Re: its not as late as i thought

[Guest guest]

Uh-oh -

becarefull or you'll become jaded before you're 25 years old ( Which

was about the age my jadedness took over).

I sometimes equate the advances in medicine (sans AIDS) with the

improvements in gas mileage in American cars.

That about sums up my attitude.

Barb

>

> I was telling Scha about this today...

>

> Some part of the feeling of gleaming-kleen first-world modernity, is

> striding around invulnerable to any infection with terrible

> consequences, other than HIV or really severe herpes. It goes right

> along with shiny metal skyscrapers. Sure there are still terrible

> ailments, but the fact that they are supposedly not caused by

microbes

> is part of what separates us from the pre-WWII era. Imagine someone

in

> the US getting tuberculosis and not being able to do a hell of alot

> about it, year after year, and maybe dying in a hospital aflame with

> bacilli - its just so foreign, lies across a great divide. Germs

cant

> get across; you might become sick but it will be like the

malfunction

> of a car, not the capture of your person by enemy life as befell the

> people of history.

>

> That divide is kinda bridged when you look across the doctors

waiting

> room at someone with a way swollen joint and ponder how vastly much

of

> contemporary sickness from mental illness to lupus to MS could be

> caused by cryptic infections we cant treat so well, except in a

lucky

> percentage. All of a sudden 2005 doesnt feel so futuristic anymore,

> and you could almost be sitting in a TB sanatorium where people

tried

> to control their infections using therapies of limited power, in a

> time only older people of today can personally attest. Tho I dont

> know what chance those treatments gave those people, so the analogy

> may be only approximate.

>

> Hopefully one day todays idiopathic inflammations will be as curable

> as TB is now, and our travails will in turn be part of what flavors

> this period as before-I-was-born to someone of the future. Meanwhile

> 2005 really looks slightly quainter and dustier to me since

> considering its probable " tuberculousness " ; out of the corner of my

> eye I seem to notice a glassiness familiar from TV footage from the

> 60s, or a lilt of the spectrum like in an aged photograph - in low

> light, maybe even a pervading tint of sepia. The genomic era of

> medicine seems less of a tangible era, at least to date, as fine and

> eventually maybe useful as it is to know that the HLA-DR*0-whatever

> allele is a 1.7x risk factor for RA in Scandanavians, and one

zillion

> similar findings. Its a bold new era thats yet to produce any great

> new pills to mark it. Meanwhile the electron microscope may yet

> disclose further revelations to shake medicine, despite being a

hoary

> old invention that can reminisce about the pre-antibiotic age.

Perhaps

> someday soon, in a perfect sequel, it will once again disclose the

> nanometers of certain beasts even as chemotherapy learns to burn

them

> out of human flesh - events which roughly coincided when they

happened

> last century. I wonder if my grandparents knew anyone messed up with

> TB when they were kids in the 30s... well its been a few years and

now

> they know me, messed up with something of debatable pathology that

> doxy and tini and ceftriaxone may or may not finish off. Maybe I

> should like, read The Magic Mountain or something. Bah.

>

> What it must have been like to get unexpectedly cured of TB in 6

> months after years of greuling suffering - if indeed the development

> of effective tx combos was precipitous enough for it to happen like

> that. Imagine the continuous soaked-clothes chill and chap of these

> cytokines drying up. Im surprised a joy so immense isnt more

> prominently proclaimed in literature and culture, with more

> elaboration and subjectivity than just the succinct image of Jesus

> cleansing the leper. Muir profoundly re-aimed his life after 10

> terrible days of thinking hed never get back his sight, which he

did.

> Ten days blindness is just the kind of 60-volt kick in the ass

> everyone in the world should only be so lucky to get. Twenty days

> might even be better. A year tho, thats really pushing it past

> optimum... by then the soul will see its moments of imploring fate

all

> too wretchedly, reducedly, trampled as should not be... thats the

> experience of someone sick a mere 1.5 years. Well, here comes at

least

> some more of the same... thru which I lust like a boar for the

ecstacy

> of restoration, something towards which we all pay heartbreaking

sums

> with zero assurance of ever getting it. So we certainly have to live

> on the way for something more solid than that inevaluable hope of

> cure, tho for me that hope will always have to be first and last.

[Guest guest]

I am so glad you wrote this up. It catches something so well. To me,

it doesn't have to do with cynicism so much as measuring the

appearance of progress against the reality, with an effect almost

like 3D glasses - what looked flat acquires a new dimension.

I do rather like Barb's summation of recent medical progress.

Reminds me of a news story I read recently, about a study on the

meager percentage of prescription drugs patented in the last few

decades that actually contribute to better health.

But what you're talking about is something else, I think. A mood

less cynical than bemused.

One of the things about the days when diseases were known to be

terrible, wild beasts on the loose is that everyone feared them,

knew that they were vulnerable. Today that universal sense of

vulnerability to microbial predators has yielded to a carving up of

the population by " risk factor " and a corresponding temptation to

seal ourselves off from threats we (quite wrongly, as one sees with

Lyme) imagine do not touch us.

What Tansy talked about in her post on ME/CFS in the UK, this

absolute revel in blaming the victim and creating a new disposable

population, is the kind of idiocy that only takes place when people

have lost their shared sense of human vulnerability. If medicine

were actually accomplishing as much as its marketing suggests...but

it is not.

