To the Editor: The review article by Calado and Young (Dec. 10 issue)¹ discusses the influence of aging, cancer, cardiopulmonary disease, and disorders of the liver and skin on telomere disorders but ignores autoimmunity and the immune system. Our group and others have shown that antibodies to telomere (which is pure double-stranded DNA) correlate with lupus disease activity and that telomere lengths in lymphocytes are shortened in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis.²–⁴ In a recent study,⁵ investigators hypothesized that telomerase insufficiency results in excessive T-cell loss, undermining homeostatic control of the naive T-cell compartment and . . .