Slashdot Mirror
HIV Vaccine
The Sexecutioner writes "WebMD is reporting on a new vaccine which has had an incredible effect in clinical trials. The vaccine, composed of human dendrites holding dead HIV viruses, has dropped test patients' viral load by up to 90% in one year. Could this be it?"
While I am glad that we may have found the cure to HIV that kills millions every year, I wonder if the vaccine will be affordable to those unfortunate ones?
I got a feeling that only those wealthy people can afford to get fixed up, but most of them caught HIV due to their irresponsible action. Yet innocent victims who caught the disease, for instance by birth, may never see the light.
It seems like most medical findings are "open-source", that you can read about them in journals, but the actual cost to produce a medicine is usually very prohibitive.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I'd imagine that this sort of therapy could be useful against a whole range of viruses since (as I understand) it operates by training the immune system rather than crippling something specific to the virus the way that other HIV treatments do. If that'd work for most viruses, maybe someday people will be able to just update their own virus definitions a few times a year -- of course, most of them probably wouldn't bother and then call me for support when they open some damn .exe file
they got in their friggin' email and... Sorry, started drifting there for a second.
Of course, it's awfully early to get too excited given this is just 18 people in Brazil so far, and "incredible effect" might be a bit strong since only 44% of the very small number of test patients are still showing the full benefit after one year, but I suppose any good news in this sort of scenario is, well, good news.
PS: Am I the only one who finds it darkly ironic that "The Sexecutioner" submitted this story?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
dendrites are whole-tissue from the CNS...the best way on earth to pass on prion diseases. No Way is this going to become a vaccine until that little fear is put to rest!
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
It would be nice though.
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
How much you wanna bet that it won't be approved for use because, I don't know, say, it causes liver failure in 1% of the recipients or something.
Unknown host pong.
I sincerely hope this is it.
If it is, my only apprehension is that countries who need it most will not be able to afford it.
Go ahead and search, you will never find it all, I am baking muffins as I speak. - ComicBook Guy
I think you'd kind of HAVE to test the vaccine for an incurable illness on those with the illness already. Because the line would be very short to test it if they needed fresh blood.
So it might be a vaccine in early stages of testing.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I always hear about vaccines involving "dead" virus material. But I thought viruses weren't alive in the first place; that they were essentially protien envelopes containing viral DNA or RNA. Can anyone explain?
If they can make it for 30 cents per dose, maybe.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
THe real question is does its effect at combating the virus continue and improve? Dropping the viral load count dosn't mean much if it only works once and or dosn't ever wipe it out. Besides this sounds more like a treatment (which is more profitable) than a vaccine (which is what you get so you never get aids)
I really hope we're making progress on this, this virus is really killing a lot of people.. I also would love for some of these bigger viruses to be sorted with, then perhaps we can start working on the smaller, non-life threatening type viruses that we "live with" because they're not considered too threatening.
What I do fear though, is if we have a 'cure' then the fear of catching a deadly STD starts to fade away, even though there are other serious STD's out there still.
I remember being very afraid after waking up the next day.. then on I've been very careful and have been tested.. Simply don't want to trash more lives then my own if I did do something stupid.
You''ve got to have that word in there.
It's a vaccine because it "teaches" the immune system how to deal with HIV - at least to the extent of keeping it from getting worse, and in some percentage of cases, enough to drastically lower the viral load and rate of transmission.
But it's not a PREVENTIVE vaccine like most widespread vaccines, and it can't be mass-produced since it uses material from each patient and is custom-made for them.
It's still potentially a great leap in terms of treatment of HIV/AIDS, though.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I just read this.
Apparently Brazil is ready to go ahead and break the patent of several drug companies because they can't afford to pay for them.
New drugs are great but only if you can afford to take them.
evil is as evil does
The theory sounds easy enough for anyone to handle.
But it requires 2 items from the patient's body.
#1. Dendritic cells
#2. Dead virus
This doesn't sound like something that can be mass produced which means that the price will be high for most of the world.
Well, it's a trade-off: we want private companies to invest billions of dollars to develop medicines we need, but they'll only do so if there's the potential for profit. If there isn't, capital will flow out of drug companies's R&D budgets and into car manufacturers or something.
Governments that want to make a new life-saving drug available to all, not just those who can afford it, are free to subsidize it. Citizens and governments in wealthy countries who want to make the drugs available to citizens of poor countries can likewise fund it.
It's easy to paint a company as horrible because it wants to charge a lot of money for a life-saving new treatment. But in many cases that treatment wouldn't exist if the company couldn't make money from it.
I should buy some cement.
Shortly we'll hear about how someone has attach phase change cooling nanobots to the dendrites to allow them to be overclocked, and reduce the viral load by 90% in six months.
Then the lucite dendrites with cold cathode illuminated ribosomes will hit the market.
Then someone will build a nano-lego dendrite.
Then someone will make a stop action film of dendrites performing the Camelot song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Then someone will tell us all about how the Amiga had that same feature 20 years ago.
And finally, someone will announce an improved vaccine/therapy that eliminates HIV instantly, but it will link to goatse.
Shouldn't it be "virii"?
No, it shouldn't
Curing pandemic diseases like HIV is not only a slap in the face of Darwin, but it can only cause more problems with overpopulation down the road. If no one died from anything except old age, would that be a perfect society or a hectic, crowded, unstable society?
But yeah, on a much smaller scale this is awesome, I don't think there is a person here who isn't connected to someone with HIV.
to catch the things that aren't in the summary.
This isn't a generic vaccine that's created in mass and given to everyone. The 'vaccine' is generated using viruses and dendrites from the specific patient. So it has to be done for each person. It reduces viral loads, but doesn't eliminate the infection.
Still it sounds really promising, but there's a LOT of work that would need to be done before this got anywhere close to general use. Also the article doesn't say how complex/expensive the process is per person. It doesn't sound like it's third world friendly, at least at the moment.
While this study (Nature Medicine Advance On-line publications Subscription required) shows promise, it is only a preliminary trial that included 18 participants. Sixteen of the participants were female and two were male. The figure stated in the /. article, of a 90% total drop in viral load, is not quite accurate. The article states that the patients plasma viral load levels were decreased by 80% (median) over the first 112 days following immunization. It then goes on to say that a prolonged suppression of viral load (up to 1 year after inoculation) of 90% was seen in only 8 individuals.
From my analysis of the HIV RNA expression data from this paper, after 1 year, eight of the patients had viral loads reduced by 90% or better, two patients had their viral loads reduced between 80% and 90% six patients had viral loads that were reduced somewhere between 10% and 50% and two of the patients actually had an increase in plasma HIV RNA levels.
"When Nature Calls We All Shall Drown" Johan Edlund
Let's let 'em DIE if they can't pay.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If you're really that concerned about over-population please kill yourself now. You'll be helping your own cause.
After seeing that paralyzed woman walk for the first time, now this?
Its a uber week BUT how concrete is their statement? Ah...
I'm assuming you're trying to be funny...
Advanced users are users too!
Is this a vaccine or a medicine? There is a difference, isn't it? A vaccine is meant to build immune defence, while medicine fixes the body when the damage has already been done. So which one is it? I see contradicting comments, so it would be nice to have this cleared up.
As long as it isn't you, right?
Let's apply Occam's Razor here.
On one hand, we can claim that the West created a virus designed to kill Africans, but yet still somehow manages to kill millions in North America/Europe; not particularly effective from a genocide point of view.
Another, perhaps more practical point of view, is that sex education and safe-sex practices are far less common in Africa. The lack of knowledge about STD's and the absence of the rule of law in many parts of Africa would make a far more effective explanation.
If we take Ms. Maathai's explanation, then food must obviously also be a genetically engineered weapon, since millions more in Africa die from starvation than those in the West.
Most of the drugs that are sold in Canada are produced in the EXACT same factories that produce the drugs that are sold into the US market.
That is why most of the packaging is the exact same with the addition of French.
Great idea : it may be of use for patient with resistance to all known anti-retrovirals. But...
It is NOT a vaccine. It is NOT a cure. It's a temporary (at best) treatment. The title is highly misleading. And its far from practical. You need to isolate dendritic cells from an (infected) patient, which is costly, require specific equipment and isn't trivial (forget developing countries, which can't even afford AZT). Then you pulse these cells with killed HIV, which I assume should come from the patient (else soon the treatment will go ineffective due to mutations acquired by the virus) and you reinject the cells, which will go 'alert' the immune system that something is wrong. So mass scale treatment is out of question. Basically, you're only boosting the (ineffective) immune system against HIV-1. After a year, their treatment reduced viral load by 90% in 8 of 18 patients. 90% isn't a lot (anti-retroviral do a lot better than that), and they aren't even achieving 50% success after a year. I would imagine that after 2 or 3 years, the success rate is even lower. And the CD4 count is stable, not increasing to normal levels.
So no, its not 'it'. Don't hold your breath either.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
You'll know when its it. To quote the late great Bill Hicks, when there's a one shot cure for AIDs they'll be fucking in the streets.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Not if those 10% can mutate and rebound.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
released the day before world aids day? hmm!
The stuff might start off expensive, but eventually the process will be refined and more mass producable. A lot of processes start off like that: at first only the wealthy can afford it, then it becomes more common and mainstream.
The important thing is to get the initial process or idea out there in the first place. Then you can get people to work on it and refine it. But you need the right balance of: reward the inventors vs allow others to mass produce it.
