Hi John
Earlier on this thread you wrote -
"Yes, it (diet) will work for everyone with AS but it requires time and more patience than most patients have."
In your last post you wrote -
"It was not my intention to give the impression that there are no vegetarian tigers, only that Ebringer did not find any. I happen to know that there ARE diet insensitive sufferers.... "
These excerpts seem to be in conflict and I have always thought the first was closer to your position.
In discussing this matter I have avoided presenting any new information but have merely analysed the facts as presented by you and Bilko. There are reasons for this approach. Firstly I am a layman in this discussion (but that doesn't limit my capacity to reason and debate). Secondly it makes it easier for anyone reading to follow.
I have quoted several times from Bilko's earlier post (because it is pivotal to this debate) -
(A) "Ebringer's classification into two groups is really very simple; he would listen to the patient's medical history to form an opinion, then if AS was suspected test the level of klebs specific antibodies. If you had inflammation and pain but no elevated klebs IgA then it wasn't AS. Otherwise it was. Often it is extremely difficult for a clinician to diagnose with the usual criteria, and some of the people in the group who do not respond to diet will have the wrong diagnosis."
and later "It is true the IgA-Kp test is not standard path lab for AS".
You have not disputed this evidence so I have assumed I could use this as a basis of argument. Is this unreasonable? Whenever I have been wrong I have been quickly informed of this, which is as it should be. I have also assumed that when Bilko said "If you had inflammation and pain but no elevated klebs IgA then it wasn't AS.", I could assume Ebringer did not include in his studies those whom he considered did not have AS (although that is not explicitly stated). Again this assumption was not challenged.
When you wrote in your last post "He (Ebringer) was unable to 'filter out' AS volunteers without high levels of Klebsiella antibodies because such a group did not exist (as a group) ..." and "I did say before that Ebringer did not screen out ANY AS individual. " surely that conflicts with Bilko's statement. If he tested for 'klebs specific antibodies' and did not include those with 'no elevated klebs IgA' then he has screened out (or filtered out) those patients. Whether they existed 'as a group' I cannot see as significant.
Would you please clarify where you stand on the statement of Bilko labelled (A) above.
Wally
