Judy wrote: >I don't know firsthand what it feels like to have my organs destroyed >by antibodies, but my *guess* is that there is some amount of pain and >suffering involved. Don't know what the ferret pain threshold is, but in this human anyway, autoimmune disease sometimes hurts like hell. Everybody knows how the flu feels, right? Achey joints, achey head, oh so tired, body too heavy to move. Autoimmune disease can be a lot like that -- or a lot worse. Don't know if ADV has the destructive range of autoimmunity in humans. Can it attack the central nervous system? The circulatory system? Every cell in the body? If you can't empathise, can't relate, can't understand ADV, take a stroll through the online literature about human autoimmune diseases -- rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, scleroderma, ankylosing spondylitis, etc etc etc While the destructive mechanisms of autoimmune disease are infinite and variable, pain is one consistent factor! Give what you can for ADV research. I wouldn't wish autoimmune disease on my worst enemy --- much less my fuzzy little friends. [LA] [Posted in FML issue 3215]