"new" immune theory..

[Ian A. York]

	One other very general comment on the "new paradigm" comments in 
this thread.  The immune system is a cobbled-together mishmash of Things 
That Work.  It is not a monolithic, one-definition-fits-all, unitary 
Thing.  So what I'm trying to say here is that there is no reason to 
expect the immune system to base its' responses on something that we can 
define, in English, in a single word:  "foreign" or "danger" or "green".  
	Rather than trying to showhorn the system into a single word (and 
note, I don't say Matzinger has tried to do that, but there is a danger 
of interpreting the issue that way) it makes more sense to learn what the 
Things That Work are.

	Sorry if this is sounding a little too Zen.

Ian
-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-3921     Fax  (617)-632-2627