Diseases and Cures in the Wings of Houseflies: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Phage.jpg|right|thumb|Electron micrograph of bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell.]]

==Apologetic Claim==

Bacteriophages (“phages”) are viruses that infect bacteria. It is a generality that all natural bacterial populations are limited by phages and environmental conditions, but it is a leap to suggest that these elements are antidotes. Mammals, too, are limited by pathogens, but it is foolish to suggest these pathogens are antidotal to mammals. Nevertheless, a dissection of the fly wing hadiths is as follows:  

Ibn Hajar wrote in his commentary on the hadith:  

{{Quote||I found nothing among the variants to pinpoint the wing that carries the antidote but one of the Ulema said he observed that the fly protects itself with its left wing so it can be deduced that the right one is the one with the antidote.}}

===They make erroneous assumptions===

The way it works is as follows:  

*Fly lands on human food – transfers traces of feces or rotting carcass onto human food.

{{Quote||The existence of similar bacteria-killing mechanisms in two bacteriophages suggests that antibiotics for human infections might be designed on the basis of these cell wall-destroying proteins. Science 292 (June 2001) p. 2326-2329.}}

{{Quote||Only in modern times was it discovered that the common fly carried parasitic pathogens for many diseases including malaria, typhoid fever, cholera, and others. It was also discovered that the fly carried parasitic bacteriophagic fungi capable of fighting the germs of all these diseases.}}

A. The common fly does not carry malaria – that is carried by and transmitted exclusively through the bites of Anopheles mosquitoes.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/|title= Malaria|publisher= World Health Organization Media Centre|series= Fact sheet No. 94|author= |date= Reviewed March 2013|archiveurl= http://archive.is/U4B5i|deadurl=no}}</ref>  

{{Quote|1=|2=Gnotobiotic [=germ-free] insects (Greenberg et al, 1970) were used to provide evidence of the bacterial pathogen-suppressing ability of the microbiota of Musca domestica [houseflies] .... most relationships between insects and their microbiota remain undefined. Studies with gnotobiotic locusts suggest that the microbiota confers previously unexpected benefits for the insect host.}}  

{{Quote||An article in Vol. 43 of the Rockefeller Foundation's Journal of Experimental Medicine (1927) p. 1037 stated: The flies were given some of the cultured microbes for certain diseases. After some time the germs died and no trace was left of them while a germ-devouring substance formed in the flies - bacteriophages. If a saline solution were to be obtained from these flies it would contain bacteriophages able to suppress four kinds of disease-inducing germs and to benefit immunity against four other kinds.  

Even if the wings of flies were to provide humans with an antidote to bacterial diseases, they could possibly infect humans with another non-bacterial disease. Flies also spread pinworm, tapeworm, viral gastroenteritis, amebic dysentery, giardia enteritis, and enteric hepatitis. Bacteriophages and fungi are totally ineffective against these diseases.

The scientific evidence does not support the veracity of the fly wing hadith for the following reasons:  

3. Bacteriophages are ineffective against non-bacterial diseases carried by flies, meaning even if the wings were to provide you with an antidote to bacterial diseases, they could infect you with another non-bacterial disease (i.e. dipping a fly into your drink is not good advice).