As a scientist by training, I am frequently frustrated by how little our understanding of disease mechanism still is. Of course, I would not have been so frustrated had I not got a two-year old who seems to be getting sick more often than his peers - or is it just my imagination?
I heard that some kids just never get sick, from the first day they enter daycare which is an incubator of all kinds of nasty germs and viruses. What's the reason? Supposedly some people's immune systems do not mount a response to most of the viruses, and therefore they don't get sick even though they might be carrying the viruses. In that case, it seems "building up the immune system" (the argument for putting Winston in daycare at the tender age of two) is the wrong argument. Winston seems to be a kid with an active immune system (well, his food allergy shows that he's allergic to even harmless nuts). Therefore, shouldn't I have waited until he's three years old with much more robust health and a big vocabulary to start him in school? Presumably by then, he will learn to tell how he feels when he gets sick, which will enable the adults to better treat him. In addition, he will have grown a lot bigger and taller, which might make him stronger overall in health to battle with the germs and viruses when they attack. And hopefully by that time, he will understand instructions on keeping his hands clean or correlations between catching a cold and wearing too little or wearing wet clothes. But who knows the answers anyways, especially since every kid is different genetically?
At times like this, I feel frustrated that there is not enough money going into biomedical research (especially immunology) or drug R&D. I guess I am in the right industry (for me) after all...
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