obsession with avoiding health risks

Obsession with avoiding health risks is unhealthy

According to The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), 1 in

5 Americans suffer from allergies or asthma. More Americans than ever

before say they are suffering from allergies. Allergy is among the

country's most common, yet often overlooked, diseases.

And the picture is similar in other developed countries. Allergies are

more and more widespread in the Western world, whereas they are not

common in poor countries. Children, in particular, seem to be more and

more prone to allergies in rich nations.

Allergies are often considered a minor ailment, but the truth is that

they can be very serious, and sometimes fatal.

Although allergies have a genetic component, a shift in the human gene

pool is an unlikely explanation for the increased prevalence of

allergies, because it would require several generations and a much

longer time.

The explanation of this increase could be that our immune system has

lost its power, due to over-sterilization and eccess of hygiene.

Basically, allergies are an overreaction of the immune system to

practically harmless substances (the `allergens') that should not

cause a reaction. They are a disease of the immune system.

The immune system has the function to free our bodies of bacteria,

viruses, cancer cells, microscopic parasites, fungal spores: any body

that shoundn't be there. Aids is what happens when the immune system

cannot perform its task. Allergy is the opposite: it's what happens

when the immune system becomes over-sensitive and over-performs.

Why should allergies be increasing? A theory proposed, the Hygiene

Hypothesis, says that inadequate exposure to genuinely harmful agents

leads to immune dysfunction. Under normal circumstances, the immune

system is exposed to various viral, bacterial and other challenges,

getting strengthened after successful defenses. Today's

over-cleanliness and phobias of germs have minimized these

opportunities.

Supporting evidence is ample. Children who have had early infections

manifest less tendency to allergies. Populations in which parasitic

infestation is common show lower levels of hay fever and asthma.

People who have had measles have fewer allergies, as do children who

have multiple siblings and therefore more infections in childhood.

New Scientist magazine reported a discovery that microorganisms found

in dirt influence maturation of the immune system. The lack of

connection with these organisms through soil may be the reason why

allergies, bowel diseases, chronic fatigue and other immune disorders

are now reaching epidemic proportions.

This is to me one of the classical cases of defeating the object.

Parents are particularly prone to this kind of obsession with

protecting their children from any possible risk, as the furore in the

UK about MMR vaccine's alleged link with autism has shown, leading to

decrease in vaccination and increase in diseases.

But it is a common trend.

The problem is that we obviously cannot live in a risk-free

environment, and we should instead learn to accept and live with the

risks, and perhaps develop a more intelligent understanding of risk

assessment, based on reason rather than emotion.

How does all this relate to the issue of animal experimentation?

I think there's a lesson to be learned from the allergies case.

There was a time when people sacrificed animals to the gods

(tragically, they still do in some religions and in certain parts of

the world), in the hope that the sacrifices would deliver them from

evils.

The times have changed, but the hope that sacrificing somebody else,

someone who cannot defend himself, will save us is still present.

Animal experimentation is the heir to the ritual sacrifice. And

similarly it is founded on an attitude which, rather than accepting

risks and developing a rational method to control them, relies on an

emotionally charged hope of protection and salvation by

risk-displacement, by transferring the risks on someone else.

posted by Of Human and Non-Human Animals at 9:47 AM

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