About one third of the UK population will develop an allergy of some sort during the course of their lives . Allergic diseases have trebled in the last 20 years. There are a number of suspects, including pollution in the air, industrially processed foods and coloring additives. This was not a problem in the time of Epicurus.
What attitude should modern Epicureans adopt?
Some will say, why are you bringing this up? It has nothing to do with me." Brother, it sure do!
How do you stop corporations poisoning others (however innocently or ignorantly). By ignoring the problem? Nasty chemicals didn’t exist in Epicurus’s day and there was nothing much you could do about disease. But in case you haven’t noticed, there are tings that can be done these days, and a responsible civilisation should do them.
Many allergies are caused by too clean an environment…. yes really! In Epicurus’s day things were none too clean so small childeren were able to develop more efficient immune syustems. I bet there are more allergies in the West than in third world countries. Likewise, the overuse of antibiotics nowadays has compromised our immune systems and nasty bugs in hospitals like C. Difficile and MSRA have become immune to antibiotics and have a free run. Many have died (a small piece of evidence for evolution by natural selection… viruses are a very successful species from an evolutionary point of view.!) The nasty chemicals to which you refer, are cuasing behavioural difficulties in children – ‘they’ have found via many studies. ‘E’ numbers are going to be banned I believe.
I believe it. Americans are notorious for sanitizing everything. We have friends whose daughter in law practically uses a face mask to cook with for fear of a single germ reaching her offspring. I is counter to common sense.