IMMUNE SYSTEM AND SOCIETY

Towards the end of 2006, the group led by Tamás Laskay, in Germany, showed that in order to infect cells with Leishmania both live and apoptotic parasites are required. They concluded that the dead parasites allow, in an altruistic manner, the survival of viable parasites. The presence of dead parasites in a Leishmania population is a critical factor for the determination of virulence.

The altruistic behavior of humans and other primates became the basis of the sociobiology of the 80s, whose boom began when Edward O. Wilson showed that altruist organisms survive through reproduction in favor of their altruist genes and when their strategy does not favor survival, non-altruists predominate.

The application of sociobiology to the human species caused great controversy between those who held that human behavior is genetically determined and those who conditioned it to culture or the environment. Sociobiology was accused of being one more form of biological determinism, a perspective that nullifies the free will of the human being and binds it to the mandate of genes. Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin argued that sociobiological determinism justifies the control of power by elites and legitimates authoritarian policies, genocide, racism and sexism.

The battle about sociobiology was considered as a political issue among researchers of different tendencies. To Ernest Mayr the frequent debates in the field of evolution usually have profound historical and cultural roots. However, one thing is the interweaving of science and politics and another thing is that of science and ideology. The horrors of a science committed to an ideology were lived in Nazi Germany with the "ethnic cleansing" based on Arian supremacy as proposed by Karl Haushoffer, rooted in hatred, without any rational fundament.

Could findings such as those recently observed in Leishmania clarify the controversy over sociobiology?

A genetically established condition, such as susceptibility or resistance to a disease, can be modified by the environment. Mice that are resistant to Leishmania infection, radically modify their defense mechanisms against the parasite when subjected to stress; they modify their genetically determined immune response.

The immune system is organized, redundant and equilibrated, and it reflects human behavior in many ways. Its function is not only to protect the organism from invaders, as an army. Its main job is to watch for the maintenance of the equilibrium of the organism, in close association with the neuroendocrine system. This guard does not operate under a police scheme, it is not aggressive nor punitive. It works as the free press does in a democratic society, vigilant of errors in judgment and understanding.

Two components characterize the immune system, the discrimination of danger signals and the determination of an effector response. The effector function is carried out by inducing immunity or tolerance. Immunity, such as that produced by vaccines, serves to eliminate invaders. Tolerance limits or suppresses the immune response to protect tissue damage, prevents the mother from rejecting the fetus, or our reaction to foods or to things we breath. As in society, the alert and tolerance mechanisms are needed for equilibrium and coexistence.

Immunity can be innate or acquired. Through innate immunity danger signals, highly conserved in microorganisms, are recognized, and rapid and vigorous responses that eliminate over 90% of invading agents are generated. Acquired immunity depends upon lymphocytes, which are highly specific, diverse and efficient; they can be very young and active, and are educated at the immunological university, which is the thymus gland, preparing themselves to work at the ganglia. There, they mature and become cells with immunological memory, needed for the implementation of the effector phase and to fight recurrent infections.

In the same way, among humans, youth educate themselves, they participate actively, mature and work to live in an equilibrated society. They claim respect for liberty and for civil and political rights. When facing the labeling and disqualifying discourse, and the violations and menaces to free expression and the right to be informed, they call for tolerance and reconciliation among different groups. As the lymphocytes, young people are diverse, they have their own personality and represent a different possibility to confront problems.

If the immune system bases its function upon alert and tolerance mechanisms similar to those that the democratic and free society should defend and maintain, dendritic cells, to which an orchestra conductor role has been ascribed for launching the immune response, teach us something about leadership. They guide the type of immune response and to do it they require permission from the environment, which provides them with the signals to generate immunity or tolerance. They are not authoritarian and depend upon the interaction of a complex system of cells, substances and codes in order to act, just as it is expected in democracy to achieve a free and harmonic society, with progress.

Felix J. Tapia. President, AsoVAC, Venezuela