If you don't reward the inventors, then you take away the incentive to think this stuff up. But on the other hand you can't let them keep a monopoly on it forever.
They're also extracted from the patient himself, which means no chance of tissue rejection or secondary infection. It does mean it'd be really hard to mass produce though.
I can see the fark headline now.
HIV Vaccine reduced viral load by 90%. Still no cure for Cancer, but this is also nice.
END COMMUNICATION
That is too true...
Dropping the viral load count dosn't mean much if it only works once and or dosn't ever wipe it out.
Man, I couldn't disagree more. If the viral load drops to 10% and stays there (and the current results indicate that it does), then the illness won't progress to AIDS, which is the real problem with HIV. Sure, the patient may end up carrying HIV for life, but who cares, at least they won't *die*.
Dendritic cell vaccination does work on an individual basis - there are studies here, at NYU Med, that focus on using this technique to combat bloodborne cancers.
However, what the article fails to mention is that viral load is a really bad indicator of HIV progress. Good anti-retroviral therapy will give a viral load drop that's LARGER than 90%. Considering that the end-result is the same, since the virus has reservoirs outside the hematopoietic system, this study just proved the general usefullness of the technique, but the way this information was presented, it made it appear as if there was NO (or very limited) CLINICAL USEFULNESS for treatment of HIV.
P.S. I haven't looked up the actual clinical trial publication, but I will do so later tonight and update my point of view if it changes.
IMHO this might be a dangerous treatment. How is this different from the "white" in Star Trek that keeps the Jem'Hadar alive?
AIDS does have low grade secondary transmission vectors. Consider. It has been known for more than a decade that mosquitoes can harber AIDS for at least 12 hours. If over 99% of the population is AIDS free then the likelhood of a mosquitoe carrying AIDS and picking on a new victim is extremely low. However if 50% of the population has AIDS then the likelihood is quite significant.
IMHO the epidemiologists have not come to grips with this.
There is a lot of talk in this thread about cost. Anyone know how much a drug cocktail costs now for someone with AIDS? I imagine that they will be glad to pay the cost for a once a year shot.
Nope- not a chance. By the worst estimates, HIV will have only infected 120 million people by 2015- the world's population is pushing 7 billion, so this is less than 2% infected with HIV. If that's the reason you're giving for wanting AIDS to continue, sorry, it's just not contageous enough.
BTW, world population is already AT a managable level- the real question is are we willing to do what it takes to manage it at this level (things like accept a falling standard of living, stop charging money for basic human needs, choosing environmentally safe technology, and not using antibiotics). If we're not willing to do that, it doesn't matter what level the world population is at- we could be only 100,000 and still manage to kill ourselves off completely by environmental poison, starvation and superbugs.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Congratulations, you got the joke
Note that this research is being done in brazil and france, and so I doubt it is being funded by the so-called "free market" (yeah, right) profits from American pharmaceutical companies. You know the ones, those that are ripping us off, and paying Rush Limbaugh to spread propaganda about how we Americans are carrying the rest of the world with our free market (yeah, right) healthcare system.
Oh, by the way, France has nationalized healthcare--anyone walks right in and gets healtcare without paying. Real good system. Oh, yeah, that's right. We Americans are subsidizing their healthcare by paying for all this research.
Hmm. So that's why this vaccine to beat AIDS is coming out of France and Brazil.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
There is no such thing as a dendritic cell in the CNS. Dendrites components of a neuron that extend from the cell body to communicate with neighboring neurons. A previous poster has already given an accurate definition and resource discussing the dendritic cell as a part of the cell-mediated immune system.
"Welcome back to the land of the living! Now grab a shovel and get back to work."
I hope this vaccine would work. Definately would help straighten out the third world better. They already have so much else against them.
God spoke to me.
When you're thinking of pussy, just think oralse.cx.
Dropping the viral load count dosn't mean much if it only works once and or dosn't ever wipe it out.
I imagine that for many infected patients it could mean remaining healthy (and alive) for maybe another 5 years. That would sure mean a lot to me.
I've got news for you- abstinence can prevent AIDS. The only problem is certain cultures don't believe abstinence is possible.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"It s horrible thing to say but I was hoping AIDS could push world population down to a mangeable level."
You're right! Let's start with you.
It's always easy to make such comments until you're the one affected.
thats not entirely true either. i happen to work in the canadaian pharmaceutical industry and i would say that the no 1 reason that Canadian drugs are cheaper is that US patents run longer than Canadian ones. So a medication like fosamax can have a generic in canada a few years before the US industry can start producing one.
I dont work in the legal department, but i believe Canadian drug patents are good for ~5 years and US patents are ~8 years. after that time, companies like novopharm and other generic producing companies, can start churning out generics. even the big brand name companies (ie pfizer) have generic producing lines. this is primarily for overseas markets. in fact, alot of drug companies will manufacture the same drugs, with different names and pill shape/size, based on whatever region they are marketing in. a good example of this is reactine/zyrtec. those two medicines are the EXACT same. in canada however, you dont need a perscription for it an its called reactine. the length-of-patent experation numbers might be off but alot of the lower cost can be put squarely on the messed up US patent system.
Countries like New Zeland and the UK also have similar patent laws.
I have also heard, that the comapnies in fact do price medication higher in the states because they feel that thats what the market will bare. I dont think that the grandparent was that far off from the truth.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
"Don't be African"? Um, how exactly do you think most Africans get AIDS? They get it primarily from having sex with random people...
(Now, of course there are a number that get it from having their mothers have it. Obviously, my statement does not apply to them.)
African yes, gay no. Sexual behavior in human beings is voluntary. All human beings, not just heterosexuals. Race and where you live isn't.
But oddly enough, abstinence does prevent AIDS.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
LOL.
Someone thought: "Damn, Eric Cartman's threatening to go over and have unprotected sex with people's mothers, better mod that flamebait."
Kudos to whoever did that, sometimes the moderation on slashdot is more humorous that the posts.
-dameron
It is NOT a vaccine
Of course, it's a vaccine. It's a "therapeutic vaccine".
It is NOT a cure. It's a temporary (at best) treatment.
No, it's not a cure and it may not be a very good treatment. But neither of those observations has anything to do with it being a vaccine.
I'm sorry if you don't like the official terminology, but that doesn't mean you can just change it.
Furthermore, the discovery that anything can create a somewhat effective immune response against HIV is a major breakthrough.
Think Globally, act Locally
Writers imply. Readers infer.
What is in the vaccine is not important. The difference between a treatment and a vaccine is that the treatment attacks and kills the pathogen, or just alleviates symptoms. A vaccine acts like the pathogen, causing an immune response that attacks and kills the pathogen, or a cellular response that stops the pathogen from being destructive.
Vaccines do not have to be made from live or dead specimens of the pathogen - they can also be made of specimens of a similar pathogen (smallpox vaccine is made from cowpox, for example), or anything that mimics a critical part of the pathogen closely enough to trigger an immune/cellular response.
People tend to think the difference is that vaccines PREVENT disease and treatments treat disease only because most people get vaccines before they have a chance to be exposed to a disease. If you somehow ended up with Polio or Smallpox or whatever, they'd still give you a vaccination to get your body to take care of it (and that's what they did back when they first created the vaccines).
paintball
We already beat the shit of natural selection when we developed agriculture. In the good old days before technology if you made it out of childhood, you were doing pretty damn good. These days I think the US infant mortality rate is well below 1%.
HIV is a drop in the bucket when it comes to deaths. HIV has a minimal impact on population growth, even in African nations. In the US and Europe, HIV has no noticeable impact. If overpopulation is really your concern, burning farms and getting rid of antibiotics would do a lot more.
Over population isn't the problem. We have been overpopulated beyond what nature can allow for thousands of years. The question is now what we can do to curb population growth, but what we can do better handle a large population. Seeing as how we are at 6 billion + strong and living longer then ever, I would say we are doing a pretty good job.
Yes, that. AND! This may acutaly cure my mother. Im happy!
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
Well, this is the article that made me want to finally post a comment...
So here it is, as uninsightful as it is..
First off, I'm questioning the viability of this article, it could all be a sick joke, from where I'm standing at least... the news almost sounds "Too good to be true" so I mean... which part is the bad part, there has to be a downfall, a facility, something wrong with it all, because that's the way the world works...
Where's the wall that we still haven't found a way around?
Or is this truly one of the most amazing breakthroughs (in my opinion) to the scientific community?
...of AIDS, maybe.
They'll still *die* at the end of their life - dying is actually a key metric in determining the end of life.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Don't have blood transfusions. ...
Don't be a doctor/paramedic/fireman/... helping people who may be infected.
Don't play contact sports with people who may be infected.
There are lots of ways to get peoples' blood on you, and you can't always avoid them all and still live a meaningful life.
The logical thing is to lower the price on critical core medications, so that they're in the reach of most or all people. This keeps the customers alive, and therefore increases the amount they can buy from you. Furthermore, people tend to shop with people they like. They're likely to like you, if you've just saved their neck.
