Osmosis Jones, the Media's Representation of Our Immune System

“[Microbes] are not just soldiers attacking us in the sense of attacking the U.S. They are just living their lives because they happen to live their lives in us. Plenty of organisms live their lives happily with us. Warfare is a very nice way to explain it on a very superficial level, but a normal part of existence as microorganisms is balance,” (Flexible Bodies, Pg. 109, Emily Martin).

Context:

In Chapter 3 Martin discusses how alternative practitioners see the immune system in contrast to what has become a more traditional view. A common issue with modern medicine is that we view death as a failure. This is simply a perception however, and doctors such as acupuncturists work to help people die peacefully. Viewing microbes as the causes of disease was a strong cause for this and inspired a crusade of sorts to find miracle cures. Holistic doctors work from the a very different viewpoint, one in which the mind and the body have a relationship and are interconnected.

An acupuncturist in the books says that when a person’s chi is flowing smoothly, the body can be exposed to bacteria and not be made ill. The chapter then goes on to explain that no part of the body seems to work alone and that in fact, each part seems to be related and interconnected, functioning together to maintain health. This also applies to the world outside the body. With every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. One person interviewed compares the functioning of our body to the ocean, ebbing and flowing like the tides. It can also be compared to a river. The alternative practitioners see the problem of the stagnant water in a blocked river as a need to unblock the river, where other people would maybe seek a quick solution such as filtering the water.

In Chapter 4, Martin looks at the issue from the perspective of scientists. Your body is filled with antibodies which are incredibly flexible and have very specific functionality. One scientist, Uexkull, states that “Atoms and molecules have no self, memory, individuality, or inner pictures. They are not able to read, to recognize, or to interpret anything and cannot be killed either.” This is significant because the body cannot be under siege, per se, by something that doesn’t even understand the concept of “attack.” One interviewee says, “no reasonable discussions are taking place in the immune system.” The war metaphor seems to be born of the idea that viruses come in and violently attack the body, which must be defended by the immune system. The book goes on to explain that people do not really think about their immune system until they need it. It is easy to look at the metaphor of your body as being constantly at war, but in fact the immune system has a lot more than that going on.

Most often bacteria and viruses in our body are viewed as intruders and the immune system as the defense. Everybody is exposed to these bacteria and it is frequently thought that a stronger immune system explains why one person gets sick while another remains unaffected. Dr. Fleck explains that "The concept of infectious disease is based on the notion of the organism as a closed unit and of the hostile causative agents invading it."Pg 108. The concept of immunology is often based on the body being under siege by viruses and the immune system as constantly fighting back. Dr. Fleck explains on 108 and 109 that there is little experimental proof that should lead us to think this way. For one, many bacteria within our bodies are essential to our well being. Martin goes on to explain that the body is like a mechanical system and the immune system a part of it, which only functions as it knows how to, for better or worse.

I personally see merits and faults to thinking about the immune system in this way. In fault, the immune system is not conscious and therefore has no conception of war. Similarly viruses have no concept of good or evil, right or wrong. The best example I can think of is contrasting the body’s acceptance of an organ transplant with the US government’s acceptance of immigrants. The body, when accepting of an organ transplant will be able to survive as normal, cheating death itself in a way. On the other hand, without immunosuppressant’s the body’s immune system will work to kill the transplanted organ as it is foreign. Similarly, our government is currently taking a fairly anti-immigration stance, even though our nation is based on immigrants and they have great potential to fuel our economy.

Regardless, I think the idea of apply war imagery to our insides is only as reasonable as accepting a child’s imaginary friend to be real or that animals can talk, just like the cartoons. The images may help us to understand the very abstract, but in terms of deep and comprehensive understanding, it leaves us wanting.

Osmosis Jones - 2001 - Warner Bros

Links:

• Warner Bros Official Osmosis Jones Webpage
  
• Osmosis Jones Summary on Wikipedia
  
• Thrax will infest your mind (A fan-clip from the movie showing the havoc caused by the virus)
  

The animated feature, Osmosis Jones could be seen as the ultimate realization of how the “body at war” metaphor has been popularized to represent the essence of our immune system. The film, in its relevance to the immune system, takes place inside the body of a not-so-sanitary middle aged man named Frank (played by actor Bill Murray). Frank eats a hard-boiled egg that he recovers from the floor of a dirty chimpanzee cage. Then begins the story of his bodies internal battle to prevent Frank’s body from contracting an illness. The underdog police office like white blood cell, Osmosis Jones (voiced by Chris Rock) works to stop the onslaught of ingested bacteria.

