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People must also know that the chances of getting HIV by a heterosexual that does not use injections of illegal drugs is as close to zero as statistical analysis will allow

No, just no.

Do some research

Yes, you can. It's low risk, but it's possible, especially if there's any cuts in the mouth. http://www.aidsmap.com/Oral-se...

If the father is known to have AIDS, it's more likely he passed it to her than vice versa. But we don't have enough information to make any conclusions. She may have acquired AIDS while shooting up a month before the baby was born.

HIV treatment significantly lowers the risk of sexual transmission and in combination with a condom no partner should worry about being infected unless other unsafe sex practises are used.

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/4E9D555B-18FB-4D56-B912-2C28AFCCD36B.asp

Do you know why you never see a "Walk to Stop Acid Reflux" or a "Save the Erections Concert", because there aren't charites raising millions a year for research for those things. There are many charities dedicated to fundraising for AIDS research, and there have been for over a decade. And charity funded research isn't all secrective and proprietary with their work, so much of what Merck is profiting off of here is publicly funded research. And on top of this Merck was price gouging:"The Brazilian government is asking Merck to sell efavirenz at US$0.65 a day, compared to a price of around $1.60 at present - a price reduction of almost 60%. Efavirenz is currently used by 75,000 patients in Brazil, and costs the Brazilian government $43 .8 million a year."http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/EED3BCE4-3992 -4842-8F37-9CAD750EE94E.asp razil is now buying a generic from India for $0.45. Let's say that $0.45 is the base cost, at Brazil's asked for price it would have been a 44% over base cost return, but nooooo, Merck wanted a 255% return. Who the fuck else operates on the assumtion of a 200%+ profit margin?

Go for it, dude. Similarly, I am free to avoid blood transfusions because of the risk of HIV infection. It would be absolutely retarded given the level of risk involved in blood transfusions, but I could do it. As I said, to each his own.

Say, didn't the article say "Infected men ... are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose." Not that that has any bearing on responses in this thread. But let me offer everyone some pyrimethamine with this morning's coffee. Bon appetit.

Clever. Rude and smug....but clever.

I don't know how to make this any more clear except by quoting from established medical research. You are just wrong. This study analyzed the effect of a combination of drugs on mice infected with different phases of toxoplasmosis:

http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/50/6/981 .pdf

Key quote:

"In all models, i.e. in acute, chronic and reactivated toxoplasmosis, the combined drugs were effective in terms of both significantly increased survival and decreased brain cyst burdens compared with no treatment."

This does not show that the immune system can effectively combat brain cysts (something I never claimed anyway--in the cyst phase, the immune system seems to be unable to effect the disease) or eliminate tachyzoites resulting from burst brain cysts (which I believe the immune system can do--your assumption that those tachyzoites remain in the brain and inaccessible to blood flow and the immune system is flawed, IMO). What this *does* show is that certain drug treatments have been successful in attacking brain cysts and significantly reducing their number. The study is interesting and is recommended reading.

This "meta study" was used to analyze treatments for toxoplasmosis in AIDS patients:

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/docs/659BAD5D-332A-4F8D- 9F93-8D0F470B2D32.asp

Key quote:

"Wallace found that Toxoplasma IgG antibody positivity did not correlate with cat ownership."

Anyway, cheers to you. This argument is obviously not "winnable." Neither of us have budged. That's cool. I'll keep on with my "financial analysis" and you can keep up with whatever methods you are using. Happy (and parasite free) living to you.

Taft

These HIV cocktails DO effectively stop AIDS. AIDS is a condition caused by the HIV virus reducing and eventually depleting CD4 cells used in the immune system to nothing. An uninfected person usually has a CD4 count of around 800. When this is reduced to under 100, this is then classified as AIDS. Even if the CD4 count were to rise well above that threshold, they are still considered to have AIDS. Most HIV+ people on combination therapy start once their CD4 drops below 200, and from then on it rises back up at about 100 a year thereafter. The side effects are often not good, but so far, everyone seems to be living pretty normal lives. It's no cure, but its a start. http://www.aidsmap.com/

Do you have any evidence to back-up that assertion? It should be easy to prove.

HIV is spreading like wildfire all over Africa and some parts of Asia

Despite the fact that only a small minority of Asians are Catholics. In fact the Philippines, the only majority Catholic country in Asia has a low prevalence of AIDS.

