Patron Review: An Epidemic of Absence

    Do you suffer from asthma, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, or any other immune disorder?  How about allergy?

     Moises Vasquez-Manoff suffers from alopecia, loss of bodily hair—even eyelashes.   Thus he traveled to northern Mexico to get a dose of microbes.  Before this though, Vasquez-Manoff did a lot of research.  It resulted in his monograph An Epidemic of Absence; A New Understanding of Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases.

     Turns out that our “immune system is adaptive, part sensory organ and part cognitive apparatus.”  It has been adapting for millions of years, ever since we roamed the savannah in Africa, and suffered debilitating malaria.  The immune system adapts too, according to the life experiences of our grandmothers and mothers.  If our ancestors gorged themselves, the grandkids could be more likely to get diabetes.  Or if our grandparents suffered with the Spanish flu in the 1920s, we or our children could be more likely to suffer cancer, heart disease, and high blood pressure.  Our immune system adapted to save us from malaria infecting the brain.

     But we do not suffer from malaria much anymore.  So our immune system kind of has been getting into trouble by not having enough to do and sort of atrophying.   Turns out that children in rural areas of Africa, who walk barefoot and use latrines or the great outdoors, inadvertently imbibe worms and microbes.  Thus, if they are subject to allergens such as dust mites and animal dander, they do not suffer allergy or immune disorder.  But deworm them, and the runny eyes and nose start.  Thus the immune system needs to be kept busy fighting infection, parasite and microbe infestation.  If we are “civilized” and have rid ourselves of parasites, wear shoes, and use modern toilet facilities, we will suffer the consequences of an immune system gone awry.

     So if you are pregnant or have a baby, get some animals for your home, walk barefoot, subject  your child to dirt and the microbes within.  Chances are that nothing bad will occur, but that child will grow up with an immune system adapted to the 21^st century. 

-Janice Gintzler, Acorn Patron