Cheap life-saving drugs would create a bigger, more loyal, market which is likely to create repeat demand. THAT is where the real money lies.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The day they found a cure for AIDS
The day they found a cure for AIDS
Everybody took one little pill and was okay
The day thay found a cure
The day they found a cure for AIDS
Everybody took one little pill and was okay
I slept with Cindy and Martha and Sue
I slept with Julie, Melissa and Kate
The day thay found a cure
The day they found a cure for AIDS
Everybody took one little pill and was okay
The people who had plotted to get rid of all the gays
Admitted their guilt and everything was fine
Everybody else said, I din't know
The day they found a cure
For 6 months, no one went to work, they all had orgies
Morning after pills were sold in grocery stores and gas stations
The day they found a cure for AIDS
Everybody took one little pill and was okay
We rented dirty movies and ordered out for food
For 3 solid weeks everyone I met was nude
I slept with Julie, Melissa and Jake
Nobody was afraid
The day they found a cure
The day they found a cure
The day they found a cure, for AIDS
... now all you need is a "machine" to combine them! Think about the possibility of a drug which, after injected, ties itself to the dendritic cells and starts hunting in your blood for dead viruses, then replaces itself with the dead virus body -- hey, you've just produced a vaccine!
The bottom line is that now that the positive effect is demonstrated, the next step is to find out the cost-effective way to combine cells and dead viruses, preferrably in-viro. Let's hope that someone will manage to do it!
Paul B.
Yes, it's a horrible thing to say. And I find it interesting that I've repeatedly heard people praise the population control potential of AIDS, but never the various strains of flu, or other diseases. Read into that what you will.
The Sexecutioner submits an article about an HIV vaccine. Is that supposed to be funny or scary?
No, this is medical science, radical advancements in intercity personal human transportation are mechanical-electrical engineering.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
My web domain.
>>Sexual behavior in human beings is voluntary
ah yes, I forgot "don't get raped" in my list...
The general opinion of most of Earth's population is that such a policy is a "major drag". Go figure.
Either way there are way too many fucking people on this planet and if you look at any population curve we are in deep trouble.
You realize that this problem will take care of itself, right? When an environment can't support a population, the population's size decreases until it gets to a manageable level. It makes no sense to promote death as the solution for overpopulation when death is the consequence that you're trying to avoid.
We desperately need some mechanism to keep the human population in check.
And that's why we invented nuclear weapons.
Nature likes balance. Technology allows us to push nature further out of balance without all dying. If we can develop technology faster than we continue to push nature out of balance, we'll be fine, if not, we'll all die, but at least there won't be anyone left to worry about it.
In the meantime, I have some consumption to do.
paintball
In the U.S. alone there are tens, if not hundreds, of drugs in trials for HIV-1. Here's a list of 67 of them. Many other compounds are being investigated in pre-clinical research.
This seems like a recipe for disaster. What is to prevent the vaccine stock from being contaminated with prions that cause Creutzfeldt Jacobs Disease (the human version of mad cow disease). Injecting every potential person who could get AIDS (everyone on the planet) with human nerve tissue seems double plus ungood. Either the tissue used to generate the vaccine could develop prions or the chemical processing of the vaccine might generate prions.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
"She said (HIV/AIDS) was invented as a bio-weapon in some laboratory in the West,"
Ah, yes, a bio-weapon that requires soldiers to fuck like crazed rabbits while in the trenches and then hang around for about 10 years when they finally drop dead. That's some bio-weapon. I hope they fired the scientist that dreamed that one up.
(If you are into that sort of thing, it still sounds like a lot more fun than a bullet, bomb, grenade, or landmine, which is what soldiers probably usually die from.)
I supose now they relize that they made a mistake and fell responsible.....so they finnaly release the cure they have been holding all there years. Makes perfect sense! ...and who is they?
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
usher in a new error of free love!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
America is the testbed for the pharmaceuticals. We also happen to sue the hell out of them often for bad medicines so drugs are expensive here.
African yes, gay no. Sexual behavior in human beings is voluntary.
Behaviour, yes; preferance, arguably no -- and expecting people to behave in a manner contrary to their preference is unreasonable.
Presuming that you're heterosexual, I doubt it would alter your sexual behaviour in practice if the relative likelihoods of contracting HIV from heterosexual vs homosexual contact were reversed.
There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what a vaccine is.
A vaccine boosts immune response to a disease agent. That's it.
The article refers to a vaccine used for therapy.
I always cringe when a medical piece is posted on slashdot. It's like watching english majors discuss computer science.
- biologist
The conservative ones that thought HIV was God's wrath against perverts, gays and colored people?
This is more like an AIDS vaccine.
:-) However, I'm not sure it removes the symptoms from HIV.
It doesn't stop HIV infections, but it prevents them into evolving into full-blown AIDS and reduces the risk of infection. Which sounds pretty good too, of course.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
it seems like this method is kind of old hat, is this really the first time we've thought of weakening the virus and giving to patients? or just the first time its worked?
-Slex
if curing people from a deadly disease is morally right? really?
yes, it is morally right.
Lets not forget about all the other things you acn catch from unsafe sex.
Personally, ALL VD cures for men should involve sticking a tube into penis, blowing up a small ballon with tiny barbs on it, then have it forcefully removed.
This way we can still treat/cure the disease, but getting the disease would still be a deterent.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The blood supply is much safer than it used to be. Health care professionals get varients of Hep all the time, but AIDS only in the rarest circumstances (only a few documented in the medical literature). Can't say much about contact sports, but in professional sports, where the numbers are easy to come by, it seems to be impossible to find a single instance of someone giving AIDS to a teammate (on the court anyway). Yeah, you can get AIDS in all the ways you mentioned, but as a statistical matter, be more worried about the random lightning strikes.
Like the idiot I am, I needed to go to How Stuff Works in order to find out more about AIDS/HIV. obligatory link
Now it doesn't take a senior pathologist to recognize immediately that, under microscope,
HIV looks a helluva lot like that AOL bastard.
and now back to the fallout shelter...
In Africa AIDS is epidemic in the heterosexual population. It is like this no where else in the world. A possible cause is African sexual practices which include more partners in general (I consider this theory to be unlikely), and another cause is less sanitary conditions and more disease (open sores and such) which make sexually contracted AIDS far more likely. It could also be genetic suceptibility or even different AIDS varients in Africa, but there seems to be no evidence for this.
Nowhere else in the world except Africa do you have a significant chance of contracting AIDS through heterosexual sex. Figure out why this is, and you'll win a Nobel.
I hope that this vaccine is available to all who need it - whether they're rich, poor, or have been foolish enough to commit some act that left them affected. Our feelings are irrelevant, however, from a public health point of vieew - ending the HIV / AIDS epidemic is a great good unto itself.
On the issue of "irresponsible action", I understand your point. You're right - many of the people who will be able to afford the vaccine without governmental assistance probably did do something stupid. I don't care. I want them to live and have a healthy life.
Each of us does stupid things. I've raced my car when I shouldn't have. I was an idiot in college, and a fool at times. I'm healthy, though, through both fortune and comon sense. And I've seen friends contract HIV, and one of them has died. Did they do stupid things? Absolutely. But we all make mistakes, and we shouldn't have one stupid mistake be a death sentance.
All of us our human, all of us have flaws. Thank whatever good exists in the universe that there now is a chance to save more people from an agonizing death.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Hell, it's hard not be an IV drug user if you come from the that sort of community (or maybe have the wrong set of genetic triggers?). Hence the dark humor. Almost made me laugh my stitches out. Literally.
While I don't disagree with your comments in general, I must disagree with you're statement "It is NOT a vaccine."
A vaccine is defined as:
Which is exactly what they created. It's a therapeutic vaccine, rather than the more common preventative vaccine that people are accustomed to.
There ya go! You spit out that scripted response in good time. Was that Rush Limbaugh healthcare script #3 or #4?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
= 9J =
It isn't about being homosexual v. heterosexual (I really don't know the stats on which, if either, group is more likely to contract aids, but that's irrelevant), but about promiscuity. Start sleeping around and you are more likely to end up with a VD/STD.
Abstinence is the best way to avoid AIDS. Period. The next best way is abstinence until a permanent monogamous sexual relationship is established with a person who has followed the same course. This is the EASIEST way to avoid aids.
Now, that said, I don't think that homosexuality does much (especially male homosexuality) to encourage monogamy. Not being homosexual, though, I don't have much to go on there, and am willing to defer authority to those who have legitimately studied the subject.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Actually, the AIDS education groups have more money at their disposal now than they are able to spend. Most of them have not been able to scale their operations as fast as the US government, WHO, and other governments and private groups have been increasing funds. They are also having problems coordinating all the different aid groups and governments to get treatment/education where it is needed.
... well here is an article in the economist . It mainly talks about some peoples complaints with the money that is being given (mostly that it could go farther if the people giving it didn't require it to be spent in certain ways), but gets into some of the logistical issues towards the ends. Don't know if this article is available to nonsubscribers - googling for variations of the words 'ACHAP PEPFAR overload' might find other references.
trying to remember where I read about this
Is that still an issue?
Don't play contact sports with people who may be infected.
Has anyone actually been infected that way?
Are all of your 800+ posts this pointless and pedantic?
"But oddly enough, abstinence does prevent AIDS."
Absolutely.
What we need is for more and more human beings to just abstain from having (reproductive) sex *completely*
This would solve the number one problem that the Earth has; human beings. Far too many of them.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
True enough- I forgot about it also. But certainly- gay behavior is largely voluntary. Hmm- I suppose for rapists in Africa, don't be a rapist would also be high on the list.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
ERR... have you actually looked at any statistics latly? The fastest growing segment of new HIV patients is straight young Women. The largest segment are straight people. Gays numerically are a small group and they have a high infection rate, but fewer people with aids. A dozen people a year die from being stuck by lightning. A couple hundred striaght non-black people die each year of aids. I think your a few orders of magnitude off.
