FUCHS@VCUVAX (07/13/89)
>"It would not surprise me if the brainless news media or some condescending vetranarians [sic] would refer to it as feline AIDS." >"I don't know why some veterinarians insist on using inappropriate analogies when describing animal diseases." OK, so cool down and give this poor vet a break. The fact is that the disease IS a "feline acquired immune deficiency syndrome." It is referred to in the primary literature as Feline AIDS or FAIDS. As indicated in my previous comment the minority (15% or so) of the infected cats which developed FAIDS are immunosuppressed and susceptible to lymphadenopathy, and infections which include feline infectious peritonitis, gingivitis,etc. For the vet to have called the disease anything ELSE would have been condescending. >"The etiology of the disease is well known and has little use for AIDS research." Certainly the differences in AIDS and FAIDS are large. HOWEVER, it is a retrovirus induced immunodeficiency for which there is a reasonably effective vaccine. This alone makes it interesting to me. Now ideally the vet would have explained that the owners were in no danger, that the other cats were, and that the disease differs significantly from the human one. However, as he did not, I think that the owners should have questioned him on these points. I'll bet the vet knew the answers but just did'nt think to inform them. I am a scientist who has followed this bulletin board on and off for the past 6 months or so. I have been impressed with the amount of knowledge gained about a complex disease by people who are not trained as scientists. Ten years ago when I was starting graduate school I used to give a lecture "The immune system and why it is important" to the general biology students in which I would try to "convince" them that the real reason they were healthy is not that they took showers and washed their dishes, but because of their immune systems. Four years later I did not have to explain to anyone in any of my classes why an immune system is important. Today the people in my neighborhood ask me questions about CD4+ cells!! I know that the transfer of info from the primary literature to the general public is a sore point which has been discussed in this forum often. Let me give you my perspective. I, as a scientist, am almost never impressed with the things that I know. My days are filled with frustration over the things that I do NOT understand. It is very easy for me to forget how much I have learned over my years of training and difficult for me to remember how tough it was to learn all that stuff. I somtimes forget that things which I have worked with and understood for years can be confusing when encountered for the first time. The past two summers I have had high school students working in my lab. I do this because our society is not "recruiting" enough young people into choosing science as a career. No doubt that the financial rewards of a science career will never compete with the more popular career choices but that actually does not bother me (it keeps people from entering the field for the wrong reasons.) If I can get these kids to swallow the long hours and low pay, I have got them HOOKED! Few other "jobs" offer the unique rewards (discovery, creativity, societal benefit) of research. Two nights ago one of "our" kids hung around until the bitter end of a fairly grueling 16 hour day 'cause he was as anxious to see the results come off the flow cytometer as we were. A 16 year old! (You know that age where the attention span is not supposed to allow them to to finish addressing a post card in a single sitting.) Today I overheard him telling one of the others about "double positive" (CD4+/CD8+) thymocytes. That alone has made the time spent on these kids worth it. HOWEVER, the thing that I need to make the communication possible is QUESTIONS. I have no idea what a 16 year old knows about biology! I have to explain something and then judge from the questions that come back whether they understood 90, 10 or 0% of what I told them. This is my real point (if any of you have hung in this long)- that questions are an ESSENTIAL part of the process of translating technical info for the "lay" public. It is not realistic for you to expect me to know what you don't know. However, it is to be expected that your physician, or vet (or scientist for that matter) respond to questions. If they don't it is time to get a new physician, or vet, (or scientist.) Sorry for the long winded soliloquy, I will return to my more comfortable role of "observer."