There would be plenty of evidence if you were right. Catholic parts of Africa would have higher AIDS rates, Catholic individuals should be more likely to have AIDS, Catholic countries in Europe should have higher AIDS rates than others etc.

You also assume that people have heard of the teaching (I doubt they have outside the west where it receives media attention - I have never heard it mentioned here in many years of living in Asia) and

You also assume that people will simultaneously ignore the church's main teaching on sex and follow a minor, controversial one.

It is such a pity the facts do not fit your western atheist prejudices.

Thanks for answering my question re: the Western Blot test. That makes a lot of sense.

That the early tests on AZT were not so convincing is irrelevant;

It is relevant if you want to consider any epidemiological data which includes people being treated with AZT.

There is not a shred of a rational reason to doubt that HIV causes AIDS

Agreed. HAART therapy often has the effect of sending KS into remission, (even though the virus which causes KS is oddly not cleared more effectively after the introduction of HAART therapy.)

To argue from my standpoint for a moment rather than Deusberg's; HIV is not simply "the virus which causes AIDS" though it seems to do that. HIV is relativly weak when it starts out. Only a minority of infected needlesticks lead to seroconversion. Because of this, HIV is also a marker viruses for immunosuppresion. A person who seroconverts to HIV is likely to already have other illnesses, particularly HHV. The presence of HHV dramatically increases the time from seroconversion to full blown AIDS.

As for the idea that HIV may have evolved from a less dangerous human virus: This is not impossible in theory, but there is strong evidence that HIV originates from SIV, and no evidence for another origin. Also, the co-evolution of a virus with its host tends to make it less and not more harmful to the host; this is the trend that was observed for syphilis and has recently been reported for HIV as well. It is not in the interest of a disease to kill its host.

If you believe that syphilis was yaws before it was syphilis, then the pathogen became much more harmful as it became a sexually transmitted disease.

The notion that HIV came from SIV is predicated on the paradigm that you use for describing the evolution and virulence of infectious diseases. The current theory assumed from the beginning that HIV must have come from a different species and only considered evidence which fit that model.

If you use a different model for the evolution of infectious diseases, there is less need to describe HIV as coming from SIV.

A number of strains of HIV-2 have been identified, classified into four clades (A, B, C, D) which are no more closely related to each other than they are to different strains of an SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) found in wild sooty mangabey monkeys in West Africa.
http://www.aidsmap.com/en/docs/F8ABA3D3-E6A0-42AC- A801-8F06B6EBD4C7.asp

HIV-2 is significantly less virulent than HIV-1, the virus mostly responsible for the "AIDS epidemic."
HIV-2 appears in the more socially stable and religiously conservative West Africa.

I'll outline Ewald's theory of infectious diseases breifly. If you review the existing evidence through the lense of that theory, it should be clearer why HIV does not have to have recently come from SIV in order to be an epidemic and why pathogens can sometimes increase in virulence.

The older views of the evolution of infectious diseases are based on the observation of airborne pathogens. There are several key differences between airborne and fluid borne diseases.

1. Airborne diseases benefit from a host that can walk around. If you stay at home, you're not spreading the cold.

2. Airborne diseases typically spread just one strain of the disease at a time.

3. Airborne diseases are typically suppressed quickly by the immune system. Even though Herpes Zoster, the virus which causes chicken pox, stays in your body for life you're only contagious for a small amount of time. So the virus only has a small window of time to spread.

However, the more of a host's resources that a virus can manage to use, the more transmissible it will be. Some of the worst flu pandemics occurred after poorly fed soldiers were being carted around Europe in boxcars during WWI. When people can be very sick and still move around and spread their sickness, it

Since that also relies on your own immune system (recognizing the cow pox as foreign and developing a response to it that just happens to work against smallpox, too) it still isn't really equivalent. A better analogy might be a retrovirus that deletes or damages the genes for the apparently unnecessary co-receptors that the HIV virus needs (along with CD4) to cause infection.

You have yet to admit that the *only* theory which receives any funding and credibility is the "HIV==AIDS" theory. Any differing or dissenting opinions are rapidly silenced.