If you don't get laid, then you have the same chance of getting aids as beign struck by lightning. So I guess posting on slashdot is a cure?
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Today is World AIDS Day.
More or less. How many powerful men have blown their careers because of their desires? Sure, they *can* be resisted, but your brain and body are fighting against you. How many times have you done something out of sexual desire, when the instant after orgasm you couldn't believe how stupid that was?
Behaviour, yes; preferance, arguably no -- and expecting people to behave in a manner contrary to their preference is unreasonable.
Hetero or homo- you still have a choice when it comes to consensual sex. Stupid behavior on your part will lead to bad consequences regardless.
Presuming that you're heterosexual, I doubt it would alter your sexual behaviour in practice if the relative likelihoods of contracting HIV from heterosexual vs homosexual contact were reversed.
I doubt it would also- because in addition to being heterosexual, I am also chaste. My wife was the first person I ever had sex with, and divorce is not in our vocabulary. Abstinence before having a lifelong partner- and chastity after- makes a fine barrier for STDs.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If the price is too high for PMPRB, the drug never comes to Canada. Take for example, Lantus Insulin. Of course Banting would turn over in his grave if he knew how much companies were now billing for advances in his discovery, but I digress.
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
The major impediment to the spread of antiretroviral (AZT etc) drugs, sex education, and general information about HIV in south africa, until recently, has been the national government.
Mbeki has stated publicly on multiple occasions that the cause of HIV has not been proven to be a virus (yea yea i know), and that the major cause of HIV infection in his country is poverty.
Things have turned around in the last year or two, with antiretrovirals finally being brought into the country due to mass demonstrations in his country.
That said, money has nothing to do with it if your government is lead by people who refuse to look at the facts.
And on a side note, dont knock college required classes without them I would have absolutely no detailed knowledge on the subject aside from HIV is bad in africa.
=P
Had the chance, turned it down until I was married. Best way I know to prevent STDs is to not do the actions that spread STDs. I feel sorry for the people who weren't taught to have will power over biological functions- but that's not my fault, it's the fault of their parents.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
More or less. How many powerful men have blown their careers because of their desires? Sure, they *can* be resisted, but your brain and body are fighting against you. How many times have you done something out of sexual desire, when the instant after orgasm you couldn't believe how stupid that was?
I can truthfully say only once- and even then, the object of my desires was not within 50 feet of me. Beyond that, I've been chaste all of my life, if not always appropriate....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If you did know the stats, you could have avoided the ignorance posted above. If homosexual, you are orders of magnitude more likely to get AIDS at the same level of promiscuity as a heterosexual. If heterosexual, it's the figure is so small that it's nearly zero at whatever level of promisucity you can manage. There are plenty of STDs that heterosexuals should worry about. AIDS isn't one of them (outside Africa).
"certain cultures don't believe abstinence is possible."
I can't disagree with them, having never observed "abstinence" except in boundary cases that would be better categorized as "deprivation", and the few individuals zealous enough to consider it -- and even they would fall in the "deprived" category if they had not framed it as being their own choice, I'm afraid.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Abstinence before having a lifelong partner- and chastity after- makes a fine barrier for STDs.
That works, yes. You have my respect for your uncommon strength of will.
France also has a great public pension system.
It's amazing the things you can afford when you don't have to pick up the big-ticket items, like a national defense.
The development of an AIDS vaccine is wonderful news for sure, but it is still not a cure at this point (it is only a treatment that keeps the disease at bay at this point). What's at least as important (if not more) is education as you have pointed out.
The problem is getting the third world (where the epidemic is most serious) to accept western medicine. Westerners think African-witch-doctor medicine is a bunch of bunk--well Africans have the same opinion of much of western medicine. Even if this vaccine WAS a cure, getting poor, illiterate Africans to accept treatment would require a lot of education and convincing (not to mention money that most of these victims do not have).
The most perverse myth in some African cultures is that STDs (including AIDS) can be cured in men by having unprotected sex with a virgin girl. I shudder when I think about how many HIV+ men there are in Africa who think they are cured because they have done this, but in fact may have infected some young woman and the child she might have conceived as a result--then in the mistaken belief that they are cure go on to infect other sexual partners. Somehow putting that myth to rest would do more to combat AIDS than the most expensive drugs currently available.
There is even a problem in the "educated" west too--it is that we are perhaps TOO educated (but in the wrong way). All this emphasis on advanced treatments for AIDS is making some people perceive the disease as no longer a death sentance but rather a chronic disease. The attitude when engaging in risky behaviour is becoming "Uh oh...I might have exposed myself to HIV...oh well, nowadays HIV is treatable like hepatitis and herpes--it would be a pain in the ass to have to treat it but I'll live alright anyways".
The homosexual communities of large metropolitan areas are already having to combat this attitude (having previosuly become the most educated/aware segment of society concerning AIDS) and if we aren't careful the rest of the public will start believing this too. In actual fact, even if a person could live a normal lifespan with HIV, delivering a vaccine cusomised for each recipient and treating symptoms with an expensive regimen of drugs would be another big burden on the healthcare system, not to mention that the quality of life would be permanently reduced even with todays treatments.
Yes, this is an important development, but without education and empasis on personal responsibility AIDS won't go the way of smallpox any time soon.
The fastest growing segment of new HIV patients is straight young Women...who happen to be mainly IV drug users. Another problem with interpreting the figures correctly is that AIDS among the high risk populations have reached saturation levels in European nations.
What you are repeating is something called a "scare statistic." If you're interested in how our media handles statistics like this, I'd suggest that you investigate the "Summer of the Shark" debacle that played out in 2001.
Well, it's because people often think that the ones affected are the people are the ones they'd miss the least if they died. I mean, people who have lots of partners (male and female) and intravenous drug users are the top contenders for the disease. Most victims got infected as a result of having sex or doing drugs. The "moral majority" that elected Bush wouldn't shed too many tears if they all dropped dead tomorrow.
Note: I do not feel this way. Death is almost always* a bad thing.
* Except in the case of spammers.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Actually, of virus' five plurals, virora has the most distinctive ring; third declension neutra were always my fave.
Well, it's fairly clear what the rationale was -- it used to be (early 80s?) that HIV was vastly more common in the gay community than the populace in general -- and I think I recall there being a substantial correlation between type of contact (oral, anal, vaginal) and transmission likelihood.
IIRC, though, that the former generalization is no longer nearly as accurate as it once was and is devolving towards urban myth status. The latter still holds as true as it ever did (presuming that one doesn't account for changes in the frequency of use of preventative measures), but is only really relevant in the case of one night stands and such.
All this is just vague recollections from a class I took over 3 years ago, so YMMV.
The HIV is being carried by Dendritic cells (a member of the immune system that is known for helping T cells by being an antigen presenting cell), not dendrites...which are a morphological description of something on the cell. CJ
There's already a vaccine: Don't have sex with an infected partner.
What we need is a cure: After you are infected, beome uninfected.
- Yolego
wow I didn't know English was the language of all the citizens on Earth.
I guess all those countries with different cultures and differences are just fictional imaginations produced by my brain.
Having English as a second language, I could careless about those corrections but Hey, thanks for writing AND understanding.
In other news, anonymous cowards land on Mars
The reason this work is coming out of Brazil is the same reason the spinal cord story earlier this week came out of Korea. Namely, ethics. The single greatest hindrance to scientific advancement in the US. In the US, it would be unethical to conduct this study, because you couldn't let a group of people go without HIV meds for a year. That would be unethical. It's the same way it's unethical to test experimental therapies on patients with terminal cancer. Since their disease is terminal, it can be argued that they are consenting out of desperation, and the researcher is therefore taking advantage of them.
In any case, dendritic cells were discovered in the US, HIV was discovered in the US, etc., so it can't be argued that the giant money machine of US science didn't contribute. It also can't be argued that the US does not lead the world in biomedical science. This is because we spend so much money on it that the best scientists from all over the world are concentrated here. However, I agree with you that this is not the same as the idiotic statement that we are subsidizing other nations' healthcare.
Also, it's important to note that HIV doesn't pick off the old, weak, and sick. It takes the young and healthy people, in the prime of their lives. Having that segment of the population removed in large numbers totally destroys a society, especially "developing nations" in places like Africa.
> But oddly enough, abstinence does prevent AIDS.
Sexual abstinance prevents the spread of AIDS through rape, intravenous drug use and blood transfusion how, exactly?
Figure out that the heterosexual spread of AIDS is rapidly becoming true in the rest of the world, and you'll live longer...
Seriously, read the news articles that are coming out today. The spread of AIDS in the heterosexual population is not just an African thing. It may be more advanced in Africa, but it's coming to the rest of the world.
I can't disagree with them, having never observed "abstinence" except in boundary cases that would be better categorized as "deprivation", and the few individuals zealous enough to consider it -- and even they would fall in the "deprived" category if they had not framed it as being their own choice, I'm afraid.
Depravation by choice is abstinence yes- and it's perfectly possible to pratice both by willfull choice. Given STDs and the problems of birth control not being 100% effective- it's in fact a bad choice not to.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I know exactly what I'm saying. The number of teen women getting it is less then the number of straight older men getting it. But it's no less true. and it's not that warped. Their 1/4 of black men who get it in the US. So it's pretty damn close and if it keeps growin ti'll surpass them pretty damn soon.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Although the potential of infection of AIDS is scary, it's nowhere near as dangerous as it is hyped to be.
For years, AIDS has been used to categorize and victimize specific groups (mostly gay men and coloured people in general). This created a lot of hype and pushed AIDS to the top of the chart of [scary font] DeSeAsEs To FeAr [/scary font].
