shift for those interested.
(I know, wikipedia isn't scientific, but I can't link you to my microbiology textbook.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_shift

Oh and for the original poster: If you mean vaccinations, that's the way to go!
I hope you're prepared for a lot of needles though, you are going to need a lot of them every year and it might get costly.
And mothers are already exposing children to diseases to make them stronger.
Think of measles and chicken pocks. Those can be dangerous to adults so parents try to get their children infected at a young age. Unlike influenza this disease doesn't change rapidly so you can only catch it once in your life.

 

[DragunovHUN]

And mothers are already exposing children to diseases to make them stronger.

I said many, not all of them. There are nut-jobs who refuse to take their infants to vaccinations, even though they're compulsory.

 

[Jovlo]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right, some do it even because of their religion.
I had a friend who once had anaemia, but her religion (Jehova's witness) didn't allow her to get blood transfusions. She and her family eventually converted.
It's just evil, endangering your child's health for your religion.
Sadly there's no vaccination for stupidity ;-).

 

[Bofus Teefus]

Google a couple of these if you want to know what you're not being infected with due to your currently strong immune system-

toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus, cryptococcal meningitis, PCP pneumonia, mycobacterium avium complex.

These are all opportunistic infections that you typically don't see in people with normal immune systems. They're more common in HIV patients, but we all get exposure to most of these at some point in our lives. Basically, don't worry too much about your immune system going away. It gets a good daily workout regardless of what kind of vacuum you think you live in.

I said many, not all of them. There are nut-jobs who refuse to take their infants to vaccinations, even though they're compulsory.

Same here in the US, and we've had a handful of kids die from Haemophilus meningitis recently because of it. The vaccine programs work well. So well, that people forget that in the 50's in the US, we still lived in fear of polio, Haemophilus, pertussis, and a couple others that vaccines protect us from.

 

[marfoir(IRL)]

Sadly there's no vaccination for stupidity ;-).

Theres no vaccination but there is a [URL="{url}" (title,target)]cure[/URL].

 

[Specter_]

It's also why we should be afraid of the bird flu.
If our flu virus infects a bird with bird flu, you might get a new virus that acts like bird flu but can infect humans.

No, we shouldn't be.
If our flu virus infects a bird with bird flu, you might get a new virus that acts like bird flu but can infect humans.
Too many if's and might's in even that small sentence to actually be afraid.

Maybe not afraid but it would still be better to be prepared in case it does happen. For example, I reckon being taught what to do if there is a house fire is important. It's never happened to me and might never but I would still like to be prepared in case it does.

I refer you to my asteriod-posting.

It's not yet clear if we could do anything about an asteroid, but it would be a good start to have the funding to detect them.
Besides, diabetes and cardiovascular (sp?) problems are far more deadly than a possible avian flu epidemic. I'd rather worry about and fund an existing medical problem than rely on inprobable circumstances leading to a potentialy (!) deadly disease.

The chances are far from improbable. Many other diseases evolve fast through antigenic shift and the flu is just one of them. Hundreds if not thousands of new types of flu evolve every year. This makes pandemics unpredictable. It doesn't need to be bird flu.
Thousands of viruses are present in one cell when properly infected and it is highly probable that there will be antigenic shift.
It is only a matter of time before a deadly virus emerges. It has happened many times before, it will happen again.
The question is when. And we probably won't even see it coming.
We can protect ourselves from pandemics unlike asteroids by staying vigilant, quarantines and developing vaccinations and because we can, we should.

Sure diabetes and heart diseases kill a lot more people, but they do it gradually.
A pandemic could crash economies in weeks. We have to be prepared.

I've got a link to the wikipedia article on antigenic shift for those interested.
(I know, wikipedia isn't scientific, but I can't link you to my microbiology textbook.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigenic_shift

Oh and for the original poster: If you mean vaccinations, that's the way to go!
I hope you're prepared for a lot of needles though, you are going to need a lot of them every year and it might get costly.
And mothers are already exposing children to diseases to make them stronger.
Think of measles and chicken pocks. Those can be dangerous to adults so parents try to get their children infected at a young age. Unlike influenza this disease doesn't change rapidly so you can only catch it once in your life.

The Spanish Flu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic] didn't crash the economy, people died, people survived, life goes on.
Yes, we have to be prepared. I never doubted that. But being afraid won't help anybody.

 

[Danny Ocean]

I purposely don't use hand sanitizers, purposely expose myself to disease, because of this. Now? I haven't gotten sick in 4 years.

Ditto, I never wash my hands. I've never caught anything other than a cold. I've still got my appendix and my tonsils.

The point being that, "Yes, I do know where they've been. It's clean."

I despise all the fear-mongering cleaning companies do to encourage people to buy their product. I mean:

"There are over 10,000 different kinds of bacteria on your toilet seat."
So? I'm not eating them! Even then, how many can actually hurt me? Surely most would have come from inside me anyway!

