Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site bbncc5.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.med Subject: Re: RABIES IS A PSYCHOSOMATIC DISEASE ! Message-ID: <475@bbncc5.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 00:52:59 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncc5.475 Posted: Wed Aug 21 00:52:59 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 22-Aug-85 08:37:48 EDT References: <2062@ukma.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA Lines: 22 One wonders what point Stoll is dancing around here: first AIDS, now rabies, all tied together with this theory of stress. Without disregarding other people's questions for references to validate the study you mention, let's assume it is true--it sounds reasonable to me. How does this reflect at all on human beings and clinical medicine? Are you really willing to be left untreated after a bite by a rabid animal, I mean, except perhaps for these postings, you're 99% "stress-free", right? Or how about that challenge that Gordon gave you for a blood transfusion from a person with AIDS? Why not? You, of the even demeanor and robust immune system, what would you EVER have to worry about? Let's face it: Stoll is trying to invert logic to grind his axe: while it's an interesting testable hypothesis to claim that "stress" decreases the effectiveness of the immune system and potentiates infectious disease, provided we could ever define "stress" appropriately, it does not follow AT ALL that lack of stress is somehow protective against infection, and this observation is USELESS clinically in the treatment of disease, and downright dangerous as the primary method in prevention. -- /Steve Dyer {harvard,seismo}!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer sdyer@bbncc5.ARPA