The truth however, is that AIDS still manage to kill a relative minority of people, compared to other deseases.
A quick chart from Canadian residents can be found here: StatCan. I use this chart because it was easy to consult but these numbers are quite in line with those for the US: CDC
To summarize, Cancer should be given the scariest font and perhaps even the blink tag too. It scores a whoping 27% of desease-related deaths in Canada.
Compare this with 0.3% (yes, "zero point three") for HIV infection.
Hearth deseases come in 2nd with 26% and then the numbers drop sharply to 7% for cerebrovascular deseases.
Suicides score a whoping 1.7%. Still far more than HIV.
If I worked for WHO, my recomendations would be these: screw responsibly and slack off on smoking and the super-sized fries. Enjoy life. Be happy.
Condoms prevent the spread of AIDS through rape, intravenous drug use, and blood transfusion how, exactly?
But the truth is- if you abstain from rape, intravenous drug use, unchecked blood transfusions and sex, there's only one other way to get HIV- by having a mother who didn't abstain from these items.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Not to be a nazi, but HIV is Human immunodeficiency virus. Therefore "HIV viruses" is something like FAT table, or LED diode.
And that's without going into viruses/virii debate. (viruses is correct)
Odd, isn't it, that it only became uncommon *after* invention of the pill? It's been proven that Kinsey's study was highly biased, after all, despite the fact that it made everybody feel like they were all prudes.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Odd, isn't it, that it only became uncommon *after* invention of the pill?
Uncommon, or openly acknowledged to be uncommon?
I'd need to see some data.
You have my respect for your uncommon strength of will.
Hm. Suppose I'm scared of the dangers of public roads and have been staying at home for 20 years even though it's a major inconvenience - does that also get your respect? Of course I do leave the house (sometimes...) but you get my point, I'm impressed by his behaviour in much the same way as I am impressed by someone who, blindfolded, manages to name 20 brands of toilet paper only by their texture on TV. Impressive, but personally, I just look at the label.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Obviously, the big problem is that people are not having safe sex (because they don't want to or are not able to). I worry that with news like this more people will practice unsafe sex. Eventually the AIDS virus will mutate and the problem will just resurface later.
I dunno how much AIDS scare y'all, but I got a theory - the day they come out with a cure for AIDS. Guaranteed, one-shot cure. On that day, there's gonna be fucking in the streets, man. It's over! Who're you? C'mere! What's your name, baby? No, it's over, yeah, woo-hoo! Man, if you can't get laid on that day, cut it off.
Riiight ... and as we all know, no married person has ever got AIDS from an infected partner.
See the thing is, not only do you have to have "will power over biological functions," you also have to have a trustworthy partner. And maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you can never know for absolute certain.
And wow, your claim to feel "sorry" side-by-side with your cavalier dismissal of the problem (not to mention the finger-pointing at the parents) ought to be a big help to those afflicted with a deadly disease! Thanks for the insight!
>Everyone talks about Canada's "socialized medicine"
>being so different in principle than the United
>States', but really, when you think about it,
>that's exactly what an insurance company is
>supposed to be!
Yea, and there's other people who say how great the American healthcare system is. If that's true, then why did the family of a boy my sister was in junior high school with have to have bake sales and literally beg people for donations so he could get a heart transplant and not die?
Do Canadians have to turn into beggars to be able to get medical teatments to prevent imminent death? Or is their system more friendly to those who are gravely ill and they can get fixed up without the hassle of begging from your neigbors?
Sorry dude, but our system in the USA does have some problems.
Last country I remember bragging about their pharmeceutical testbed status was Nazi Germany.
See the Nuremburg trials for more about Bayer than you wanted to know.
That said, you're awfully blinded if you believe everything you hear about how much american research matters -- there is a lot of good research coming out of many other countries out there -- many of them the *parent* companies of those in the US.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
I think one can respect another's strength of will without thinking it's necessarily being applied to something worthwhile. Such is the present situation.
Technocrat.net provides more links to other media reporting about this news, including to their source which is a paper published in Nature Medicine.
One fact is remarkable: its merely tested on mice and monkeys while 'the biological reaction of a given animal species to a given substance does not allow meaningful and reliable prediction of the biological reaction of humans. Extrapolation to man of the experimental behaviour of another species is hazardous and thus devoid of any scientific value.' (3rd link)
WE DON'T NEED NO BLOG CONTROL.
Like the parent said, it's a therapy, not a vaccine. It looks like it can help people who have been infected with HIV keep from developing AIDS, but it's not a cure and it won't prevent infection. Still, it's a welcome development.
The fact is, HIV is the most daunting disease we have ever faced. If it had hit even 50 years earlier we may very well have faced an epidemic on the order of the Black Death. It infects and kills stealthily, and evolves within our bodies faster than our immune systems can recognize it. If it hadn't hit the gay community so severely and specifically we might not have even been able to identify it, and it's only thanks to advanced sequencing and crystallography technology that we can study it in the necessary depth. But what is really sobering is this: HIV has infected tens of millions of people, living and mutating within their bodies for decades, and as far as we know no one has ever fought off an infection. The human immune system may very well be completely unable to handle HIV, and that means we may never see a traditional vaccine.
But we live in an age of rapid technological progress, and I do know of three promising possiblities that could actually prevent infection. None of them has yet been tested.
The first is another line of french vaccine work. Sequence comparison between various strains of the virus had identified a highly conserved protein region on the GP41 surface protein. The antibodies produced against the peptide seems to target the virus extremely well in the lab. So why don't we see antibodies against this epitope in the real world? It turns out we sometimes do - but those people can still get sick. It may yet be useful but based on that simple fact I'm not holding my breath.
The second hasn't even had an in vitro experiment yet and technically doens't prevent infection, but is a highly unusual and novel approach. Researchers at Berkeley have come up with the idea of a virus that is a parasite of HIV itself. The trick is that the antivirus cannot push the level of HIV too low, or the antivirus itself will die out and latent HIV will come back, which they were able to demonstrate thanks to computer simulations of the population dynamics. However, it can mute HIV activity and thus prevent infection from developing into full-blown AIDS. What's more, if the carrier happens to spread AIDS to someone else, the antivirus will go with it, and when HIV mutates the antivirus can still affect it. HIV would become a virus that people could live with without it killing them. But there is no way to know whether or not something unforseen can happen with what is essentially genetic engineering, and at the very least moving that research from the computer to the real world will be a real task. There is a lot of work to be done there.
The third technology could be the real deal. The fact is, some lucky people are resistant to HIV infection. Their CCR5 receptors are knocked out, and apparently HIV is unable to fuse with the cells as a result. Genetically altering your immune system to suppress this gene might thus offer protection against AIDS. However, that same mutation may be associated with multiple sclerosis. Again, nothing like this has ever been tried.
That's as far as I know, really. I regret that society and the government cynically ignored the epidemic when it was in far fewer people and might have been stopped with quarantine because it happened to affect a group that many people weren't fond of. I suspect now society may have to accept the inevitable and stop people from having multiple sexual partners. I fear the possiblity that HIV could mutate into something that can infect even without sexual contact in the meantime.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Oops, forgot the link about the Berkeley work.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the use of our military, but:
"Sometimes the best defense is a good offense."
Just playing devil's advocate.
Andrew
Read the rest of my message. Then read my followup. I'm hardly a proponent of the United States' health care delivery system. I was speaking in theoretical terms anyway.
... take care of yourself and try to avoid unnecessary contact with the medical system.
Sorry, dude, but Canada's system also has some serious problems. What it comes down to is that, if you want to stay healthy
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The Motaba Team, of course ;)
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Yes, but if you RTFA, the 34.5% risk of becoming a zombie, cursed for the rest of the patient's days to walk the earth as an undead ravenous corpse hungry for sweet, sweet brains, was deemed acceptable by the FDA.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a simply delicious batch of cervelles in the oven to attend to.
+++ATH0
*zzzzzt*
Free sex for all humans!
The statement wasn't "homosexual random people", just "random people".
There is no objective, quantitative standard for HIV infection. There are no FDA approved diagnostic tests for HIV.
t im ate_question.html
See:
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/questioning/ul
"You can be diagnosed HIV-positive if you possess antibodies formed in response to vaccinations, hepatitis, herpes, pregnancy, multiple infections or certain cancers. There are about 60 conditions that can trigger false positives."
HIV vaccination? You've got to be f*cking kidding me.
... albeit a pretty sick way of wanting to advance the agenda of population control.
Here's a question. What if a virus came about that randomly sterilized 50% of the population? How would you feel about that?
+++ATH0
HIV was discovered in the US
: _HIV_Discovery,_20_Years_Later.html, and you'll be able to find more informations.
Actually, no, it was discovered in France. While the complete research was done between a French (Montaigner) and an American scientist (Gallo), the actual discovery of the virus (not disease, virus) was done at l'Institut Pasteur by Montaigner and his team.
L'Institut Pasteur is a french public organization, owned and funded by the french governement.
In a quick google I found this link http://cbs5.com/news/local/2004/04/20/HealthWatch
And don't be lured, for pure science US doesn't lead the world in biomedical. The US leads the world in APPLIED biomedical. For fondamental research, many countries (such as France with Institut Pasteur) have roughly the same level and cooperate enough that none is leading.
But you seem more cogent than the other guy.
What if a virus came around that didn't kill but instead sterilized half the population of the planet randomly?