 

[jamesworkshop]

I would say no because life isnt really that sterile even hospitals arent that great MRSA in britian is a problem

 

[Danny Ocean]

I would say no because life isnt really that sterile even hospitals arent that great MRSA in britian is a problem

It's a lot more sterile than it used to be.

It is true that MRSA is a problem, but it should be an unconscious act for hospital staff to clean up after themselves. There's just a huge amount of idiots clogging up the system they don't have time or energy. It's understandable, but still wrong.


Besides,

MRSA is a bacteria, so it is curable with antibiotics (in this case Vancomyacin). Once the bacteria is dealt with with the proper antibiotics it will be gone. Ten days to 2 weeks is the usual run.

 

[Inverse Skies]

The idea of humans losing an immune system is laughable. Immunodeficiency diseases are some of the most crippling and worst out there.

Take SCID (Severe Combined ImmunoDeficiency) for example, babies born with this condition rarely survive more than a few months, especially when they're weaned off their mother (whose milk contains many immunoglobulins which help to protect the infant). Have you ever heard of the boy in the bubble? He had SCID, he only survived 9 or 12 (can't quite remember now) years of his life due to him being kept safe in an airtight bubble to prevent any contact with the outside world.

There are so many and they all impose considerably mortality and morbidity on sufferers lives, X-linked agammmaglobunemia, the Di-George Anomaly, IgA deficiency (maybe not so much this one), Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency, Complement factor deficiencies etc, the list goes on.

Basically, the point to take out of this is don't worry about it. Humanities immune system certainly isn't going anywhere, and is one of the most complex and least understood systems in the human body (and I have a whole unit on it soon at uni, hooray.)

 

[Haddi]

I've noticed I barely eat meat (Don't get me wrong, I love the stuff. I am in fact opposed to vegeterianism. Not kidding, opposed to it.)
And I barely get sick. Of course, I also hardly ever bathe, hardly ever go outside, but on the other hand, don't even use hand wipes/sanitizers.

Do you eat lots of fruit though? I've been told the reason I don't get ill often is because I take in a lot of vitamin C apparently and that has some sort of effect.

Plus, though I do take antibiotics for my acne, I don't take any for anything else unless it is absolutely necessary (though initially the reason for that was because I couldn't take any within several hours of my acne meds anyway). I think that unnecessary hygiene can probably leave to more vunerable to diseases it is important to have antibiotics for illnesses which the bodies of the majority cannot handle (would you be happy if a killer disease was around even if there was a way to get rid of it or be prevented from getting it?).

It's also why we should be afraid of the bird flu.
If our flu virus infects a bird with bird flu, you might get a new virus that acts like bird flu but can infect humans.

No, we shouldn't be.
If our flu virus infects a bird with bird flu, you might get a new virus that acts like bird flu but can infect humans.
Too many if's and might's in even that small sentence to actually be afraid.

Maybe not afraid but it would still be better to be prepared in case it does happen. For example, I reckon being taught what to do if there is a house fire is important. It's never happened to me and might never but I would still like to be prepared in case it does.

I rarely eat fruit, maybe a piece every 2-3 days.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

I like my immune system. I haven't been sick in years because of it.

same....i only get sick when i act really stupid and ask for it.but i have a fairly strong immune system.

There is no doubt though that on te whole humans are losing it. It's been looked into many times and although its happening slowly its definitely true

 

[wewontdie11]

The environment we live in is a mile from being sterile. You'd be surprised at the volume of fungal spores and bacteria even in the air. There are numerous harmful, and maybe lethal, pathogens living all over everyday objects, and even inside you. It is our immune system that stops you from experiencing symptoms and becoming ill from them.

 

[Frizzle]

I only remember the last time I was sick, because I wanted to die, but it's been around 4 years now. The only times I get sick are when I come into contact with something completely new (usually from a new geographic location). I don't wash my hands unless I'm working with food (damn you raw chicken and fish) or about to work on a computer.

I do hear that having pets as a small person GREATLY increases your immune system, and lowers your chances for getting allergies.

 

[Beffudled Sheep]

I like my immune system. I haven't been sick in years because of it.

same....i only get sick when i act really stupid and ask for it.but i have a fairly strong immune system.

There is no doubt though that on te whole humans are losing it. It's been looked into many times and although its happening slowly its definitely true

Im happy that i'll be dead by the time that happens.

 

[Laughing Man]

It is our immune system that stops you from experiencing symptoms and becoming ill from them.

That's actually wrong. Symptoms are generally a result of your immune system doing something to stop the infection.

 

[szaleniec1000]

(btw, the 2006-tsunami was such a low probability/high impact-event and yet nobody invested anything to create a warning-system)

Not just the warning system, but the billions of dollars of infrastructure investment it would have taken for the affected areas to be able to handle a full-scale evacuation on the time scale involved. Sadly, it took the tragedy of an actual tsunami for most people to think this was worth doing.