Re: Can Somebody Explain this to me . . . .

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In my opinion, the attached post conflates two issues, and I will try to separate them.



1.  Psychosomatic illness is real illness, and recently has been quite successfully treated with psychiatry (I heard a piece about this on National Public Radio,that "liberal" pinko radionetwork). When I say successfully, it appears that the patients really do feel better and really do stop going from doctor to doctor trying to find the cause of their illness, and always convincced that the last doctor was a quack.

2.  It is, however, important to find the cause of an illness, because only be knowing the actual cause can that illness be prevented or mitigated.  Take the case of AIDS, which was initially thought to be a disease of homosexuality.  Had this been accepted, and had all the effort and money gone into preventing homosexual practices of various sorts and into AIDS treatment, and no effort gone into really elucidating the cause (transmission of the AIDS virus by bodily fluids), we would not be protecting our blood supply.  As it was, Arthur Ashe died from AIDS transmitted by transfusion, before the blood supply was adequately protected.



i think we have a responsibility to demonstrate that DU is NOT  the cause of these various illnesses, and I don't think we should compensate people for an exceedingly uncertain cause.  If they are sick because they think they are sick, psychiatric treatment appears to be one way to go.



Ruth





In a message dated 4/8/2004 11:08:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, james.g.barnes@att.net writes:



>[Sorry if this is a double posting; I seem to be having trouble with my email program.]

>

>Dear Louis;

> 

>I'm not a medical doctor, but I've followed these situations with some interest.

> 

>To my knowledge of uranium physiology, I know of no effect that these soldiers are describing that is traceable to low levels of DU contamination.  That's based on a pretty extensive series of studies as well as an extensive population of nuclear workers exposed to uranium during refining and utilization processes. The level of exposures to these nuclear workers certainly would bracket the exposure levels to soldiers who may have been exposed to DU during combat operations in in combat areas. It seems logical to me that these worker populations would have been displaying the same symptoms as the soldiers, but to my knowledge they have not....<snip>

> 

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-- 

Ruth F. Weiner

ruthweiner@aol.com

505-856-5011

(o)505-284-8406



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