+++ATH0
They already do manufacture drugs: i feel like i'm on crack when I have to use Windows.
The article mentions the treatment of three brazillians who had been diagnosed with HIV and were becoming progressively worse in their "health". Apparently, they responded quite well to this treatment. Noteworthy is the term "treatment", as you cannot be cured. Sounds like cancer that is in "remission".
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Funny you should mention the Gates Foundation. The foundation has put together grand challenges in health that is a pretty interesting read. Some may say he's helping humanity because he wants more people alive to buy his products -- what a twisted thought. But deep down inside, he wants to make a lasting impression on the world, in all areas of technology, computers and medicine.
It's interesting to note, that the resounding theme of the grand challenges is that the quality of life for people in this world is not predicted by motivation, hard work, or intellect, but is largely influenced by one's geographic origin of birth. Hence, the grand challenges are not solely interested in new technologies, but bettering current technology to reach the masses.
Linux at home
From the article:
This approach requires that you already have the HIV infection. This does not protect you from infection. This is not a cure. This is a treatment. It isn't clear that this will prevent you from spreading the infection either. This MIGHT prolong your life expectancy or even improve the quality of your life.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
"Could this be it?" no, it's not "it". "it" is a mass produced, 2 gram piece of latex that is designed to fit around your woodrow. use it.
Can I get a dose of whatever Magic Johnson is on? He's doing mighty fine for having AIDS. Oh wait, I'm short a couple of million. Oh well, see you on the other side.
This is not a cure. This isn't even a prevention. Indeed, it isn't a proven treatment. Read the article on WebMD closely and you will see what I mean. We don't know if the effects are long-term.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
Didn't we completely eradicate smallpox like 70 years ago? Why don't we do the same thing with HIV? (Forgive me for not knowing the specifics.) If HIV is present in no human carriers, then the problem is solved.
Question everything
you forgot the OWN part. You have to extract your own cells and kill your own virus. This means it cannot be mass produced and would require a trip to your doctor and possibly the lab.
could this explain why some people with HIV never develop full-blown AIDS?
I'm pretty sure they call it treatment until they cure it. And I'm pretty sure that this is a relatively new experiment. So while you're right, you might only be right for a while.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Step 1 - clone yourself
Step 2 - inject clone with your/its cells and "dead" virus.
Step 3 - see if T-cell count continues to drop in your clone.
Step 4 - If it's up, inject yourself. if not, go to Step 2. [new "deader" batch]
P.S. i don't know if your clone will have any immune system..I guess pumping it with dead viruses is one way to develop it...or kill your clone.
"Depravation by choice is abstinence yes"
Depravation by being a fat chick or a geek, is more where I was coming from.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
being i had a frend who was hiv positave and his wife died of aids. i knoe a bit abought the vires. hiv is hard to treat becuse anything you try to use to combat it it quickly mutates or grows immune to the treatments. thers quite a few 1 time wonder treatments that will destory 90% of the dessise. the problem is it isnt totaly destoryed and evently mutates again and returnes to normal. this treatment does sound like a effectiv treament couse there using dead cells to alert the immune system to its presence. couse of this methid there using even if it does try to mutate to avoide being destoryed they can simply adjust the treatment. so no its not a cure but with more work done to this methed it might be a cure or at least a very effectiv treatment that will keep working. if it becomes eyther they will defently find a way to make it affordable.
But we're not allowed to commit suicide. Make assisted suicide legal and you may well see people helping the voluntary human extinction movement.
Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
"Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
As it turns out, there has been a cure for HIV for years, but Pharmacom is keeping it from us so they can charge enormous amounts of money treating the disease instead of curing it and being done with it.
...and I hope it is, does that mean we can take the money currently being funneled into researching a disease that we have a complete understanding how it infects people and thus how to prevent it, and instead funnel it into older diseases that we still don't know why people get them, like some forms of cancer.
I don't want to be insensitive to aids victums, especially those who contracted it before we knew how it travelled, but I can say I know anyone personally who has aids, much less died of it. I can't count the people I've lost to various forms of cancer. I don't really have much pity cases where people get lung cancer by smoking or skin cancer by sun bathing 8 hours a day after it was common knowledge that these were unsafe things to do, but there are still countless forms of cancer that we just have no clue as to how or why people get them. The treatment is hell at best, and more fatal that the disease in most of the cases I've seen.
You've got to love it when the treatment it to chemically and/or radioactively poison the patient in the hopes of killing the disease before you kill the patient. I pray cancer treatment can advance fast enough that my kids will be able to look back on today's doctors as witch doctors for using such means.
I'm sure if Bill Gates got HIV/AIDS he would spend every penny he could to find a cure. However do not assume there is a direct cause and effect relation. To cure AIDS requires a mixture of knowledge, luck, time, and money.
Money is the easiest to provide. Bill Gates controls a lot. Many charities already do fund raisers to get money.
Only a few people hold knowledge in the right field (though I'm sure most /. readers could learn it), but worse than that, we simply do not know all there is to know. If the cure depends on knowledge that we will not discover for several hundred years, than a good cure will not happen for several hundred years.
Time can be bought only in small quanities, once you are talking the kind of money Bill Gates has (added to what is already being spent by others), you need to start at a lower level. Bill needs to start at a lower level, scholarships for anyone going into AIDS research is a good way to go, but it takes 4 years or more to get someone to this level. Results are not overnight. When you consider that lifespan after detection is 10-20 years (last I checked it was 10, but there have been advances since then), that doesn't leave a lot of time for the new researchers to get something working.
So in the meantime, keep those condoms on, and don't do anything stupid. It's not worth it.
Oh, wait, I'm on slashdot... !
Berto
It is like this no where else in the world.
That is completely false.
and another cause is less sanitary conditions and more disease (open sores and such)
"open sores"? You must be joking.
Nowhere else in the world except Africa do you have a significant chance of contracting AIDS through heterosexual sex.
You really seem to have this fixed idea that homosexual sex is somehow inherently different and that transmission through "normal" sex is nearly impossible. I am wondering where you got this idea. It is completely false and dangerous. I also can't help wondering whether you are over the age of 12.
The only difference with Central African HIV is that it is so common. It has reached truly epidemic map-clearing proportions. Ignorance and superstition definitely seem to play a part in this (ie. the virgin cure, lack of condom use, distrust in the "germ theory" as the cause of AIDS).
The bottom line is HIV is easily transmittable through heterosexual sex. The fact that it is even more easily transmittable through sodomy is actually not all that important. Either way, if you are having sex with an HIV infected partner your chances of acquiring it from even a single encounter are quite high.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Huh? What about the lack of education? I seem to recall SA had high ranking officials publicly denying that HIV leads to AIDS. There is widespread misunderstanding (and misinformation).
Random is the New Order.
One flaw in her little theory is that no one else gives a rats arse about Africa. Why would anyone bother creating some super-virus to wipe out a continent that the rest of world doesn't care about.
As far as HIV being a manmade virus, I don't think even our current technology is up to the task, let alone the technology that was around 20 years ago. Maybe in another 20 years it would be possible to construct such a virus.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Small amounts may be used for treating the poor, but huge amounts are used on cattle each year (well, in Australia at least). When its used on this scale, Im sure a few drums to a needy area are nothing to their profits...
m ec%20Pour-On%2051138.pdf
http://www.bayeranimal.com/pdf/msds/livestock/Bay
I know it isn't PC to say this, but we need AIDS and maybe 3-5 more plagues like it
Well then would global thermonuclear war satisfy you? Or would that leave too many Australians alive?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Now that we know how to make it it's really easy to duplicate.
/o: tree) of a neuron are its many short, branching fibers extending from the cell body or soma.
"The vaccine, composed of human dendrites holding dead HIV viruses"
The Dendrites (Greek, dendr
Easy, stip dendrites from infected cells and you got your vaccine. Not much really different from how modern vaccines are made now. They just kill infected cells and inject them into horses.
However your moralizing sickens me in other ways; Your so called 'irresponsible action' means nothing but a sotto voce slam on people who have it. That does not cover the millions in Africa doomed to die thanks to your sort of moral high-horse. Too bad we don't got a cure for that.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
You're missing the factor of corruption, or legalized corruption anyway.
One of the biggest reasons for drug costs in the USA is because of the pharmaceutical industry's massive influence in the government. Big Business in general seems to control our government in the US. They'll make sure that laws are passed which help keep their selling prices high.
Take a look at the article about PA passing a law pushed by Verizon stopping WiFi. That's one of those situations were there's no good reason for it, but the company managed to get a law passed which will undoubtedly help their profits.
The pharm companies have a stranglehold of the FDA, do you really think they'd allow a cheap alternative to reach our shores? If there was one, you could bet that they'd find some kind of legal complaint of why it can't be sold here, and then reach an "agreement" with the FDA that it can be sold after a hefty levy has been placed on the product which would enable them to stay competitive.
With the drugs from Canada issue, you're buying the same product produced in the same factories, but for a much cheaper price... but you're not getting it through the "proper" channel which they've set up here in the US to milk the most money out of us as possible. Their market research shows that if we had to, we'd pay the higher price and there's no way they'll let us pay anything but that higher price.
"FFS, who was the retard who modded this rot up. "
4 &threshold=1&commentsort=0&tid=99&tid=14&mode=thre ad&cid=10970546
m ate_question.html
Why is this rot?
Granted, the folks at Virusmyth http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm may be charter members of the tin-foil hat brigade or mad about losing money for a pet project or just upset that they're not on somebody's 'A' list. I'm not a biologist, or in a related field, but the articles look reasonable to me.
