I believe it may be an estrogen problem for most of these people. All the papers by Mawson I've read seem to point towards an increase in retinoic acid at the particular diseased site, or a dis-regulation of retinoid signalling like in glioblastoma.

From this Ray article it seems estrogen is responsible for triggering certain inflammatory immune response like the chitinase enzymes etc. I wouldn't be surprised if it did the same with retinoic acid needlessly at the site of inflammation.

I think a lot of their benefits are as you say blunting the immune response but also I'd add a reduced endotoxin load. They all seem to do bad ("detox reactions") without any binders.