Episode Transcript
Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
At the moment, it seems that the Covid-19 virus and a effects occupying quite a bit of space on the news. The viruses certainly affect the lives of many people. People are stressed out making decisions whether or not to get vaccinated or not.
And it seems that everyday conversation is a lot about many of these issues. But I think one of the very important things that is being missed is this whole scenario points us to the importance of our immune system. And our immune system is powerful evidence for creation, not evolution.
It's absolutely impossible for our immune system to have evolved by random chance mutations. It's just so complicated. As a matter of fact, just about every living organism has immune systems.
Plants, of course, animals and so forth have immune systems that protect them. And there's a reason for this. So they protect them from the invasion of bad things, of outside invaders that want to take over, to a degree.
And this immune system is extremely complex. When we look at the outside, invaders that can come into our body include things just as bacteria and of course, viruses. We talk about fungi and also other toxins, chemicals that are made perhaps by microbes and which there's a lot of naturally occurring toxins that are out there.
And the immune system itself, though, is made up of different organs and cells and proteins that all work together. It's extremely complex. And this is the important part that I want to get across.
The immune system is made up of a whole lot of systems that all work together. And there's no way that these systems could just arise by chance and work, because without one and the other, they're not going to work, but they're essential for us to live and survive in the environment. Of course, there's two main parts, the immune system.
There's what we call the innate immune system, and this is what we're born with. And then there's the adaptive or acquired immune system. And this develops as we grow and our body is exposed to bacteria and toxins.
And that's why there were some time ago, an American microbiologist, I think his name was Rene Dubai or Dubois, proposed the hygiene hypothesis, in that if we are too clean, too hygienic, our immune systems don't develop and we become more susceptible to disease. And this is one of the problems of overusing cleaners and over sterilisation of cleaners and surfaces in the home. And an illustration of this was that, for example, people in India who are vegetarians very rarely have vitamin b twelve deficiency.
But when those same people moved to the UK, which, where there was a lot more hygiene, a much cleaner environment generally. They then developed b twelve deficiencies. So they're the two immune systems, the one that we're born with, the innate immune system, and one that our body adapts to now, the one that we're born to.
This is more or less our rapid response system. It's the first to respond when it finds an invader. So it's made up of skin, or the eyes, cornea, the mucous membranes that line the respiratory, gastrointestinal and genital urinary tracts.
And of course, in the case of COVID this membrane that lines the respiratory tract, is very important to first line defence. And I'll come back to that in a little bit. And these create physical barriers that protect us against the harmful germs and parasites.
And so this immune system has cells that when an invader comes, they cover it and surround the invader and it's killed, and they're called phagocytes. So when we look at the acquired immune system or the adaptive immune system, this system, with the help of the innate system, makes special proteins called antibodies, that protect our body from a specific invader. And these antibodies are developed by cells called b lymphocytes after the body has been exposed to the invader.
And in principle, these antibodies stay in our body. It can take those several days for antibodies to form. But after the first exposure, the immune system will recognise the invader and defend against it.
And so the acquired immune system changes during our life. And the role of vaccines is to train your immune system to make antibodies to protect them from harmful disease. And I'll talk about that in a little bit.
But it's interesting that the cells that are involved in both the innate and the acquired or adaptive immune system are made in different organs of the body. So you've got the adenoids, which are glands at the back of the nasal passage, you've got bone marrow, you've got the lymph nodes, you've got lymphatic vessels, which are a network of channels over the body that carry the lymphocytes to the lymphoid organs and the bloodstream. I've got what are called paya patches.
These are little lymphoid tissue. In the small intestine. You've got the spleen, the thymus and the tonsils, of course, at the back of the throat.
So these are the organs that produce the cells that are involved in the immune system, and they all work together. And so it's an extremely complex system. I mean, I only have a relatively scant knowledge and understanding of it, and, I mean, research is ongoing into how the immune system works, and you have big, thick textbooks on the immune system.
I guess one of the first things with the immune system, one of the first responses, the information, and most of us are responsible for this. And the symptoms of information, of course, are your redness, swelling, heat and pain, which caused by the increased blood flow and inflammations induced by ecosinoids and cytokines, which are released by the injured or infected cells. And ecosinoids such as prostaglandins produce fever and they dilate the blood vessels.
And on the other hand, the common cytokines include the interleukins, and these are responsible for communication between the white blood cells and interference that have the antiviral effects that can kill the viruses. And they can have effects such. Well, how they can affect the viruses is by shutting down protein synthesis in the host cell, because the virus enters a cell, replicates in that host cell, and that's how it does its damage and spreads.
But we can see already this is just a little part of it, and it's extremely complex system. The cells of the adaptive immune system include the b cells and the t cells, and these are derived from stem cells in the bone marrow. And so the b cells are involved in what is called the humoral immune response.
