Re: canary concept

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

> I watched CFS go through my community and strike down the very people that the

> canary concept would say to be the last ones to be hit,

I'm glad you wrote that. I've also observed that sometimes it's the

healthiest, happiest most vivacious people who are hit.

Sue B.,

Upstate New York

[Guest guest]

The weird way that yellow fever moved through families in panama

bedeviled physicians who tried ferociously to apply the canary

concept until the mosquito was identified as a vector.

But until then, they beat the canaries to death.

Even better is the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

It seemed certain to everyone that mortality must be highest in

sickly people, until the theory was compared to the facts.

To the vast surprise of all, it was military men between 19 and 29

years of age in the best physical condition who had the highest death

rate.

We know now that it is the very strength of the immune response that

caused this seemingly impossible contradiction to the accepted model

of illness.

Anybody who witnessed CFS clusters gets to see how amazingly opposite

the canary concept is to actual reality. But if you weren't in a

cluster, just read about the Royal Free Hospital outbreak in which

the student nurses in the prime of their lives were dropping like

flies while the patients in the hospital (presumably sick) didn't get

the illness.

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[Guest guest]

> One further point is that some of us, me included, have offered some

> points for your consideration but you do not really respond to them

or

> change your argument. This gives the impression that you are not

> discussing -- the purpose of this group -- but propagandising, and

that

> doesn't move us forward.

> Rob

No, I only change my views when my argument has been superceded by

evidence.

For example, I heard a chiropracter's theory that CFS was caused by

chronic inflammation from substance P arising from a subluxations in

the spine which came from poor posture which was caused by flat feet

and that CFS could be cured by orthotics.

Those people with flat feet could say " This applies to me " but

everybody with CFS who doesn't can pretty much conclude that the

theory " doesn't fit the facts " .

The " Type A " personality correlation theory, which is directly

responsible for the creation of the name " Yuppie Flu " was also beat

to death for a while. All it took was for a few children to get CFS

to see that they did not fit the profile and so this was another

theory that didn't fit the facts.

Of course if you are a " Yuppie " you might say " Well it agrees with MY

experience, so you have no right to argue with it " .

Sure I do.

If we agree that non Yuppies are suffering from the same illness,

then that theory is demolished unless people want to start arguing

that children of Yuppies are genetic Yuppies and therefore have the

same Type A Yuppie Gene that creates CFS.

Insisting that " The Theory must fit the facts - All the Facts! " is

hardly propagandizing.

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[Guest guest]

> There will be no single etiological theory while the patient

population

> remains so diverse and I certainly don't propose one.

>

> Rob

Rob,

talking about single etiology. I was read an article written by Dr

Reid and he was talking about the present thinking is that

different forms of cancer being caused by different causes. He talked

pleomorphic bacteria, which can change to a virus, fungus, etc.,

being able to cause colon cancer, a brain tumor or rectal cancer. He

said the different genetics and immune system can dictate what form

of cancer a person gets. Now he said this kind of thinking is

unaccepted in the medical community. He may be wrong. If so, the HIV

virus could cause AIDS in one person, CFS in another, MS in another.

I had never heard of pleomorphic bacteria until I read and email from

a CFS specialist in the UK say he thought CFS was caused by

pleobacteria so I spent 5-6 hours seaching the net and reading about

it. Pleobacteria is accepted in the medical community, just not that

it can cause different illnesses. I also read yesterday that new

research has shown that healthy people can have pathogens in their

blood and not be ill. Others had the same pathogen and were ill. It

was according to genetics and immune system as to whether a person

got ill or not. Neither of my first two wives ever got CFS yet most

mates do??

Rob, I am not scientifically minded as you are, but I have opinions

based on what I experience, see and read. I have have always felt

that the different subsets could have the same cause but different

syptoms. I believe that when people with HIV get AIDS, they get

different symptoms don't they? when I say the same thing please keep

in mind that I consider that different pathogens can cause the

degradation of STAT1 (which gets very little talk anymore, yet it is

proven that an AIDS patients DIES when he/she loses all of the

STAT1), the RNase L pathway and p53 pathway. Heck if pleomorphic

bacteria is causing CFS, it can change into anything.

Bob H.

[Guest guest]

You can ignore the facts if you wish to indulge yourself in a belief

system. Of course that is your right.

But if you want to apply logic to this issue you must either provide

an explanation for the statistical improbability of canaries grouping

in clusters and clarify the seeming contradiction that those with

known immunosuppressive conditions escaped illness while those who

meet our model for " apparent health " succumbed.

The nurse students at Royal Free became ill by the hundreds.

The patients did not.

Explain this or quit trying to apply the " canary concept-illness

strikes the weakest first concept " .

As far as Lapp's personality profile.

This was attempted and discarded immediately after the illness was

called " Yuppie Flu " and before " CFS " because it did not fit the facts.

" Couch Potatoes " who acquired neurocognitive impairment consisting of

a type of immobilizing sensation so severe that we have no word in

our language to try to convey it, swollen glands, inability to walk

to the refrigerator for snacks, sore throat, photophobia that made

watching television impossible and memory loss that made it worthless

since they couldn't remember what they just saw felt that their lives

were just as disrupted as anybody else.

The " Yuppie " difference came down to ability to pay for an endless

stream of doctors until one of them quit saying that it was all in

your head.

People of limited financial means generally gave up after a half a

dozen tries.

The proposal that CFS is less disruptive to a less active person

could only have been promulgated or propitiated by someone who never

felt the full force of the type of illness that was described in the

Incline Village epidemic.

Only someone who confuses CFS for chronic fatigue could believe this

personality correlation concept for an instant.

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