The functioning of our immune system is complex, and most descriptions of how it functions are usually difficult for the layman or non-medic to understand. I include myself in that! However, there are five things we should all know and understand about our immune system.
- Our health and well-being depends on our immune system working efficiently and well. It is what keeps us healthy, and allows us to fight off infection and disease.
- Increasingly it is not doing so. Auto-immune disease, that is diseases caused by our immune system turning against us, are rapidly expanding in number and increasing in incidence.
- Conventional medicine usually tells us that the reason for the explosion of auto-immune diseases is 'ideopathic' - that is, the causes are 'spontaneous', or unknown.
- Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are known to adversely effect the functioning of our immune system, and although rarely admitted, can often be the cause of auto-immune diseases.
- Immunotherpy is a conventional treatment of many conditions and diseases. It does so by 'inducing', 'enhancing', or 'suppressing' the body's immune response. In other words, conventional medicine actually seeks to interfere with the immune system.
In seeking to interfere with the immune system, conventional medicine is the only medical therapy to do so. In traditional or alternative medicine, in all its many forms, there is a recognition that the body will stay healthy, or will regain health, only through the its own healing mechanism, that is, through the immune system. For this reason, they all seek to support the immune system, not to change it in any way, and certainly not to outguess, to out-think or manipulate it in any way.
Autoimmune Disease
Many people will suffer from auto-immune disease without knowing it is an auto-immune disease! It can affect almost any part of the body, including the heart, brain, nerves, muscles, skin, eyes, joints, lungs, kidneys, glands, the digestive tract, and blood vessels. The sheer number of diseases that are now known to fall into this category has now reached over 100, is this number is rising, year on year! For a comprehensive list of this diseases, go to Auto-immune Disease List website. Just a few of the most common ones below demonstrates how important they are, and how much they are increasing.
- Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
- Addison's disease
- Alopecia Areata
- Ankylosing spondylitis
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Autoimmune inner ear disease
- Bullous pemphigoid
- Coeliac disease
- Chagas disease
- Dermatomyositis
- Diabetes (Type 1)
- Endometriosis
- Goodpasture's syndrome
- Graves Disease
- Guillain-Barre syndrome
- Hashimoto's thyroiditis
- Hidradenitis suppurativa
- Interstitial cystitis
- Lupus
- Morphea
- Multiple sclerosis
- Myasthenia gravis
- Narcolepsy
- Necrotizing Fascitis
- Neuromyotonia
- Pemphigus Vulgaris
- Pernicious anaemia
- Polymyositis
- Prader-Willi Syndrome
- Primary biliary cirrhosis
- Psoriasis
- Retts Syndrome
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Schizophrenia
- Scleroderma
- Sjögren's syndrome
- Temporal arteritis ('giant cell arteritis')
- Vasculitis
- Vitiligo
- Wegener's granulomatosis
The Cause of Autoimmune Disease
Conventional medicine tells us that the reason for the explosion of auto-immune diseases is 'ideopathic'. In other words, its causes are 'spontaneous', or unknown. This HealthLine website is fairly typical of what conventional medicine tells us. It says that autoimmune disease may be caused by bacteria, or viruses, or by chemical and environmental irritants, or by drugs. But it is the explanation of autoimmune disease that is typically cited as the cause.
"An autoimmune disease develops when your immune system, which defends your body against disease, decides your healthy cells are foreign. As a result, your immune system attacks healthy cells. Depending on the type, an autoimmune disease can affect one or many different types of body tissue. It can also cause abnormal organ growth and changes in organ function."
As a description this is adequate, but as an explanation of the causes of autoimmune disease it is not. The cause is about why our immune system makes this elemental mistake? Why is it attacking healthy cells?
Any research on conventional medical websites, such as NHS Choices, will demonstrate that there is an acceptance that the cause of autoimmune disease is 'unknown'. Many forms called 'idiopathic', which now link automaticallywith the description 'iatrogenic'!
They are doctor-induced, that is, they are caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Many of the diseases were unknown before the 'Age of Drugs' that began around of middle of the mid-20th century. The rise of these diseases has mirrored the rise in our consumption of prescription drugs.
They are doctor-induced, that is, they are caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Many of the diseases were unknown before the 'Age of Drugs' that began around of middle of the mid-20th century. The rise of these diseases has mirrored the rise in our consumption of prescription drugs.
Pharmaceutical Drugs and the Immune System
Yet it is well known that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines adversely effect the functioning of our immune system. Conventional doctors know this, although they rarely admit it, or warn us before prescribing them. Certain drugs are known to cause autoimmune disease through knowledge of their 'side effects.
- Antibiotics. Many autoimmune diseases, like allergies, psoriasis, irritable bowl, et al., are known to start in the gut, where the bacteria residing there are needed to undertake important functions in digesting food. They have been compromised, targeted by antibiotics, whose task is to kill bacteria, good and bad, useful and necessary, and usually do so quite indescriminently.
