tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post4418237176648087393..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Is asthma 'catching'? Is everything? Who said we'd defeated infectious disease?Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-9599006781601243302010-11-30T08:15:10.633-05:002010-11-30T08:15:10.633-05:00Just a slight correction -- the title of this post...Just a slight correction -- the title of this post is a little misleading. The idea isn't that asthma is caused by a bacterium in the way that, say, the flu is. Rather it's that there's something about the immune response to either a deficit of microbe exposure (is there really such a thing, though, outside of a literally sterile bubble?) or to a subset of microbes inhabiting someone presumably predisposed that leads to asthma, the hyper reactive inflammatory response in the lungs. <br /><br />This isn't as surprising as, say, Ewald's idea that homosexuality is infectious, because asthma has long been known to involve an immune response, but it could at least lead the hunt away from genes 'for' the disorder and back in the direction of an environmental trigger as primary.Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.com