They aren't rapidly silenced; they were repeatedly rebutted over the years. Alternative theories of causation. Furthermore, Peter Duesberg and others have extensively argued their case in high-impact scientific magazines (Nature, Science, PNAS...).

Is it possible that some of those conditions have nothing to do with HIV (for example, malnutrition and heavy drug usage)?

Yes, there are other conditions that cause the immune system to weaken. "What is unusual and new about AIDS, and requires that we classify it as a new syndrome, is the development of immune deficiency as the result of the loss of CD4 lymphocytes in people who would not normally be expected to develop immune deficiency"

if it doesn't follow pandemic patterns?

What are the pandemic patterns you refer to? Some background on your side would be useful too.

AIDS cases in the USA alone have not spread beyond the original target groups

HIV has been found in all the risk groups in which AIDS has appeared, but no other common factor is shared by all the risk groups, and no other factor has been shown to be associated with the distinctive depletion of CD4 lymphocytes in the same way. Some have argued that AIDS emerged in different risk groups at similar times because of different risk factors which deplete cellular immunity. According to this argument, it is a coincidence that HIV appeared at the same time in these different risk groups, and a coincidence that the presence or absence of HIV can be matched so closely with the development of AIDS in the different risk groups. However, those who accept the association between HIV and AIDS point out that HIV has failed to spread widely amongst heterosexuals in the developed world due to a lack of pathways for the virus.

why should a virus care what continent a person is on?

It doesn't care of course, but cultural differences will naturally cause differences in the epidemics.

What evidence do you have that the virus has been successfully isolated?

Recently developed sensitive testing methods, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and improved culture techniques, have enabled researchers to find HIV in patients with AIDS with few exceptions. HIV has been repeatedly isolated from the blood, semen and vaginal secretions of patients with AIDS, findings consistent with the epidemiologic data demonstrating AIDS transmission via sexual activity and contact with infected blood (Bartlett, 1999; Hammer et al. J Clin Microbiol 1993;31:2557; Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16).

HIV test does not test for HIV (only antibodies which scientists claim "must react" in the presence of a virus WHICH HAS NOT BEEN ISOLATED), and that the execution of this test is widely flawed.

Diagnosis of infection using antibody testing is one of the best-established concepts in medicine. HIV antibody tests exceed the performance of most other infectious disease tests in both sensitivity (the ability of the screening test to give a positive finding when the person tested truly has the disease) and specificity (the ability of the test to give a negative finding when the subjects tested are free of the disease under study). Current HIV antibody tests have sensitivity and specificity in excess of 98% and are therefore extremely reliable (WHO, 1998; Sloand et al. JAMA 1991;266:2861).

Progress in testing methodology has also enabled detection of viral genetic material, antigens and the virus itself in body fluids and cells. While not widely used for routine testing due to high cost and requirements in laboratory equipment, these direct testing techniques have confirmed the validity of the antibody tests (Jackson et al. J Clin Microbiol 1990;28:16; Busch et al. NEJM 1991;325:1; Silvester et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995;8:411; Urassa et al. J Clin Virol 1999;14:25; Nkengasong et al. AIDS 1999;13:109; Samdal et al. Clin Diagn Virol 1996;7:55.

Of course it's important. Research funding increases when the perceived threat is greater. My point is that AIDS is an industry, not a disease.

My point was that it's not important what you call it as long as you acknowledge that a high number of people are affected by this disease. In addition, other factors are important in evaluating the "perceived threat"; for instance, AIDS is a major cause of death among young people, whereas a disease like cancer predominantly affects older people.

What is the history? What are the side effects of AZT? I believe I'm having this discussion with you, not with the links you sent me.

The vast majority of people with AIDS never received antiretroviral drugs, including those in developed countries prior to the licensure of AZT in 1987, and people in developing countries today where very few individuals have access to these medications (UNAIDS, 2000).

As with medications for any serious diseases, antiretroviral drugs can have toxic side effects. However, there is no evidence that antiretroviral drugs cause the severe immunosuppression that typifies AIDS, and abundant evidence that antiretroviral therapy, when used according to established guidelines, can improve the length and quality of life of HIV-infected individuals (Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, 2000).