You could also check out the link provided by irishkev in post #10970546
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13141
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/questioning/ulti
Oh come on now, think like an ass. This new treatment creates a whole new export for AIDS ravaged countries: aids infected human brains. Just imagine all of those potential costs being turned into assets. A 37% AIDS infection rate will be like hitting the jackpot! People in wealthy countries will pay top dollar. I'll bet the drug companies have already patented several business methods to harvest the product at minimal cost.
I am in a bad mood, that's for sure.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Care to cite credible, mainstream sources for those numbers?
It's called having a particular set of morals and living by them. Even the more traditionally-minded people I know believe in remarriage in the event of a partner's death, for instance; the grandparent's post indicated such to be against his code. That's a fairly unusual standard to live by, and not many do.
Funny how all the homophobes around here are anonymous cowards.
Where's the control group? Where's the diversity? For this to be a properly conducted experiment, there should be hundreds of people, not 18. There should be an even distribution of gender, ethnicity, age, etc.
There should be groups who are infected with HIV who get the treatment,
groups who are infected with HIV who don't get the treatment,
groups who are not infected with HIV who get the treatment,
groups who are not infected with HIV who don't get the treatment,
groups who are infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't (placebo),
and groups who aren't infected with HIV who think they get the treatment but actually don't.
I'm sure I'm missing a few more groups, but the point remains that this is hardly conclusive, or even an acceptable test.
What you reap is what you sow
Your second claim, I mean. Food is not a genetically engineered weapon, but the food distribution is certainly engineered. We have enough food on this planet to feed everyone already. People are still starving to death because of failures in global food distribution. Hell, could you imagine if all the coffee bean fields in the world were growing a vegetable like corn? Who could possibly go hungry?
Actually, no, it was discovered in France. While the complete research was done between a French (Montaigner) and an American scientist (Gallo), the actual discovery of the virus (not disease, virus) was done at l'Institut Pasteur by Montaigner and his team.
Ack, sorry about that one. You're right. I thought that HIV had been one of the HTLV retroviruses that Gallo's group had previously discovered, and Montagnier connected it to the disease. I used to work on HIV, a long time ago, and my memory of the historical details has faded since then.
And don't be lured, for pure science US doesn't lead the world in biomedical. The US leads the world in APPLIED biomedical. For fondamental research, many countries (such as France with Institut Pasteur) have roughly the same level and cooperate enough that none is leading.
Well, I agree with you that the US lead in applied biomedical science is more obvious, but I don't know how you can say that the US is not the world leader in basic biological science. I don't mean to imply that the best science comes from the US, only that the largest quantity of good science does. Nations like France and Germany have elite institutes like Institut Pasteur or the Max Planck that are as good as any institute in the US, but the US has more of them. Because there's a lot more funding here. And half the people in science in the US are from other countries anyway. This is a pretty commonly-held viewpoint among professional scientists. I can't find the citation now, but there was a thing in Nature or Science a while ago about how americans are afraid the US is starting to lose its dominant position (which is another way of saying that the US is in the dominant position). The article said that it isn't that the US is falling, but that other nations are starting to catch up. Which I think is great. Science is an international pursuit, and although I'm from the US, my allegiance is to science, not American science.
The figures are still somewhat surprising on their own, however - if a proper clinical trial is made with a non-trivial number of participants and the same steep drop in viral levels is noted, then perhaps this vaccine is a winner.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
To everyone reading this thread, I suggest you check out http://www.duesberg.com/, the website of Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley.
I found his site when researching a paper on AIDS, and after extensive reading of the site and the associated studies, it completely changed my understanding and outlook in regards to the 'AIDS epidemic'.
Continuing in that vein, you don't need a 'cure' for HIV... the HIV test already used today tests for antibodies to HIV... in other words, your body has already fought off the virus (and won, hence the antibodies). Why would you need a 'cure' for something you're already immune to?
I'm amazed that more people haven't heard what Dr. Duesberg has to say... it could very well change the entire AIDS research industry. There's no way I could summarize everything his site in this one post, so please check it out yourself if you get the chance.
A man made bio weapon ?
nah (unless we got the tech from aliens) this is one smart virus.
However a natural bioweapon, as the planet responds to over population.
Call me a cynic but when a cure is found for this I suspect there will be an even deadlier virus rearing it's head to keep our population in check.
Obviously, in a country that cannot pay for 'regular' drugs like AZT, these kinds of procedures are way too expensive. But, getting to a point were a vaccine can be produced that holds more general features, so that it doesn't need patient cells might be very useful.
Current research does seem to focus on very specific methods to lower virus loads, but the goal will be a vaccination program, because this will be the only solution that is both effective and affordable. The industries, however, can make more money of a normal drug, because that would require regular administration. A vaccine would cure the patient for a much longer time with only one treatment.
A Hepatitis B virus vaccination, for example, gives protection for at least 10 years.
Am I the only person who thinks that therapeutic treatments (like this one) designed to prolong the lives of epidemic disease carriers is actually a horrible idea in the long term? Looking at this from a purely survivability-of-the-human-race perspective, the idea of increasing the exposure of disease carriers to healthy populations is not so hot. Prevention/eduction is key, and a full cure would be fantastic, but an in-between solution just isn't good.
But that doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality. Homosexuals in general are much more promiscous than heterosexuals, and the homosexual population is much smaller than the heterosexual population.
The problem also isn't promiscuity, the problem is lack of protection.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Then you're rather behind the times I'm afraid. The old 'Malthusian' argument has been discredited for years. If you're such a strong believer you'd go outside and top yourself tomorrow.
You're badly misinformed.
We do have the resources to feed 7,8,9 billion people. We don't however have the resources to support waste on such a massive scale. Big car for one person? Small dinner in a big packet? Heater on but window open? Walking machines? Go for a walk ffs. The big thing isn't population as you seem to think. It's a mixture of distribution of wealth, priorities and efficiency. You want your comodities but at the expense of the planet. Anyway, you could always do the planet a favour and kill yourself. Or possibly force birth control on yourself as you don't seem overly concerned about your rights. Got children? Kill them too! Do us all a favour.
In this particular case, have you considered US' own legal risk?. Perhaps "ethics" is being used as an excuse to justify the aversion of companies and shareholders to be exposed to a abuse-prone legal system. Think of a volunteer in those trials that decides to milk cash from the pharm co. that sponsors the study.
Research is already expensive as it is. Add to it the probability of incurring on unexpected legal costs and the whole thing becomes economically unfeasible -- especially when people and the legal system as a whole do not give a s*** to ethics.
A very valid point you have (in the words of Master Yoda). I suppose such a test would work, but still troubling me is the difference in how you contract, say, the flu, and how you contract HIV.
It's a very very long-term study, I would think, and you'd have to take a very very wide sample to counteract the whole problem of who's more responsible having sex (eg, a guy who uses condoms all the time is infinitely less likely to get HIV than a woman who slips up occasionally.)
I suppose the statistics are there for that too, and you could just interview people after a year and ask them about their habits, punching all the data into a massive number-crunching mainframe.
Haha. Massive.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
HIV cures you.
What I'd like to see is.
More grants being given to research students forthis kind of thing (though that means using tax$ instead of people paying at the bottom line).
Research could then be put under a 'national patent' so companies in the country that developed the technoligy could use it for free, but those in other countries would have to pay, that's the sweetner for the extra tax.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm glad there making progress and the science behind it sounds worth a look at. I'll have to do a Google on that.
-- There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, And those who don't.
If I'm not mistaken, a vaccine is something you give a person before infection. This requires both the dendrites and HIV of the patient who is already infected.
How on earth is that a vaccine? I mean, it may be the first step towards one, but that's not something that fits my definition of the word.
Is my definition wrong, or is this a poorly-named treatment?
-----------------------
You are what you think.
I definitely agree with you here but would like to add the the chances of contacting HIV are PROBABLY higher with certain types of sexual contact.
This might keep the virus more contained within groups that are more likely to practice those positions but at some point you reach a tipping point where there is enough infection outside of these groups to counteract this effect. Once you reach this point (as has happened in many portions of Africa and elsewhere) HIV/AIDS becomes equal opportunity for all. Your best bet at that point is to assume that everyone is "high risk" and hand out condoms while preaching abstinence. The preaching doesn't work of course but it gives you something to feel superior about.
I don't think, Therefore I'm not.
In the early 80s cats were dying off from an immune system destroying virus too. Yetr medicine was lucky enough discover a vaccine quickly. Its a routine pet service now. This encouraged early predictions of a quick vaccine for the human version. But no such luck.
The insurance companies do not seem to care about the overcharges and I do not know why. Two situations happened to me like that, though not on the scale of your father's. Once my wife went in to have her birth induced because she should have given birth about two weeks ago. When she went in the nurse first checked to see if she was dilated and since my wife was, they did not do any of the procedure. Later we found that the hospital had charged for the procedure anyway.
Another time when my wife was pregnant and went to the dentist for a regular visit she did not get the x-ray. The dentist still charged the insurance company for it though. In both cases we reported it to the insurance companies, but it was clear that they did not care.
