November 03, 2005

• My money's on this guy: Sorry! I *had* to do it!
• It is really interesting (and it made me cry). Thank you for posting it.
• Wow.
• Fascinating, and sad.
• Yes, interesting and sad. And frightening.
• Of all the great multitude of people that died on that day, you picked that one I gather because the reason for the death was a mystery. Every death is a mystery, though to feel empathy it is easier to pick one specific death. But why feel sad?
• Very interesting, thanks, meredithea.
• I just finished reading all five parts to the story. It's touching and sad, and a medical mystery. Sorry if I offended anyone with my earlier joke comment.
• Whatever killed him is chilling. If something like that was contagious its lethality would be very high.
• Definitely a sad story. All the way through, though, I was thinking, I bet this shows up on House soon. Wonder what caused his antibodies to go so haywire, poor kid.
• The articles referred to it obliquely but a lot of auto-immune diseases are triggered by an infection of some sort. The body gets its hackles up and starts attacking itself in addition to the infection. This is also one of the reasons why the coroner/pathologist was looking for signs of infection.
• It would be so terrifying to never know what the cause was. Was it genetic? Some other relatives had died of strange diseases. I guess it's possible the coroner had guessed on the other death certificates. I'd be afraid to have kids if I were related.
• MJ is right, if this were contagious, we'd be so in the shit. I'm thinking that autoimmune problems are on the rise. Granted, cause of death in the past would have been problematic to diagnose, but I still think our bodies are telling us that we've really fupped up where we live, and it's tough to keep the interior ecosystem working right when the exterior isn't in good shape. What a horrible way to die.
• BlueHorse, perhaps it's just the opposite. Perhaps our environments are so clean, so sterile compared to what most humans had to live in only a hundred years ago. Perhaps our immune systems, without anything disease-related to attack, decide to attack what's around. I've read that children kept in very clean environments are actually more likely to develop autoimmune problems and severe allergies than children kept in less sterile places. You can think all you want that your "exterior ecosystem" is in bad shape, and in some ways it is, but most of those ways are in a long-term sort of way -- ozone depletion and global warming aren't really things our bodies care too much about. Only a hundred years ago or so, people were breathing shitloads of coal dust and drinking untreated water with fecal contamination on a regular basis. They had no refrigeration, and meat was spiced to cover the unmistakable odor of rot. The vast majority of people worked 10-14 hour days, and sometimes longer. People dumped their waste into the streets and bathed once a month, if that. They had lice and fleas, and would wear the same clothing for weeks on end. They had no antibiotic soap, no hand sanitizer, no toothpaste as we know it. Believe me, your body isn't being faced with anywhere near the environmental onslaught your great-great-grandparents' bodies faced.
• My mom is convinced that all antibacterial products will do is create lots of resistant strains of bacteria. tracicle: I thought the same thing about House, except that he'd get to solve things.
• meredithea, your mom may be right.
• Humans (and every other animal) evolved in a world full of waste, dirty water, and dirty living spaces. Our immune systems were designed to be tough -- but there's nothing worth fighting anymore. It's little wonder that an immune system, which has as its sole purpose to kill things, would fulfill its purpose one way or another.
• Excellent reminder, Mel! No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Very true. I still think that mankind could have scrabbled around for another million years under those conditions, but we may be wiping ourselves out completely with plastics pollution, radiation, BSE, PCBs, and other nastiness that there's no going back from.