Good article on the spleen -- another body part that gets no respect

[Quirky]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/sc...ngier.html?hpw

I thought so many of the points made in this article were relevant to the circumcision issue, in which the foreskin is treated as an evolutionary deadwater, and totally disposable.

“Often, if you come across something in the body that seems like a big deal, you think, ‘Why didn’t anybody check this before?’ ” Dr. Nahrendorf said. “But the more you learn, the more you realize that we’re just scratching on the surface of life. We don’t know the whole story about anything.”

The latest work also sounds a cautionary note against underestimating a body part or dismissing it as vestigial, expendable or past its prime. In an accompanying essay, Ting Jia and Eric G. Pamer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center admit that “the spleen lacks the gravitas of neighboring organs” like the liver or the stomach “because we can survive without it.”

“Evolution has an edge on us,” Dr. Nahrendorf said. “I would be very careful about saying, ‘You don’t need this organ, get rid of it.’ ”

[A&A]

[D'sMama]

It's too bad that foreskin wasn't mentioned in the article as another body part sometimes removed prophylactically - I HATE when people advocate circ because it can prevent some penile cancers or might prevent STDs (I don't even know if those are true, because they're crap reasons IMO).

[In Exile]

Remember "routine tonsillectomy" on children, remember how many people got their appendix removed because "nobody needs it?"

Back than parents objecting to "routine surgery" without any need where regarded as dangerous fools and Doctors were convinced what a great job they were doing by removing organs people "didn't need."

Fast forward and those organs get removed when somebody had an actual problem- although you have other issues when your tonsils don't hold up germs...

Same sad old story- now the medical industry will act as if random surgery on healthy children's organs never took place, western medicine does not like to talk about previously held believes they defended with everything in their might. Here's hope that RIC goes the same way. You will never get somebody to say "yeah, we were pretty stupid to believe that."

[KMK_Mama]

I don't have my spleen. I wish I did.

I've never been told that not having your spleen is no big deal. It's a very big deal. Good article.

[A&A]

The gallbladder is another "removable" organ that doesn't get any respect.

[In Exile]

Hysterectomy, anyone?? How many women get pressured into a complete removal at the slightest problem, after they had children? (not talking emergencies here)

I remember my mom fighting like crazy. She was far from menopausal but had some issues- she had to suggest alternative fibroid treatments. Her Docs were dead set on hysterectomy. I am proud she fought like a lion because God knows that organ is not just something "you don't need".