Thrax, a deadly virus that came in with the egg manages to escape Jones and goes on a rampage, attacking and demolishing various cells within Frank’s body. Frank takes a cold pill in an attempt to get over the illness. Drix, short for Drixenol arrives within Frank’s body and is assigned as Jones’ partner in the effort to stop Thrax.

Each character has a personality, as would be expected for an animated film. The virus Thrax turns out to be one of evil, masquerading as the common cold but in fact plotting to overheat Frank's body in an effort to kill him. Thrax ambition is to become the most dangerous new virus by attempting to kill each new victim faster than the previous. Thrax’s goal is to kill Frank within a record 48 hours

What is interesting about the Osmosis Jones movie, in comparison to the Emily Martin text, is that while there is a battle of sorts going on, the body isn’t really at war. A different kind of analogy is used. The body is like a city, with different districts that are inhabited by different types of people. The white blood cells are made out to be a sort of FBI like agency and the viruses are made out to be mostly common criminal and or hoodlums. The rest of the organisms living inside Frank seem to be for the most part at harmony with one another and regardless of Frank’s terrible hygiene and diet, the internal organisms seem to function well enough until the deadly Thrax virus arrives on the scene.

The relevance of this is that the regular viruses and alien organisms seem to be a more of a nuisance than anything, and the body certainly isn’t portrayed as being at war, not even when Thrax is on its rampage. The white blood cell is simply working with the medicine to do its best to restore things to their original state.

The movie can also be analyzed from a sociological perspective. Frank is portrayed as a metropolis, the stomach a sort of immigrant airport, the brain as the center of government and the bladder as a bus depot for those leaving or “deported” from the metropolis. The fact that a frightened germ in the movie is portrayed with a Spanish accent seems to either directly point towards the government’s aversion towards Mexican immigrants, or worse promotes the stereotype.

These gross exaggerations of what take place in the body certainly make it easy for the average American to grasp the basic concepts of the immune system. The question becomes whether or not people buy into the fact that our bodies are a veritable battle ground, and if so, does it have any reflection on our day to day actions and beliefs? My thoughts are that it doesn’t necessarily promote the idea of war or intolerance, but the images certainly do nothing to discourage the thoughts either. In a world where people are tense and health problems seem to be of utmost concern, a little psychological restructuring could do people some good.

To this I would propose a new explanation, built on concepts that are not too alien to those people already have. Your body is a temple, not a battlefield. A temple accepts people of all types, rich or poor, clean or dirty, those with strong conviction and those who are less than pure. The germs are like the dirty or the unchaste, they may cause trouble but the temple is strong and will eventually neutralize or integrate the germ to create a stronger, healthier and more pure community.

(Image courtesy of www.webwombat.com.au/.../movies/osmosis.htm)

Text Quote from Flexible Bodies, the role of immunity in American culture from the days of Polio to the age of AIDS by Emily Martin, (c) 1994 Beacon Press Books.

The Body as a Machine

“In accord with the machine model, the body is seen as made up of parts that can break down: in the NORC interviews, people refer to illness in terms of a body part: “ear trouble,” kidney trouble,” “stomach trouble,” “suffering with my back,” “my tonsils,” “my kidney.” The body emerges as a machine that sometimes requires overhaul:” (Pg. 29 Flexible Bodies, Emily Martin).

Context of Excerpt:

In Part Two of Flexible Bodies, Martin discusses concepts of the body, health and the immune system from a historical perspective. She wants to know why we have certain pre-conceived notions or understandings of our body and our health, and as a means of understanding why she looks at what every day understandings of the body in the U.S. may have been liked at the end of the first half of the century. For research she used popular periodicals, home health manuals and books, mostly from the 1940’s and 1950’s.

She states that early twentieth-century ideas about health reflected the impact of the new science, bacteriology. The idea of microorganisms causing disease. Public health concerns shifted from broad morally informed programs to more technical concerns based on the findings of microscopes and test tubes. Once the cleanliness of the city was a prime concern, but things quickly changed to cause people to be more concerned about the cleanliness of their own immediate environment, house and bodies. Hygiene and cleanliness became paramount to preventing disease and illness.

