Reflections on the Epidemiology of the Immune System

The following reflections are intuitive considerations of the above findings. AIDS and Chagas’ disease have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the immune system and immunopathology. In Western allopathic medicine, diseases are caused by viruses, bacteria, and parasites; the cure is to rid oneself of the organism. The miracle drugs of the twentieth century have been the antibiotics, which are very successful for lysing bacterial infections but less so for viruses, and they are ineffective for parasites. Trypanicides were developed to lyse trypanosomes of T. cruzi, but they have met with less than satisfactory results.

By the turn of the millennium, super‑bacteria, viruses, and parasites have emerged unscathed by antibiotics. Simple principles of natural selection explain this: antibiotics essentially select individuals of the species that are resistant to the drugs; when they reproduce, they pass on these selective features to their offspring. The unwarranted use of antibiotics in Western culture has led to their increasing ineffectiveness and to the evolution of superpathogens. This unwarranted use has also led to humans being less dependent upon their immune systems.

With Chagas’ disease and AIDS, researchers have learned much more about the human immune system and how this system is responsible for illnesses. We are also learning how to live with immune‑driven diseasesdiabetes, rheumatism, AIDS, and Chagas’ diseaseand how to build up the immune system by alternative methods of therapy, including dieting, meditation, ritual, and use of herbal medicines. The paradigm of health is changing from that of allopathic medicine, where we lyse the causal agent, to one of immunopathic medicine.

Immunopathic medicine includes figuring out ways to build up our immune system and to help it deal with the realities of our bodies and the organisms within them. Health is learning how to live with what you have. This alternative way of health is not very attractive for those who want the technical quick cure of a drug or vaccine to destroy the pathogen; but, as we have seen, this does not work with Chagas’ disease, among others.