Press Release: Macrophages declare victory

Date: Sunday April 19, 2009 10:00am
Immune System Press Conference Transcript
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MACROPHAGE: Thank you all for being here this morning. As many of you know, an unknown antigen invaded our security perimeter on Thursday morning. Our intelligence indicated that the initial breach occurred in the upper respiratory tract. The antigens established their base of operations in the nasopharyngeal cavity, and began to aggressively mobilize towards the lower respiratory tract, ultimately compromising the lungs. At this point, I would like to hand over the briefing to T-Lymphocyte, who will mediate the rest of the briefing.

T-LYMPHOCYTE: Thank you Macrophage. First of all, I would like to talk about the issues related to immune response. Some have been critical of the length of time it took for our team to response appropriately to this threat, and if we did so using sufficient force. Ladies and gentlemen, our response to antigens are both strategic and complex. My division serve as both helpers and killers. Using all the resources at our disposal, we were able to mediate an appropriate immune response with our colleagues. As of this morning, I am confident that we have defeated the antigen threat.

MACROPHAGE: That is to say that the antigen threat has been neutralized... but not necessarily eliminated completely. There are still pockets of resistance, but our forces are making rapid progress to destroy them.

T-LYMPHOCYTE: Thank you for that clarification. With that, I will take your questions. And if you really don't have much to talk about, we won't spend much time here. But we kind of wanted to give you the opportunity to flush out those questions.

QUESTION: You said that your reactions were strategic and complex. The antigen invasion was able to progress to the lungs. This caused a lot of systemic distress, to the point where sick days had to be used and social events had to be cancelled. If you had been faster, these inconveniences could have been avoided, yes?

MACROPHAGE: Well, we regret that you had to experience these... inconveniences. I can personally say that macrophages were out in the field the moment this threat was first detected. We decided to act with caution, because phagocytosis is not a process that we do indiscriminately. Perhaps B-Lymphocyte would like to comment further on targeted immunity.

B-LYMPHOCYTE: Thank you, Macrophage. As you know, we have been making a lot of investments in the area of targeted immunity. We have seen significant reductions in auto-immunity "friendly-fire" incidents and more effective response to specific antigen threats as a result. The trade-off with targeted immunity is that it takes some time to deploy out in the battlefield. It's the nature of antibodies, of which I am an expert in. However, I am confident in saying that we will not be attacked by this particular antigen again in the future. I hope that addesses your question.

T-LYMPHOCYTE: Thank you, B-Lymphocyte. Any more questions?

QUESTION: Do you know where the antigens came from?

MACROPHAGE: Clearly the antigen was respiratory in nature. Given the tendency to localize in the upper respiratory tract, it was likely to be a Rhinovirus serotype.

B-LYMPHOCYTE: It was definitely a Rhinovirus, and a particularly nasty one.

MACROPHAGE: These types of viruses come from a variety of places, but I suspect that the initial antigen contact occurred during a dinner on Monday evening, and it was only detected by our team on Thursday morning.

T-LYMPHOCYTE: That looks like all the time we have for questions at this point. Thank you all for coming.