With diseases such as polio causing great and widespread distress, a sort of hysteria over germs spread. Companies such as Lysol promoted their products as able to kill germs by the millions. Martin illustrates and speaks of the body as a castle, which must be fortified and protected from intrusion. The body’s efficiency is measured and compared to that of industrial machines, each subject to many of the same chemical and physical laws. The rest of the chapter goes on to discuss how the body, like a machine can be repaired, but unlike a machine, the body has it’s own repair system in place, the immune system.

School House Rock - Body Machine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_H89pIWis

In the classic educational cartoon, School House Rock, the chorus here sings “I’m a machine, you’re a machine, everybody that you know, you know they are machines. To keep your engine running you need energy for your high powered revved up body machine.”

This is a classic example of a scientific concept being reinforced by media. If the children are being educated by cartoons that they are machines, from a very young age, of course they are going to grow up thinking of themselves as machines. It isn’t an entirely bogus concept, of course. Both machines and humans need fuel to function. Both machines and humans are incredibly complex, have moving parts, and if not maintained properly will stop functioning. In the case of modern technology, machines can even get life threatening viruses if they are not properly immunized. If you don’t maintain, clean and repair your machine, it will likely not function as well as if you did or in fact will cease to function entirely, similar to a human.

On the other hand, the human body quite assuredly is not a machine. http://library.thinkquest.org/28807/data/home.htm

The above website points out that the human body can do things a machine could never do, most significantly grow. The human body starts out at a single cell and multiplies exponentially to eventually form a full grown human.

The significance of comparing a body to a machine really lies in two places; first and foremost the body is extremely functional. The body can labor, become a fully functioning and contributing member of society and even fight for its country. Second, the body must be maintained. If the body is not properly fed, cleaned or rested than the body will require an overhaul, which is expensive and wasteful for all parties involved.

One more aspect of machines is that they are generally expendable. We use machines for whatever purpose they are given and if, in the end they do stop functioning we simply dispose of the old and bring in the newest best “machine.” The unfortunate issue with referring to living breathing things as machines is that people can potentially desensitize themselves or dehumanize others, which can be very dangerous.

Nevertheless, I think the concept of humans being machines has held together very well over time. I am guessing that Martin would agree with me in saying that this is probably not a good thing. In terms of teaching children how to take care of themselves, there is probably a better way.

(Image courtesy of weegeebored at www.flickr.com/photos/kenningtonfox/605534865/)

Text Quote from Flexible Bodies, the role of immunity in American culture from the days of Poio to the age of AIDS by Emily Martin, (c) 1994 Beacon Press Books.

Naturopathic Medicine

Teresa Evans ND, CPM midwife and Margie Ikeda, ND operate a comprehensive medical doctor’s office in Seattle. Although their practices are not necessarily mainstream, they have all the training and background of a traditional MD, with the additional training and specialization of a naturopathic doctor. What this enables them to do is treat patients as a traditional family practitioner would, but also examine patient problems from another perspective. The naturopathic perspective is one in which the doctor tries to look at the solving the causing of the problem instead of simply treating the symptoms. This is usually done through diet, exercise, lifestyle change, and often herbal medicine. Surgery and other more invasive medical practices are reserved for last resort.

In the event that a patient needs surgery or is in a life threatening state, they will be referred to a hospital or traditional MD. In situation of which another specialist, such as Ayurveda, Acupuncture or massage therapy might be the best practice for the patients particular problem, they are trained to recognize these individual needs and make the proper referrals. They also will actively work with a patients regular MD, to make sure there are no conflicts regarding the patients medication use or instructions given previously.

The doctors are licensed in 17 different states in the U.S., its territories and Canada and are authorized to operate diagnostic labs, studies and prescribe the pharmaceutical medication with the exception of controlled substances.

In addition to traditional doctor practices, Teresa and Margie specialize in vitamin IV’s which enable the body to more efficiently absorb vitamins and thoroughly detox. In addition, they have a technique for flushing highly toxic heavy metals from your body. Their other specialization was in a special kind of massage which involves the placement of hot and cold towels on your back or chest in succession of the other, which essentially gives the blood vessels a workout, strengthening your immune system. Each of these techniques is something that requires several sessions of treatment, after which the results are usually enough to get a person’s immune system back on track. After a person is on the road to recovery, the doctors would then look at long term solutions that will help the problem from ever occurring again. Many of the patients they see for this are HIV infected or suffering from Fibro Mialgia.

