“Understanding Immunity through the Lens of Disease Ecology”, 2017 (; backlinks; similar):
[followup to 2004; commentary] As we describe the immune system in ever more exquisite detail, we might find that no matter how successful, this approach will not be sufficient to understand the spread of infectious agents, their susceptibility to vaccine therapy, and human disease resistance.
Compared with the strict reductionism practiced as a means of characterizing most biological processes, I propose that the progression and outcome of disease-causing host-parasite interactions will be more clearly understood through a focus on disease ecology.
…A half century ago everyone expected their children to experience the ravages of measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, influenza, and other infections that had evolved into the “childhood” diseases. This was traumatic enough that even as a small child, not knowing anything about the dynamics of disease epidemics, I wondered why it was I had to experience all of these diseases as well as an almost continuous string of less severe “colds” and enteropathies (we called them all ‘stomach flu’), when all the while our pets appeared to remain perfectly healthy.
If human beings are just exceptionally intelligent animals, I wondered, why should we be sick so often? The answer is to be found in our unnaturally rapid alteration of population density and structure, our close association (often involving killing and exchange of blood) with so many different other species, and our small-worlds population structure. I assert the likely possibility that because of our unique ability to change our ecosystem, for the past few thousand years, we human beings have been the most diseased species on earth.