And this is an aspect of our immune system that's controlled or mediated by large molecules, what we call macromolecules. And this includes the antibodies that are produced and also certain complement proteins and antimicrobial peptides. Peptides are longer chain sort of groups of amino acids that make up proteins that are located in the fluids that are outside cells.
And that's why it's called humule immunity, because it involves substances found in the body fluids. And this is the main area where we have this antibody mediated immunity, and this is contrast with cell mediated immunity. Okay, so the antibody mediated immunity, and this is in our body fluids, such as our blood and so forth.
When we come to cell mediated immunity, this is where the T cells are involved, and the killer T cells only recognise antigens that are coupled to what are called class one MHC molecules, while the helper T cells and regulatory T cells only recognise antigens coupled to the class two MHC molecules. And you can look these up. But the point of what I'm trying to get at here is it's an extremely complex system, extremely complex, and this is only just small part of it.
These are the two mechanisms using the killer T cells and the regulatory cells, they present antigens with different roles of the two types of T cells. So when B or T cells encounter their related antigens, they multiply and they produce many clones of the cells that produce to target the same antigen, so they reproduce. Now, now, one of the fascinating things, and of course, I'm just scratching the surface and I'm just talking about these things just to give a bit of an overview.
And people often hear about killer T cells and B cells and all this sort of thing, but the immune system is far more complex and deeper than that. But one of the fascinating things, for example, is that we often hear, say in the case of COVID that people with low vitamin D seem to be of more risk of the disease. Well, it's interesting that when a T cell encounters a foreign pathogen, it extends a vitamin D receptor.
Now, this is essentially a signalling device that allows the T cell to bind to the active form of vitamin D. And that, of course, is calcitriol. And so the T cells have a symbiotic relationship with vitamin D.
So not only does the T cell extend a vitamin D receptor, in essence asking to bind to the steroid homo to vitamin D version of, or to the hormone form of vitamin D, calcitriol, but the T cell expresses also another gene. Now, this gene has a special name, cyp 27 b, one which is the gene responsible for converting the pre hormone version of vitamin D, calcidiol, into calcitriol. Now, in talking about this, what I'm trying to say is this.
Can you get a grasp of the complexity of this system, of the biochemistry of this system? And one of the things to remember is too that all these are hormones, vitamin D and so forth. All the mechanisms to make these hormones, say from, we can produce it from the action of sunlight and so forth, involves amazing enzymes and other biomolecules. There are multistage biochemistry reactions required to synthesise all these complex molecules that are involved in the immune system.
And all these things are programmed in the DNA. And so evolutionists have to believe that through random mutations in the DNA, the codes to form all these different molecules and receptors formed by chance. I mean, it is to me just so obvious.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist, you don't have to be a senior biochemistry researcher to recognise that the system is so involved, but interlinked and works and it's just so powerful evidence to an amazing creative designer. And it's interesting that it's only after binding to vitamin D can T cells perform their intended function? Other immune system cells that are known to express this same gene receptor, cyp 27 b one. And thus activate B12. Activate, sorry, vitamin D. The dendritic cells, the carotenocytes and also macrophages. So this again just points out the importance of vitamin D and why people are saying in the COVID situation, the importance of having really good levels of vitamin D, because they play an important role in facilitating the work of T cells.
Of course, our body is just naturally designed to fight against viruses and these things. And so one of the important things also that we can do as well as making sure we have plenty of vitamin D, is the immune system is affected by sleep and rest. And it's interesting, sleep deprivation is detrimental to the immune system.
There was an interesting paper published in Nature Reviews Immunology back in two, four, 2004. It's in volume four of Nature review immunology, number six, pages 457 to 67. And it was called the immune system is affected by sleep and rest, and sleep deprivation is detrimental to immune function.
There was another paper published more recently in Behavioural Sleep Medicine back in 2017, and that's in volume 15, number four, pages 270 to 287. And it was is insomnia a risk factor for decreased influenza vaccine response? And they found that in people suffering from sleep deprivation, active immunizations may have a diminished effect and may result in lower antibody production and lower immune response than would be noted in well rested. So again, that affects immunisation.
And another interesting paper that came out that was published in the British Medical journal Nutrition and Prevention and Health Journal. It was published in 2021 in the volume four, issue one, and it was called plant based diets and pescatarian diets and Covid-19 severity, a population based case control study in six countries. And essentially they found that participants who reported following plant based diets and plant based diets, or pescatarian diets, that's having some fish, had a 68% and 59% lower odds of moderate to severe Covid-19 compared with participants who did not follow these diets.
So essentially what that research was saying was that the vegetarian diet and vegan diets in particular, a little bit less so people that ate fish but still got good if they were plant based pus, fish, had quite improved protection against Covid-19 and for those, again, that was interested in following that up. British Medical journal Nutrition, Prevention and Health, volume four, issue one, 2021. And of course, we have vaccination.
