The Infection Lobby

Tackling the mythos about the need for viral infection

“It’s not just delaying the inevitable…” “…humans have evolved to be exposed to other infections on a frequent basis.”— Anonymous immunologist comment in the news

“…there is the arrogance that avoiding colds and flu is good for us.” “…if we got fewer infections what would that mean for auto-immunity for cancer?” —Anonymous Oncologist

Lately there has been much apologism surrounding frequent infection with SARS Cov 2 and now, other infections. The points include as follows:

1) SARS Cov 2 infection avoidance postpones the inevitable

2) There may be a benefit for respiratory viral infections extending to autoimmunity and cancer

3) It’s beneficial to mount infection-based immunity for pathogens

We will examine these three points and the evidence for them. We will also speculate about the motivation for turning the tenet of infectious “disease” and immunity on its head, examining the political context of how we have arrived at this point.

On to the first: that postponing infection postpones the inevitable. This statement is simply untrue. SARS Cov 2 infection hastens death. While death and taxes are inevitabilities, one would hardly argue that tax extensions are worthless as they simply postpone the inevitable. Some people need time to get their affairs in order, and would like to remain on earth a bit longer. The dismissal of early death and the impact of SARS Cov 2 on the aged population is highly cynical. Not to mention the predominance of long covid is increasing in the West. These are people in their primes being disabled by “brain fog,” respiratory trouble, and arrhythmia, among other issues. Indeed, the united states has had its fill of “postponing the inevitable” and has taken back decades of advances in life expectancy. We can compare U.S. life expectancy to China.

Onto the second claim of a possibility of a benefit from respiratory infections in autoimmunity and cancer. Let’s use SARS Cov 2 as an example. It’s a respiratory infection and suddenly people are being reinfected an average of 16 months (this analysis is likely outdated as it should be more frequent with Omicron). There is clearly no observable benefit to SARS Cov 2 infection on the health of a person thus far, only detriments. These detriments include ongoing inflammation, a lack of dendritic cells (the cells that help initiate t cell responses- this implies cell turnover), autoantibodies, and cardiac inflammation markers. Some people lose their sense of smell. If there were any signal for a benefit from frequent respiratory infections, we certainly would have seen it with the constant waves of infection occurring. Instead we have an accelerating rate of Long Covid.

Before Covid, viral and bacterial lower respiratory infections are responsible for massive amounts of deaths in children and adults.

RSV is also known to cause recurrent wheeze later in life. Infections are not our friends.

Finally, we come to the idea that it’s beneficial to mount repeat infections as part of human development. This is untrue. Repeat infections age the immune system and the infected tissues and organs, much like sunburns prematurely age the skin. Sure, UV itself has a mutagenic effect, but the need of skin to slough and then proliferate to replace damaged tissue is similar. When infection occurs, the immune system must proliferate and then have effector cells slough. The effector T cells also do their jobs, which includes killing infected tissues. When it comes to the “benefit” of repeating infections, like from coronaviruses and influenza, less is more. Many people are exposed to these infections, but then when they age they mount a dysregulated immune response, likely due to inflammaging, and decompensate.

So how and why did we arrive to individuals apologizing for ubiquitous and frequent infection? I believe American exceptionalism is in part to blame. We are looking too hard for the “silver lining” to every policy choice we make. I understand the arguments for autonomy and individual freedom when we are faced with a choice (or rather, false dichotomy) between “lockdowns” and “freedoms,” but we should not pervert science as apologism for that policy choice. Unfortunately, absurd narratives like CO2 capturing by masks, or infection seeding from masks, or “postponing the inevitable,” have been used to fight against restrictions. How have we arrived to that point? The reason is because the fact we made a concession in life expectancy to maintain “freedoms” and consumption is uncomfortable, and the life expectancy concessions are most occurring in the exploited. Workers have been sold narratives so that they opt into their miserable lot of frequent infection. A kind of manufactured consent via propaganda, if you will.

Never before have they had the beguiled asking for more of what ails them. More Omicron is what they suggest, and we will happily have our fill.

Stay safe out there-

AJ