An Epidemic of Absence

So I am reading “An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases,” penned by Moises Velasquez-Manoff.  At this point, I’m about a third of the way through.  The book is truly amazing in its take on the evolution of much of the human immune system.  It has, for a brief moment, spun my perspective on the allergies that my son has.  It’s as if my son’s body has evolved to negotiate a world that suddenly shifted over the last 50-100 years.  As if allergies and asthma were not a disease but a trait developed over millions of years of co-existence with micro-organisms, parasites, bacteria, fungi… and now suddenly they’ve been removed: through hygiene, vaccination, modernity….  What’s briefly refreshing about this perspective is the idea that these things that we have been told are disease, are really beautiful biological partners in maneuvers that have found themselves on the dance floor alone.  A sort of “it takes two to tango,” that is now clumsily performed by one.  So it’s been nice to have a different glimpse of this stuff that has been my obsession since the diagnosis – as not disease.  It’s painted a vision for me that if we lived in the world our bodies have honed themselves over the millenia to expect, one where we were rife with an onslaught of ‘old friends’ as it were… parasites, bacteria and viruses that span TB to polio,  it’s completely possible that my son would be the shining example of robust strength & health  – as opposed to the kid with the inhaler, benedryl, and epi slung over his shoulder in a carry bag gauging whether or not the pollen level is too high to play outside, or if the person about to shake his hand was recently eating peanuts… Oh the joy this brief glimpse of what could be brings.

The depressing, or disheartening side of things, is that Mr Velasquez-Manoff  talks about a window of opportunity for molding or shifting the immune system is most open (he claims only open) during childhood.  So the bacterial & parasite partners can only prevent allergy/asthma if they make an appearance in childhood before, or within a tiny time-frame of exposure to, say ragweed or peanuts.  And that once we reach adulthood, our immune systems are pretty much set in their ways.  Miss this window of youthful malleability and your basically left with managing a skewed immune system.

Now not to go back on my depressing paragraph above, but he then goes on to talk about a bacteria, M. vaccae.  This soil & cow dung dwelling inhabitant brought to brief fame by the Stanfords in the early 1970′s supposedly corrected Mrs Stanford’s Raynaud’s syndrome.  Better than that though, apparently

“M. Vacae injections helped their daughter’s asthma…”

This is interesting.  This affirms, to me, that maybe the immune system is more malleable in adulthood than we think.  I mean it cleared up the wife’s autoimmune issue.  The other thing that is interesting to me, is that a couple years back I had brought mud from an organic pig farm home for my son to put his hands and feet in – and – well play in.  I ended up not doing it for whatever reason.  But maybe I was onto something.  Maybe I should revisit that idea this summer.  At any rate, I’m excited to continue my read and recommend this for anyone interested in asthma, allergies, or autoimmune issues of any kind.