One of the things I do worry about is glasses. Is there a reason why we correct vision? There's probably a reason evolution made some of us see the world in a blur. Likewise with therapy - maybe killing yourself is like cell apoptosis. Many body cells are supposed to choose to die when they no longer function well. It's a good thing. That's often the problem with scientists: "They were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should".
Until we find out why nature made it so some of us kill ourselves maybe we shouldn't fuck with it? Remember Chesterton's Fence.
I'll be fascinated to see how this plays out for people with autoimmune conditions - generalised heightening of the immune system feels like it would be dangerous for those people. Are any immunologists lurking who might be able to speculate?
Its often completely normal to use healthy controls in a trial like this, healthy people not getting ill is your target audience and the long term stage 3 will be against healthy people. So many drugs are not tested against obvious groups that might produce a poor result to make the findings as strong as possible but it means in a lot of cases chronically ill people are making judgements on no data at all.
> It is given as a nasal spray and leaves white blood cells in our lungs – called macrophages – on "amber alert" and ready to jump into action no matter what infection tries to get in.
Right and if that is such a good thing why are those macrophages not always on alert. I smell longterm cancer or similar.
Despite a lot of education, I don’t know the immune system well, because it’s complex.
However, it’s my understanding that when the body is in a state of readiness due to its infection (from a cold, flu, etc.) the effects of this (such as fever, inflammation, and general immune response) could potentially could guard the body against other types of infections that the body perhaps doesn’t have resistance to. So while I think a universal vaccine sounds great, I’d try it, and I’d want others I know that have dust allergies, etc. to try it, and because we’ve had friends and family die from the flu, I’m still a little suspicious that this could open the door for other types of disease we’ve not been having to deal with.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 52.4 ms ] threadthere's probably a reason evolution didnt put the immune system on permanent "amber alert" as they call it in the article
I personally look forward to every innovation that potentially improves our baseline.
Amber alert means something different than the author thinks ...
Until we find out why nature made it so some of us kill ourselves maybe we shouldn't fuck with it? Remember Chesterton's Fence.
It would just be temporary, but there is likely trade offs.
Right and if that is such a good thing why are those macrophages not always on alert. I smell longterm cancer or similar.
"toll like receptors"
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7173040/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135964462...
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40364-022-00436-7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll-like_receptor
It’s a relative of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines.
However, it’s my understanding that when the body is in a state of readiness due to its infection (from a cold, flu, etc.) the effects of this (such as fever, inflammation, and general immune response) could potentially could guard the body against other types of infections that the body perhaps doesn’t have resistance to. So while I think a universal vaccine sounds great, I’d try it, and I’d want others I know that have dust allergies, etc. to try it, and because we’ve had friends and family die from the flu, I’m still a little suspicious that this could open the door for other types of disease we’ve not been having to deal with.