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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Immunogen
Message-ID: <516@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 01:27:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: aecom.516
Posted: Fri Oct 10 01:27:14 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 03:30:54 EDT
References: <1983@curly.ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 37

> 
> I just saw an ad for a health food supplement intended to help 
> fight diseases (get rid of a cold faster, etc.) which includes a
> substance called "Immunogen" which the footnote says "is a natural
> complex rich in the immune stimulators Thymosin, Interleukin-2, and
> Agglutinins".  
> 
	Sounds like bovine thymus or spleen extract.
	The word immunogen is a technical term meaning anything that the
immune system responds to. Here, of course, it is a brand name.
	Agglutinins is an archaic (pre-1950s) term for antibodies,
otherwise known as immunoglobulins.
	Thymosin and Interleukin-2 are indeed immune stimulators.

	AND ALL OF THESE WOULD BE DESTROYED BY THE STOMACH ON INGESTION.
	
	Advertised as such, it is a ripoff of tremendous proportions.
Even if it weren't destroyed, exogenous thymosin has no therapeutic effect
and Interleukin-2 is found in such extracts in such small quantities that
I, for one, would doubt it would be even detectable. 
	I would like to laugh at such things, but then I remember that
people who unlike myself, lack a graduate degree in Immunology, collectively
spend millions of dollars on such concoctions. That bothers me.

	Now a word of defense: I am not paid to say any of this. I say
critical things about "health-food" and "holistic" practices, because
frankly, someone has to to do it.  And everytime I do, I get accused of
being brainwashed and a pawn of the AMA.  Well, I am neither, thank you.
But I know when claims contradict fact. And remember - in regards to
"unproven" treatment - the burden of proof lies on proponents to prove
it really works, not to me (and medicine and science) to prove it doesn't.
 
-- 
			      Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91)
				!philabs!aecom!werner
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
     "The proper delivery of medical care is to do as much Nothing as possible"