In article <3638fa0f.261497980 at netnews.worldnet.att.net>, johnburgin at worldnet.att.net writes:
> On 28 Oct 98 19:22:36 EDT, holzmr01 at mcrcr6.med.nyu.edu (ROBERT S.
> HOLZMAN) wrote:
>>>In article <36364960.85168152 at netnews.worldnet.att.net>, johnburgin at worldnet.att.net writes:
>>> On 27 Oct 1998 17:49:13 GMT, carlton at walleye.ccbr.umn.edu (Carlton
>>> Hogan) wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>You are a silly and amazingly ignorant man. In the below you state:
>>>>>>>>">If, assuming that you are correct, which I don't believe, that
>>>>>antibodies do "not" always mean that you have conquered infection, as
>>>>>I stated before, how can you arbitrarily recommend using them to
>>>>>signify protection one time(as with prophylactic vaccination against
>>>>>Hepatitis B and not with HIV? What, please tell me, would an
>>>>>individual "vaccinated" against HIV present as proof of immunization?
>>>>>He would be HIV + of course! Again, are these "non-neutralizing"
>>>>>antibodies in the latter case or neutralizing antibodies in the first
>>>>>case?"
>>>>>>>>>>They might well be nonneutralizing in both cases. In any event, before you
>>and your pathologist/biologist friends laugh too hard you might first consider
>>that while immunization with Hepaititis B surface antigen fragments produce
>>antibodies and immunity to infection, the ability to produce such antibodies
>>does not ensure recovery from natural infection, which is what is being
>>asserted. If you think that hepatitis antibody does enusure recovery then you
>>might try explaing how chronic hepatitis B occurs.
>>> My point was and still is, you can't pick and choose when you want
> anitbodies to be preventative and when they are not. There's lots of
> things I can't explain, maybe you can't explain a few either. jb
>
Precisely wrong. You and I can't pick and choose but mother nature does. For
example, antibodies to pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide are protective
against pneumococci while antibodies against other components are not.
Antibodies against group A streptococcal capsule are not while antibodies to
other coat proteins are. Whether we understand the basis of such protection
or non protection is beside the point. It is easy to demonstrate
experimentally that some antibodies are protective and others are not and it
has been demonstrated in many systems over the past century. This, in turn,
demonstrates that the statement that the presence of antibodies signals
immunity or "has always [prior to the advent of HIV] been interpreted to
indicate immunity to [or resistance to or recovery from ] infection" is just
plain wrong and ignorant to boot.