What came through most strongly for me reading your post was the

sense of compassion, that flows when the cracks in our progress

stand starkly revealed.

Had a plume of lavender smoke arisen from the Vatican, announcing

the election of Pope scha, I would have had something to say

about that...but it wouldn't have been as powerful or affecting as

this portrait in sepia.

>

> I was telling Scha about this today...

>

> Some part of the feeling of gleaming-kleen first-world modernity,

is

> striding around invulnerable to any infection with terrible

> consequences, other than HIV or really severe herpes. It goes right

> along with shiny metal skyscrapers. Sure there are still terrible

> ailments, but the fact that they are supposedly not caused by

microbes

> is part of what separates us from the pre-WWII era. Imagine

someone in

> the US getting tuberculosis and not being able to do a hell of alot

> about it, year after year, and maybe dying in a hospital aflame

with

> bacilli - its just so foreign, lies across a great divide. Germs

cant

> get across; you might become sick but it will be like the

malfunction

> of a car, not the capture of your person by enemy life as befell

the

> people of history.

>

> That divide is kinda bridged when you look across the doctors

waiting

> room at someone with a way swollen joint and ponder how vastly

much of

> contemporary sickness from mental illness to lupus to MS could be

> caused by cryptic infections we cant treat so well, except in a

lucky

> percentage. All of a sudden 2005 doesnt feel so futuristic anymore,

> and you could almost be sitting in a TB sanatorium where people

tried

> to control their infections using therapies of limited power, in a

> time only older people of today can personally attest. Tho I dont

> know what chance those treatments gave those people, so the analogy

> may be only approximate.

>

> Hopefully one day todays idiopathic inflammations will be as

curable

> as TB is now, and our travails will in turn be part of what flavors

> this period as before-I-was-born to someone of the future.

Meanwhile

> 2005 really looks slightly quainter and dustier to me since

> considering its probable " tuberculousness " ; out of the corner of my

> eye I seem to notice a glassiness familiar from TV footage from the

> 60s, or a lilt of the spectrum like in an aged photograph - in low

> light, maybe even a pervading tint of sepia. The genomic era of

> medicine seems less of a tangible era, at least to date, as fine

and

> eventually maybe useful as it is to know that the HLA-DR*0-whatever

> allele is a 1.7x risk factor for RA in Scandanavians, and one

zillion

> similar findings. Its a bold new era thats yet to produce any great

> new pills to mark it. Meanwhile the electron microscope may yet

> disclose further revelations to shake medicine, despite being a

hoary

> old invention that can reminisce about the pre-antibiotic age.

Perhaps

> someday soon, in a perfect sequel, it will once again disclose the

> nanometers of certain beasts even as chemotherapy learns to burn

them

> out of human flesh - events which roughly coincided when they

happened

> last century. I wonder if my grandparents knew anyone messed up

with

> TB when they were kids in the 30s... well its been a few years and

now

> they know me, messed up with something of debatable pathology that

> doxy and tini and ceftriaxone may or may not finish off. Maybe I

> should like, read The Magic Mountain or something. Bah.

>

> What it must have been like to get unexpectedly cured of TB in 6

> months after years of greuling suffering - if indeed the

development

> of effective tx combos was precipitous enough for it to happen like

> that. Imagine the continuous soaked-clothes chill and chap of these

> cytokines drying up. Im surprised a joy so immense isnt more

> prominently proclaimed in literature and culture, with more

> elaboration and subjectivity than just the succinct image of Jesus

> cleansing the leper. Muir profoundly re-aimed his life after

10

> terrible days of thinking hed never get back his sight, which he

did.

> Ten days blindness is just the kind of 60-volt kick in the ass

> everyone in the world should only be so lucky to get. Twenty days

> might even be better. A year tho, thats really pushing it past

> optimum... by then the soul will see its moments of imploring fate

all

> too wretchedly, reducedly, trampled as should not be... thats the

> experience of someone sick a mere 1.5 years. Well, here comes at

least

> some more of the same... thru which I lust like a boar for the

ecstacy

> of restoration, something towards which we all pay heartbreaking

sums

> with zero assurance of ever getting it. So we certainly have to

live

> on the way for something more solid than that inevaluable hope of

> cure, tho for me that hope will always have to be first and last.

[Guest guest]

Well then... maybe the new gas-electric hybrids augur something good

The AIDS drugs do seem generally impressive, I forgot those. Gives one

hope that great effort can yield.

Too bad the various persuasions of basic borreliosis biology research

dont seem to duke it out, discuss with one another in publsihed

correspondnace etc. That kind of argument is at least present in lyme

clinical treatment evaluation research, even if little consensus seems

to be coming out of it.

Whats jades me most is the irrational non-reception of the

Wirostko/ work, which I think is the best and completest work

in cryptic bacterial infection. Bah. Hrmph.

<egroups1bp@y...> wrote:

>

> Uh-oh -

> becarefull or you'll become jaded before you're 25 years old ( Which

> was about the age my jadedness took over).

>

> I sometimes equate the advances in medicine (sans AIDS) with the

> improvements in gas mileage in American cars.

>

> That about sums up my attitude.

> Barb

>