Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus are familiar autoimmune diseases; but it's the rare endemic pemphigus foliaceus – which plagues nearly 5 percent of men age 30 to 70 and a smaller percentage of postmenopausal women living on the outskirts of the tiny municipality of El Bagre, Colombia – providing a rare opportunity to dissect the factors that prompt the immune system to harm instead of protect.
“The cells of the patients, they will tell us,” says Dr. Ana Maria Abreu-Velez, dermatologist, immunologist and a native of the country where the disease surfaced in the mid-1980s as a mining boon changed the landscape.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/02/040219080612.htm
[Editor: The preceding article was not written by A4M/WHN]
