Your Immune System is Your Best Defense!
Pamela A. Popper, President
Wellness Forum Health
Humans have been exposed to pathogens and germs and viruses during our entire history, and we survived as a species because we have amazingly effective immune systems. The ancient Greeks were aware of this; Thucydides and others wrote about people who recovered from the plague and then developed lifelong immunity.
Most people know little about the human immune system, which is why it is so easy to scare people about the potential for serious illness from viruses and other pathogens. In my experience, more knowledge leads to less fear, so a short lesson in immunology is in order.
The immune system is comprised of organs, tissues and circulating cells that can recognize and remember millions of different pathogens. The first line of defense is innate (or natural) immunity; the second is acquired or adaptive immunity.
The innate immune system is comprised of cells and proteins that are always ready to fight microbes and infection. These cells kill pathogens directly and immediately, and they slow the spread of infection until the adaptive immune system can be engaged. The adaptive immune system involves the production of a specific antibody for each pathogen. After an infection is cleared, “pathogenic memory” offers protection for the future. Should the same pathogen be encountered again, the response will be even faster.
When the human genome was sequenced for the first time in 2001, there were several surprises. One was that an analysis of genetic sequences showed that human DNA derived from viruses comprised approximately 9%, and that about 34% of the genome is comprised of virus-like particles called retrotransposons. In other words, humans are made up, in part, of viral material![1] This shows that we have lived with viruses for a long, long time and most likely will live with them for as long as humans inhabit the earth.
Herd immunity develops when a significant percentage of the population becomes infected with a virus and develops antibodies. These people will not become sick again if exposed to the virus again. This provides protection to people who are not immune to the disease because those who are immune will no longer spread the disease. it is thought that if 50%-70% of a population has become immune, the population has developed herd immunity, and the virus can no longer be spread, including to those people who have compromised immune systems.
Some researchers, like Gabriela Gomes, professor of mathematics and statistics at Strathclyde University, report that the threshold for herd immunity to COVID-19 is as low as 20%, and that we may already have reached it. This is due to the fact that so many people have had prior exposure to coronaviruses, and this provides some immunity.[2] Researchers at Oxford agree, and report that in addition to many people already achieving immunity, some people are just naturally resistant to all types of infections.[3]
Virologists like Anthony Fauci, if they were doing their jobs properly, would be reassuring the public that most of us have little to fear from viruses in general and from SARS-CoV-2 specifically. But due to their agenda, which has nothing to do with public health, they ignore this information. They also ignore important studies like the one conducted in Israel that showed that natural immunity which develops after SARS-CoV-2 infection is much more powerful than immunity from COVID vaccines.
Researchers from Maccabi and Tel Aviv University reported that never-infected people who received vaccinations in January and February 2021 were between six and thirteen times more likely to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 than unvaccinated people who were previously infected and recovered. Additionally, the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 was 27 times higher and the risk of hospitalization was eight times higher in vaccinated people than for unvaccinated people.
The authors wrote, “This analysis demonstrated that natural immunity affords longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease, and hospitalization due to the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity.”[4]
Can you think of any reasonable explanation for ignoring this information and refusing to consider natural immunity as an alternative to injections that seem to cause more illness than they prevent? Too bad the media does not ask our rulers these types of questions. We used to be able to count on the media to hold public officials accountable for the actions they take. Apparently now it is up to us to do so.
Ready to get involved? Send an email to pampopper@msn.com.
[1] Frank Ryan. I, Virus: Why You’re Only Half Human. New Scientist Jan 29 2010
[2] James Hambiln A New Understanding of Herd Immunity. The Atlantic July 13 2020 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/ accessed 9.2.2020
[3] Lourenco J, Pinotti F, Thompson C, Gupta S. “The impact of hot resistance on cumulative mortality and the threshold of herd immunity for SARS-CoV-2.” medRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154294
[4] Gazit S, Schlezinger R, Perez G et al. “Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections.” medRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415