In the 1980s, clinical trials enrolling patients with AIDS found that AZT given as single-drug therapy conferred a modest (and short-lived) survival advantage compared to placebo. Among HIV-infected patients who had not yet developed AIDS, placebo-controlled trials found that AZT given as single-drug therapy delayed, for a year or two, the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Significantly, long-term follow-up of these trials did not show a prolonged benefit of AZT, but also never indicated that the drug increased disease progression or mortality. The lack of excess AIDS cases and death in the AZT arms of these placebo-controlled trials effectively counters the argument that AZT causes AIDS (NIAID, 1995).

Subsequent clinical trials found that patients receiving two-drug combinations had up to 50 percent increases in time to progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to people receiving single-drug therapy. In more recent years, three-drug combination therapies have produced another 50 percent to 80 percent improvements in progression to AIDS and in survival when compared to two-drug regimens in clinical trials (Deeks, Volberding, 1999). Use of potent anti-HIV combination therapies has contributed to dramatic reductions in the incidence of AIDS and AIDS-related deaths in populations where these drugs are widely available, an effect which clearly would not be seen if antiretroviral drugs caused AIDS (Figure 1; CDC. HIV AIDS Surveillance Report 1999;11[2]:1; Palella et al. NEJM 1998;338:853; Mocroft et al. Lancet 1998;352:1725; Mocroft et al. Lancet 2000;356:291; Vittinghoff et al. J Infect Dis 1999;179:717; Detels et al. JAMA 1998;280:1497; de Martino et al. JAMA 2000;284:190; CASCADE Collaboration. Lancet 2000;355:1158; Hogg et al. CMAJ 1999;160:659; Schwarcz et al. Am J Epidemiol 2000;152:178; Kaplan et al. Clin Infect Dis 2000;30:S5; McNaghten et al. AIDS 1999;13:1687).

KS only occurs in gay men (who use poppers).

Not true according to what I read, it occurs mostly in men.

Why should a virus care what the host's sexuality is?

It doesn't care.

The distribution of AIDS cases, whether in the United States or elsewhere in the world, invariably mirrors the prevalence of HIV in a population. In the United States, HIV first appeared in populations of homosexual men and injection-drug users, a majority of whom are male. Because HIV is spread primarily through sex or by the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles during injection-drug use, it is not surprising that a majority of U.S. AIDS cases have occurred in men (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).

Increasingly, however, women in the United States are becoming HIV-infected, usually through the exchange of HIV-contaminated needles or sex with an HIV-infected male. The CDC estimates that 30 percent of new HIV infections in the United States in 1998 were in women. As the number of HIV-infected women has risen, so too has the number of female AIDS patients in the United States. Approximately 23 percent of U.S. adult/adolescent AIDS cases reported to the CDC in 1998 were among women. In 1998, AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death among women aged 25 to 44 in the United States, and the third leading cause of death among African-American women in that age group (NIAID Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS Statistics).

In Africa, HIV was first recognized in sexually active heterosexuals, and AIDS cases in Africa have occurred at least as frequently in women as in men. Overall, the worldwide distribution of HIV infection and AIDS between men and women is approximately 1 to 1 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999; UNAIDS, 2000).

The problem with the list changing is that the list is an integral portion of the definition of the disease. If the list changes, the definition of AIDS changes. What additions and subtractions have been made to the list in recent years, and why?

The diseases associated with AIDS, such as PCP and Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), are not caused by HIV but rather result from the immunosuppression caused by HIV disease. As the immune system of an HIV-infected individual weakens, he or she becomes susceptible to the particular viral, fungal and bacterial infections common in the community. For example, HIV-infected people in certain midwestern and mid-Atlantic regions are much more likely than people in New York City to develop histoplasmosis, which is caused by a fungus. A person in Africa is exposed to different pathogens than is an individual in an American city. Children may be exposed to different infectious agents than adults (AIDS Knowledge Base, 1999a; 1999b).

Another point needs to be made: I didn't try to demonize you and I didn't treat you badly; you just like to play the victim. I found the "written by a bunch of crackpots and loons" bit particularly funny because you are the only one using those words. You also seem to believe you know what I think, as you state several times when that is obviously false. In the epitome of righteous indignation, you say "And I get a "people like you" comment". That was actually a compliment to your skeptic attitude. It would be nice if you would just take the time to read what it says rather than assuming you're being attacked. I'm looking forward to hear from you again, if you can drop the poor victim attitude and stick to the arguments.



Cheers

-nfk-