autoimmunity

Every time I see an ad for some remedy that "Helps BOOST the Immune System!"  I die a little inside. It's not just that these products are often homeopathic bull*, but (as I've mentioned before), boosting the immune system can actually be a terrible idea. The immune system is a finely tuned instrument, and too much can be just as bad too little. Too much immune activation leads to allergies and autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS) or lupus. We don't know exactly why, but the prevalence of  these "hyperinflammtory disorders," where the immune system is over-active, are on the rise…
Sometimes I feel like Dug, the talking dog in the movie Up, in that when it comes to blogging I'm often easily distracted. The reason I say this is because there's been a "viral" (if you can call it that) video floating around the antivaccine quackery blogosphere that antivaccinationists are passing around as though it's slam-dunk evidence that vaccines aren't safe. It's called the Chalkboard Campaign: Basically, it's one long series of chalkboard images touting pseudoscience and antivaccine misinformation over and over again, all over a sappy pop music soundtrack, using the tag line from…