this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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There's a whole subset of idiots that believe that you need to expose yourself to harmful shit to have a strong immune system. (See: all the people licking toilets and crap during lockdown)
There's some credible science to it, in the way that, an immunization is literally putting "harmful" stuff in you to train your immune system. This is known science that I should be able to mostly hand wave around since most people already know this. Immunizations are usually focusing on a key indicator, eg, for COVID, it's the protein on the outside of the vital cell wall (all the spiky bits in the illustrations) or whatever.... I'm no scientist. For other viruses and bacteria, it's a deactivated version of the virus... It's essentially "dead" for all intents and purposes. It just resembles the virus so closely that it effectively trains your immune system to recognize it.
With all that being said, not all bacteria and viruses are something we can develop a natural immunity to, partly because some of them just kill us, partly because there's something that is preventing it. Again I'm not a scientist.
Regardless, these idiots think that by exposing yourself to "natural" viruses and bacteria, you can strengthen your immune system. Bluntly, it's possible to do that, and why the fuck would you want to do it that way? It's literally a randomized version of a science we already have that's tried, tested, and proven effective, called immunizations. With immunizations, you get all the benefits of surviving the horrors of some of the most nasty viruses and bacteria out there, without suffering through what those viruses and bacteria are going to do to you.
The whole thing is stupid.
If anyone argues about "good" bacteria, tell them to eat yogurt. FFS.
It’s just unscientific thinking. People think virus and bacteria are the only thing you have to worry about, but lots of the time it’s the bacteria producing toxins as part of their metabolism that’s dangerous to us. In other words, their shit is poison.
One of the reasons we don’t want some groups of bacteria growing on our foodstuff is because they turn stuff literally toxic to us, completely unrelated to immune responses. Same way some molds can be toxic while others are not. It’s not because the fungus starts growing inside your body and has an epic free for all with your immune system. Its byproducts are just toxic. Like some berries or some plants are toxic.
yeah, mycotoxins (ie: toxic byproducts from fungi/mold decomposing your food stuffs) don't always get broken down during cooking. So, while cooking according to standard food safety specs may have killed the mold, their shit is still everywhere ready to fuck your shit up.
Not to mention that you have to survive an infection before it matters that you immune system learned to detect the infectious agent. Yes, the first inoculation techniques were literally just minor exposure to the infectious agent (eg: grinding smallpox scabs and blowing the resulting powder up the nose -- wtf). While it technically worked, the mortality rate was still pretty damn high, just not quite as high as ya know getting smallpox the normal way, and thus really only used when a serious outbreak was occuring. We've gotten so much better at making vaccination safer and more effective, because we now know so much more about what is actually occuring biologically and know to use attenuated virus or just the benign protein coat alone to achieve results. Why would you ever want to go back to scab-snorting (or toilet licking, apparently, lol)?
Toilet licking is especially stupid because different part of our body deal differently with the same bacteria. For example bacteria that are beneficial in your colon are most likely very much detrimental anywhere else. Training your immune system against colon bacteria is beyond stupid. Wouldn’t be surprised if that could lead to all kinds of issues.
Hey, stop trying to be logical. These people don't understand it, and that's mean.
/s
And then they are anti-vaccine. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Ironic. Amirite?
If we just go with it and give them some cyanide, arsenic, and a rod of spent uranium to boost their immunity, it would be a self solving problem.
There was a king of ancient times who would microdose poison in order to become immune. To his defense, he lived in ancient times.
Eating a uranium rod would give them plenty of calories to last the rest of their life.
Can we put them in a box and call shroedinger?
Say that to Styrian arsenic eaters. Cyanide and uranium though are fair. Though there was an “energy drink” with thorium once.
And there’s also the practice of mithridatism, but at least there is some evidence to support some of its instances.