Difficulties that the naturopathic doctors struggle with are a health care system that does not fully accept or work with them. Because of complexities, these particular naturopathic doctors do not work with insurance companies, which can make it difficult for patients. They did however advise that many insurance companies will pay partial, but the patients must send in their receipts for reimbursement. This is the preferred method of dealing with insurance companies, as it does not subject the naturopathic doctors to the demands of insurance companies, which often set patient quotas and such. The doctors felt that such quotas compromise the medical system, rushing doctors and preventing patients from getting the time and attention they need for both a proper diagnosis and effective treatment.

Overall it was very interesting to see what the naturopathic doctors do. I would definitely keep them in mind for a future primary care physician. I am also very intrigued at the idea of having my heavy metals removed from my body and wonder whether or not women should consider having this done before getting pregnant. I think that if accepted properly and given the attention it deserves, naturopathic medicine could really improve the lives of people and families everywhere.

The Ethics of Organ Transplants

“Marx wrote about the “fetishism of commodities,” whereby items come to be thought of as having inherent value, as they might have weight or color. The commodity – the object – is decontextualized in a capitalist system, and consumers know little or nothing about the social relations of production or of exchange. As Harvey puts it, “the grapes that sit upon the supermarket shelves are mute, we cannot see the fingerprints of exploitation upon them or tell immediately what part of the world they are from.” (Pg. 48-49).

Context of Excerpt

Margaret Lock discusses the commodification of human body parts and how it complicates the seemingly altruistic world of saving lives through organ donation. She argues that as globalization becomes more common, society must consider more than local values or regulations in determining things such as whether a commodity is ethically obtained or not. There are often so many intermediaries involve that it is too complex to determine a commodities origin, which leaves the door wide open for the exploitation of the poor in developing countries. Human bodies have been historically commodified as slaves or sex laborers, but up until the twentieth century an individual’s body parts had no intrinsic value to anybody but their owner’s. Lock then goes on to discuss that in the United States, body parts can be legally constituted as separate from the person, opening the door for their commodification.

In the excerpt I chose, Marx takes it one step further and points out the dilemma that commodification in general poses, which is that we have no way of knowing whether or not the products we buy were obtained ethically. This becomes an even greater dilemma than, say, that of whether or not your coffee is from workers getting paid a living wage, because in the case of body organ commodification, people’s very lives are at risk.

Doctors Study the Ethics of Transplant Tourism by Dave Parks

http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base//living-11/1217742163244430.xml&coll=1

The article by Dave Parks also discusses the moral dilemma involved with the commodification of organs in respect to the global market. Many people are desperately ill and waiting for organ transplants that could save or extend their lives significantly. More and more, a trend is rising in which patients turn to transplant tourism, in which they travel to another part of the world where they can buy an organ, most commonly a kidney. Estimates state the between five and ten percent of organ transplants worldwide are conducted this way. Policy change in India and China has resulted in a serious reduction in the amount of foreign organ transplants in those countries, but Pakistan and the Philippines have now become leading exporters of kidneys.

This is where the ethics comes into play. Logically speaking, you can sell your own property, you can sell your labor, and if you take that one step further, why should you not be able to sell your body parts. The idea is typically that someone in desperate need of money should be able to make an altruistic sacrifice of one of their body parts, usually a kidney, save somebody’s life, and then significantly improve their own life by buying their citizenship or getting themselves out of debt. The problem that Parks points out is that this is not the case. Most of the money from these organ sales ends up going to the middle men who make the deals, and the lives of the people donating the organ are rarely improved. On the contrary, in many cases the organ donor is not provided with proper follow up care and could even die. In China, before serious policy reform it was thought that many organs were coerced out of prisoners.

Even in the U.S., Parks writes, it is debatable whether or not Organ donors are ethically treated. The sale of organs within the U.S. has been outlawed. The result is that the patients get the organs they need, doctors and hospitals get paid, but organ donors and their families get not compensation, not even insurance coverage for health problems they may have years later because of the surgery.

It is thought that if more people within their own country would agree to be organ donors, the illegal trafficking of organs would decline if not disappear entirely. Regardless, the problem of human body parts becoming commodified will still exists and as long as it still exists, there is always the possibility that the system will be abused and that people will be taken advantage of. Only as I said before, this is more serious than people simply getting fair compensation, peoples very lives are at risk. As long as there is the chance that people could die because of a decision to get an organ transplant, the ethics involved are questionable at best and sinister at worst.

(Image courtesy www.inkcinct.com.au)

Text Quote from Twice Dead, Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death by Margaret Lock (c) 2002 by the Regents of the University of California.