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