From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Yes, They DO Work!
Date: 13 Feb 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids

In <19970212180300.NAA29559@ladder01.news.aol.com> getwell@aol.com (Get
Well) writes:
>
>Dave Crowe wrote:
>>
>>Is it the addition of the Crixivan ...
>>or the subtraction of the AZT?
>>
>>- Dave Crowe
>
>It was the addition of Crixivan.  Read my post again. I never said that I
>stopped AZT. Still taking it.  Dave, are you actually admitting that
>Crixivan works?


   Of course not.  His next theory is that the Crixivan is destroying
the AZT in your body, or something.  Dispite no lack of evidence for
anything of the sort.  Heretics always have a theory.

   Lately, we've seen postings on experiments where rats were given
chemicals and then later psyched into some immune suppression.  But it
was pretty mild immune suppression.   There is the claim that some
animals died from it.  Sorry, no documentation of that.  That's
mytholology (very appropriate, considering our subject).

   As for the widow effect in humans, it is seen in some studies, not
others (in others, widows' health IMPROVES after husbands die).  There
isn't much doubt that there is a widowER effect, in which men whose
wives die have poorer health.  But you can think of a lot of reasons
other than esoteric mind-body interactions why this should be true.



                                    Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Yes, They DO Work!
Date: 14 Feb 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids

In <3303AAED.6B64@mail.earthlink.net> Wally Boulton
<wallyb@mail.earthlink.net> writes:

>James Scutero wrote (speaking about an experiment with rats):
>
>> The hapless animals had come to believe the sweet water was
>> making them sick.
>
>I had no idea rats had such incredible reasoning powers!
>
>Wally


   Maybe, maybe not.  The reasoning powers here are not that
incredible.  Do rats reason?  In a way.  Skinner would say it's
probably inappropriate to speak of what rats "believe," but no
enthusiastic dog owner I know of will tell you that it's irrational to
speak of what a dog believes.  There are lots of instances in which you
jolly well know what the dog believes.  And rats are not that much
dumber than dogs (the neurons are more closely packed in a rat brain,
and the complexity is there).

   Avoidance conditioning simply demonstrates that a certain crude form
of "logical induction" is wired into our nervous systems right that the
synapse level, and is not a higher function at all.  That's okay with
me.  None of this means that a dog trained to salivate at a bell will
produce so much as to drown itself.  Or that an animal conditioned to
cut immune response can be conditioned into AIDS.  As well imagine that
an animal (or a human) conditioned to slow its heart rate, can be
conditioned to slow its heart down until it loses consciousness and
dies.  Nature and physiology is a bit more resiliant than that.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Yes, They DO Work!
Date: 14 Feb 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids

In <5e07eb$dmv@panix.com> jscutero@panix.com (James Scutero) writes:

>In article <5dua34$96j@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>
>			sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris) writes:
>>[...]
>>   Lately, we've seen postings on experiments where rats were given
>>chemicals and then later psyched into some immune suppression.  But it
>>was pretty mild immune suppression.   There is the claim that some
>>animals died from it.  Sorry, no documentation of that.  That's
>>mytholology (very appropriate, considering our subject).
>>[...]
>>                                    Steve Harris, M.D.
>
>The paper in question is:
>
>Ader R, Cohen N: Behaviorally conditioned immunosuppression. Pyschosomatic
>Medicine 37(4): 333-40, Jul-Aug 75.
>
>Here's what it says:
>
>(p. 333)
>From the abstract:
>
>"An illness-induced taste aversion was conditioned in rats by
>pairing saccharin with cyclophosphamide, an immunosuppressive
>agent...Conditioned animals exposed to saccharin at the time of or
>following the injection of antigen were significantly immunosuppressed.
>An illness-induced taste aversion was also conditioned using LiCl, a
>nonimmunosuppressive agent. In this instance, however, there was no
>attenuation of hemagglutinating antibody titers in response to injection
>with antigen."
>
>(p. 333)
>From the paper:
>
>"INTRODUCTION
>
>...By pairing different volumes of a preferred saccharin solution with
>a single intraperitoneal (ip) injection of 50 mg/kg cyclophosphamide
>(CY), rats acquired an aversion to the saccharin solution; the magnitude
>of the reduction in saccharin intake and the resistance to extinction of
>this aversion were directly related to the volume of saccharin consumed
>on the day of conditioning. It was also observed that some of the
>cyclophosphamide-treated animals died and that mortality rate tended to
>vary directly with the volume of saccharin originally consumed..."
>
>	Not conclusive, but interesting.
>
>On 10 Feb 1997 14:24:07 -0500, in Message-ID: <5dnskn$g0b@panix.com>
>	jscutero@panix.com (James Scutero) writes:
>
>>Mirabella
>>Jan/Feb 1997
>>
>>Health
>>
>>Don't Worry, Be Healthy?
>>Two scientists are proving the immune system isn't immune to the wear and
>>tear of everyday angst, having a fight, being a caregiver...
>>
>>Jan Jarboe Russell on the astonishing physical impact of emotions
>>[...]
>>	The first breakthrough experiment in psychoneuroimmunology was
>>published in 1975. Psychologist Robert Ader and immunologist Nicholas
>>Cohen gave rats saccharin-flavored water together with a drug that
>>temporarily suppresses the immune system. Eventually, the researchers
>>stopped spiking the water with the drug, but the rats still became ill,
>>even died. The hapless animals had come to believe the sweet water was
>>making them sick.
>>[....]
>
>-Giacomo
> Giacomo's Cabaret, http://www.panix.com/~jscutero



   Yes, and if you will read what you've posted, you will see that my
point has been made.  The stuff about "the researchers stopped spiking
the water with the drug but the animals still became ill, even died" is
utter bullshit, and is contradicted by what the paper actually says.
Which is my point.  The people who want you to believe you can hex
yourself to death immunologically will stop at nothing to convince you
of it.  They will lie.  They will misquote.  They will invoke religion
(which is what this really is, of course).  New age pap.

   I have no doubt that your mental state influences your immune
response, just as it does your heart rate (and sometimes for the same
reasons).  But the influence is relatively minor.  It's nothing like
AIDS.

                                             Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Yes, They DO Work!
Date: 15 Feb 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.aids

In <856029995snz@blackdog.demon.co.uk> john@blackdog.demon.co.uk
(himself) writes:

>sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven "Steven B. Harris" writes:
>
>>    I have no doubt that your mental state influences your immune
>> response, just as it does your heart rate (and sometimes for the same
>> reasons).  But the influence is relatively minor.  It's nothing like
>> AIDS.
>
>This just reveals the extent of Harris's ignorance about cultures
>where voodoo, bone-pointing, and auto-suggestion of various kinds
>are practiced.
>
> John


   No, it only points up YOUR ignorance of such cultures.  It is true
that if you quit eating and drinking, you die in a few weeks.  And it
is true that some people can be frightened to death.  But the one takes
a few weeks and the other happens immediately, and neither one has
anything to do with the immune system (except as starvation impacts the
immune response, I suppose).

   Further discussion by on this topic will be excepted to be
accompanied by quotes and citations from the anthropological
literature.  Otherwise, I'll ignore it.  Too often people who up here
wanting to tell me what a scientific paper says, when I know very well
it does not.  Scutero and his rat "immune training" paper being but the
latest example.

                                          Steve Harris, M.D.