- Vaccines. Vaccines, of all kinds, introduce toxins that are known to destroy the functioning of the immune system. This is achieved by injecting poisonous substances, like embalming fluid, and toxic heavy metals like mercury or aluminium, into the muscle tissue, whilst at the same time introducing genetically modified bacteria, live viruses, chicken embryos and aborted fetal proteins into the body! Scientists have known about the connection between autoimmune diseases and vaccination for many years. In the February 2000 issue of the magazine Autoimmunity, ten research articles evaluated the causal link between vaccinations and autoimmune disease.
- Other Drugs. There are several specific pharmaceutical drugs that are known to upset the immune system. These include Alferon N, Inerferon Alfa, Infergen, Intron A, PegIntron, Roferon-A. Yet it is likely that most pharmaceutical drugs can cause autoimmune disease, and to discover which ones are responsible it is probably better to look at the specific autoimmune condition involved.
- Other causes. There are many other factors known to compromise our immune system, including a diet high in sugar, fluoride in our water supply, and pesticides in our food.
Maybe these drugs and vaccines affect our immune system by accident rather than design, they are the 'unintended consequence', they cause 'collateral damage' to patients when doctors are treating other conditions! Perhaps they are a 'side effect', in the way conventional medicine always uses that rather ineffectual and inadequate term! But the failure of conventional medicine to diagnose the problem leads to even more problems.
Immunotherapy
The conventional medical establishment knowingly, willingly, intentionally targets the immune system in order to combat autoimmune disease. Immunotherapy treats cancer, through drugs that attempt to 'stimulate' the immune system to destroy tumours. Immuno-suppressive drugs are used following organ transplants, and to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases. Immunotherapy is used to treat allergies by seeking to 'reduce the sensitivity' of the immune system to allergens.
Immunotherapy is used mainly to reduce or suppress the immune response. The reason for doing so is that the immune system is seen to be attacking the body, in one way or another. Unfortunately conventional medicine does not ask 'why' the immune system is doing so? Indeed, it usually says it does not know why! It is deemed good enough that they have observed that the immune system is not working correctly, so it needs to be suppressed!
Immunotherapy drugs are an attempt to treat illnesses and diseases that have been caused by a faulty immune system - to stop the development of cancerous cells, to respond to allergens that an already compromised immune system is failing to recognise, to replace organs that no longer function properly, usually after many years of treatment with pharmaceutical drugs.
Yet the suppression of the immune system by powerful drugs absolutely fails to address the root cause, which is a faulty immune system! It is a strategy akin to taking a painkiller because of a painful foot after we have stood on a nail that is penetrating in it. Logically, the first thing to do is to remove the nail, not to prescribe painkillers! The first reaction to autoimmune disease, and a faulty immune system, is not to suppress it, but to find out why it is not working properly!
Conventional medicine has many pharmaceutical drugs that are specifically designed to suppress the immune system, including azathioprine, chlorambucil, cyclophosphamide, cyclosporine, mycophenolate, methotrexate and many others. Corticosteroids, such as prednisone, are immunosuppressants drugs, used to relieve inflammatory illnesses, but which, when taken over a long period, have many serious side effects. They all seek to undermine the body's ability to defend itself against foreign substances and microorganisms. As a result they increase the risk of serious infections and cancer.
So, pharmaceutical drugs are not only a cause of autoimmune diseases, but faced with them, conventional medicine introduces more pharmaceutical drugs to treat them! This demonstrates that conventional medicine is not just an ineffective medical system, but one that actually creates disease, and then profits from the new disease by introducing more drugs!
Vaccination is immunotherapy too, this time by introducing infectious agents to artificially activate the immune system. In this sense, vaccines are used by a medical system that has no confidence in the immune system to cope with the rigours of staying healthy, of protecting itself from infectious disease, without the direct intervention of doctors, who (of course) know better is needed than our own bodies!
There are many non-medical ways of boosting our immunity, and supporting our immune system. They include regular exercise, exposure to sunlight, vitamin D supplements, and a good diet, rich in herbs and spices, reducing stress, and getting plenty of rest and good sleep.
But perhaps the best way of supporting our immune system is to avoid conventional medicine, and pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. If you are already on conventional medication, insist that your doctor works with you to get you off them. Then seek a homeopath, or a naturopath, or some other traditional therapist, to support your immune system.
To keep yourself regularly informed about the failings of the conventional medial system, and to search for safer, more effective medical treatment, click on 'follow this blog' to the right of this blog. This will notify you whenever new blogs are published.
To keep yourself regularly informed about the failings of the conventional medial system, and to search for safer, more effective medical treatment, click on 'follow this blog' to the right of this blog. This will notify you whenever new blogs are published.