So they've been working flat out developing vaccines and so the long term active memory that's acquired following infection by activation of the b and t cells can also be generated artificially through vaccination. And the principle behind vaccination, which we also call immunisation, is to introduce an antigen from the pathogen to stimulate the immune system, and that then develops a specific immunity against the particular pathogen without causing the disease itself. So it's a deliberate induction of the immune response.
But again, it only works because God has created this amazing immune system within us. In other words, we have all these scientists working as in teams, super intelligent people, working on the foundation of research over many years and to develop this. But again, those vaccines would only work because of our immune system and because we've learned about our immune system.
So again, this whole concept that the immune system arose by chance is ridiculous. Of course, most vaccines require what is called an adjuvant. And the most common adjuvants used today are the aluminium salts.
It's interesting. Even though their adjuvant activity was first described back in 1936, the precise mechanism of aluminium salts remains unclear. For a while, it was thought they function as delivery system by generating depots that trap antigens at the injection side.
Because yayuminium is a trivalent iron, has a very high binding power, and thereby reply provides slow release to stimulate the immune system. But studies have now shown by the surgical removal of these depots, that no impact on the magnitude of the IgG1 response occurs. So, as I said, it's amazing we're using these adjuvants, but we still actually don't know how they work.
Of course, vaccines have their downsides. We know that there can be complications, particularly from the COVID vaccines. It can be quite serious.
One of the coworkers in the organisation that I work for, young woman, died after getting an AstraZeneca vaccine a few days ago from the blood clotting effects and so forth. And we know there are heart damaged side effects to some of the vaccines and so forth. But one of the interesting things was there was a report published back in April 2021 in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, in volume nine, issue four, and it was by Thomas Williams and Wendy Burgess.
And the title of the article was SARS-CoV-2 Evolution and Vaccines: Cause for Concern? And essentially what they said was that the variants of SARS Covid could evolve with resistance to immunity induced by recombinant spike protein vaccines.
In other words, they provide an environment for mutations to occur. And of course, that's what we've seen a lot of evolution of the virus and so that's one of the downsides of mass vaccination, because of the time it takes for the immune system to respond to the virus. And if people get different viruses at the same time, they can mutate.
Of course, one of the alternatives is to try and kill the virus. And a lot of people may have heard about ivermectin. So ivermectin, it was an FDA approved broad spectrum antiparasitic agent and it's been shown to have antiviral activity.
It was actually discovered back in 1975. Its first uses were in veterinary medicine and to prevent and treat heartworm and so forth. In 1987, it was approved for human use and used to treat things like head lice, scabies, rib blindness and whole lot of different things.
It's interesting. William Campbell and Satoshi Omura won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for its discovery and applications. And it's on the world health list of Essential Medicines. It's interesting.
Side effects. Although uncommon, they do include fever, itching and skin rash when taken by mouth.
But essentially, ivermectin is considered relatively free of toxicity in the standard doses, which is about 0.3 milligramme per kilogramme. And based on the data safety drug sheet for ivermectin, side effects are actually uncommon at those dose.
And it's very interesting that there's been a great controversy over the use of ivermectin. It's a bit hard to understand back in antiviral or back in 2020. In June, in the journal Antiviral Research, volume 178, researchers at Monash University did some in-vitro, that's in test tube type studies, and they found that ivermectin is an inhibitor of the Covid-19 causative virus. In-vitro. A single treatment is able to affect a 5,000 fold reduction in the virus in 48 hours in cell culture. And so ivermectin therefore warrants further investigation as possible benefits in humans.
So that was a study that was again published back in June 2020. Another paper that came out was a major meta-analysis of ivermectin studies. So this was published in the American Journal of Therapeutics in the July August 2021 edition, volume 28, issue four. And it's titled Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines. Now, the researchers were from the University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK and a number of hospitals in the UK, and they found very interesting conclusion.
The conclusion of their abstract reads moderate certainty. Evidence finds that large reductions in Covid-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease.
The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have significant impact on the SARS COVID pandemic globally. Now, it was very interesting that they studied, I think it was around 23 trials and it's quite a comprehensive paper. They point out that Peru had a very high death toll from Covid-19 early on in the pandemic.
Based on observational evidence, the Peruvian government approved ivermectin for use against Covid-19 in May 2020. After implementation, death rates in eight states were reduced between 64% and 91% over a two month period. And they conclude by saying, given the evidence, efficacy, safety, low cost and current death rates, ivermectin is likely to have an impact on health and economic outcomes for the pandemic across many countries.
So, as I said, they looked at about 20, I think it was 23 random control trials using several thousand people and came to this conclusion. So, again, when we think of the evidence out there, there's lots of options. But again, ivermectin and all these things only work when we have a very effective immune system designed by God.
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I'm Dr. John Ashton. Have a great day.
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