The only time that any insurance company seemed to care was in this case: We called and found an anesthesiologist that was covered under our plan. So when my wife gave birth, this was the fellow that gave my wife an epidural. Well a long time later we get a bill. I call and the lady says that in fact that this doctor was never a member of our insurance so we have to pay. This was a PPO so the insurance had paid a portion and the doctor wanted more. (The PPO paid 80% of what it pays its member doctors which was not even close to what this doctor was charging.) I would have been fine, except for the fact that I had worked so hard getting everything together to find clinics whose doctors worked at a hospital that was in the plan and an anesthesiologist that was also working in that particular hospital. This was no easy feat, really that was the only combination that worked anywhere within an hour of where we lived. Now when I called the insurance they said that this doctor was not working for them and never did! This whole dispute was dragging on and in one of the later times I called the insurance company gathering information for the impending arbitration phase as I was giving the information of my case, the lady on the phone said that this doctor was in their system...
BINGO! This rung some alarm bells for this lady and she connected me with some higher-up. It turned-out that it looked like this particular doctor was playing a sort of game. He was repeatedly asking to become a member of the insurance, would be sent the paperwork, but would never fill it out. So while he was pending he was listed in the system and every 60 days or so would be removed. Then after a while he would start this process again. I was sent some paperwork that we signed that basically amounted to the insurance company would pay the bill but I would not sue the insurance company. The understanding from the conversation was that the lawyers for the insurance company would go after this doctor.
After that I never dealt with the doctor again. The threats about being reported to a collection agency stopped so I assume he got paid. Then later out of the blue I got some letter from the doctor with some lame explanation that a hospital he worked for kept putting him under this insurance as if he was trying to protect his back from a lawsuit.
The thing that always bothered me was that when dealing with the insurance company, if it had not been for the fluke that I had called while his status was pending, we would have never figured-out what was going on. Really the insurance company should have been able to immediately see that he was taking patients for 60 days at a time every few months right away instead of telling me that he is not a member doctor and never was. But I have to wonder how many people did pay the guy.
But back to the over billing, The first kid we had cost almost twice as much as the second. These were under different insurance plans and in different parts of the country so that may have something to do with it. But the second kid had many more problems. For example she was not growing properly and that meant monthly ultrasounds followed by bi-weekly. Also we had numerous cases of preterm labor that required trips to hospitals, once to a hospital that was out of network even. Because of this I expected the bill for the second one to have been much more than the first. It was not, and it just makes me wonder how many things like the inducement procedure we never had were sent to the insurance company to pay.
Well, I guess that's another way to put it. I agree with you that legal risk is a big part of it, especially for pharmaceutical companies doing clinical trials. But no matter how you look at it, ethics ARE a huge scientific setback. I heard about a neuroscientist once who wanted to get wires implanted in his brain and left there for a year. It's something they do to epileptics before surgery all the time, but they only leave them there for 12 hours or a couple of days. He wanted them in for a whole year, and he wanted to get access to the data afterwards. He found surgeons who were willing to implant them, lined everything else up, and in the end was unwilling to get ethical approval from the IRB (institutional review board). It might be ill-advised, but unethical? We can risk human life for manned space flight when robots would do, or send soldiers to their death for oil, but we can't risk human life to understand the brain? That's the kind of ethics I'm talking about.
Are you 100% sure you are aware of the sexual mores of all of human history before the invention of the pill? Before the "pill" was invented women didn't have a lot of rights. If they were raped or coereced into having sex no one cared or listened. It was even worse the farther back you go. Men having mistresses is common all throughout history. Its not as if people were chaste beings simply because there was no pill around. And that doesn't even touch on all the child molestation that went on before relatively recent laws and customs came about, not that it has stopped completely now either. So whether Kinsey's study was biased or not, most people do NOT desire or have the capability to live a chaste lifestyle. Advocating an unrealistic solution which is really akin to some BDSM related form of self denial isn't the wisest way to go when talking about preventing STDs.
You should also clarify your definition of chastity. To most folks it means not having any sex at all but since you are married what it means is you only have sex with your wife.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
But that doesn't really say that much about being homosexual v. hetero.
It's fairly simple:
When you have a small population, promiscuity is going to have a greater effect on your probability to catch whatever disease is available. It's a percentages game, not raw numbers.
As the percentage of the population that you've slept with rises, then so does your probability of catching y disease. The trouble is that in the homosexual community (especially in the US), for every different person that you sleep with, that increases this percentage by a greater amount than it would for a heterosexual person.
Think about it this way. We have populations x & y. Population x has 100 persons, whereas population y only has 5 persons. Let us suppose that in both populations that there is exactly 1 person who has the AIDS virus.
Now if a person in population x sleeps with 3 different people the chances that one of those individuals is infected is about 3% (I think--I may be making some rather egregious errors, but the point is that it is a small number!). However, for a person in population y, sleeping with 3 different people (note that this is 3 out of 4 others in a population of 5), the chances of sleeping with someone who has aids is about 75%!
If both of these communities are heterosexual, there is a greater chance of those in population y to get AIDS--on the magnitude of 25 times as great! This doesn't change is one population is homosexual or heterosexual--the probabilities are based on the size of the population, not sexual orientation.
The result is that since there is a MUCH small homesexual population, they are more likely to end up sleeping with someone who has or is carrying the AIDS virus--even though they might sleep with the same number of partners as a heterosexual person. It is not a function of being homosexual, but of promiscuity combined with population size.
All this said, there are lots of other factors. Available population can be viewed as either the entire US (or even world), but really is more limited by geographical factors. You are much more likely to sleep with someone who lives near you, so in a city of 100,000, the chances of getting aids is a function of: the number of people who currently are infected, the number of people you sleep with, and the number of people that those with whom you slept sleep with (and so on), and the number of person of the same sexual orientation. If there are individuals who are bisexual, those muddy the equations.
I think I have demonstrated my point clearly enough. Now let me say this: I do not condone homosexuality. I am a conservative Christian in this matter. That said, I feel VERY strongly that what people do in their bedrooms (and with whom they do it) is their own business. I don't feel that those choices make a person worth any more or less.
Finally, I'll probably get flamed for all this anyway. Oh well...
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
The reason that drugs are cheaper in [insert non-US country here] is plain and simple that profit maximizing entities are taking advantage of 3rd-degree price discrimination.
The costs of R&D need to be recovered and that is amortized into the US prices- After that point anything down to the actual marginal cost of producing the pills (pennies) increases profits. International borders are very effective ways to segment a market, and the government does the expensive work of preventing reselling... Get it?
Monopsony in an 'information' market (drugs are nearly such, all the expense is in R&D, with marginal production being nearly free) means a lower than competative price. Additionally, other countries don't have the same demand for drugs, nor the same marginal product of labor, and hence they won't pay as much for drugs in a competative market. The point is that they don't pay enough that the drugs would ever be developed. If we lower our prices, without being able to raise theirs, then we need a new way to stimulate innovation.... In essence we are decreasing the social-losses due to the patent-monopoly, but unfortunately outside our borders.
The question of 'what is the correct level of drug reasearch' is a totally different question.
PS I don't like the current patent system, and I got my ass smacked in my graduate Industriual Org class when I tried to posit some 'better ideas.' It really isn't just a political clusterf*ck, it's a really complicated problem.... The fact remains that this is more an example of how socialized medicine, as-exists, only works because someone *else* pays for it... In this case the US pays for foreign healthcare.
But I think you have missed an important distinction here.
When a man penetrates a person, the person being penetrated is at a substantially higher risk of transmission of infection than the man penetrating that person. If the person who is being penetrated is a man, anyone he subsequently penetrates is at significantly higher risk of infection. If the person is a woman, there can't be any such future partners.
Ergo, while there is no strict limitation on transmission on any given incident of sexual contact, all else (such as degree of promiscuity) held equal, the homosexual male population would have greater over all risk of transmission than the heterosexual population.
We could also state a corollary that homosexual women would experience a very low rate of transmission.
Is there some flaw in my thinking here?
-Peter
Sheit.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Who said anything about gay sex being the main method. It used to be the main method. Now there are more women infected than men, and in the hardest hit parts of the world the spread of the epidemic is closely tied to widespread prostitution. In both cases the true factor is promiscuity, what has always been a risky factor with regards to disease but which has been lauded in popular culture for both sexes for the past 40 years or so. How many people you've had sex with is practically a metric for how manly (for men) or liberated (for women) you are these days.
I only made that statement to respond to a specific example in the prior post. I don't know the rates for the industrialized countries but I suspect that even if homosexuals still have a higher percent infected than heterosexuals, the larger numbers of heterosexuals could mean they have as many or more people actually infected - and AFAIK prostitution plays only a relatively small part in the spread of the disease here. When you look at who gets infected in America, what you mainly hear about is a lot of people who thought their partner(s) were safe and decided to skip the condom, and a bunch of people who like to fuck around but don't like condoms, and a lot of people who just can't bring themselves to make the mental and physical effort neccessary to practice safe sex. And even sex with a condom - or even without intercourse - is no guarantee.
Syphillis was indeed a major problem some years back. Not incidentally, it was at its most deadly when and where prostitution was common, in the cities in the late 1800s. Then we could cure it and aggressive tracking and treatment policies and changing social mores reduced it's significance to very little. And now we are seeing a resurgence of syphilis anyway, and AIDS is a major killer. It makes me wonder what's next. (I note in passing that it seems the more intimate the contact the more fatal the disase tends to be, but I don't have any data to back that up).
To be blunt, the idea that a social stigma and religous dogma against extramarital sex and particularly promiscuity is based purely on idealogical justifications is flat out wrong. They are almost certainly based primarily on the eminently practical notions of preventing the spread of disease and ensuring that fathers are both taking responsibility for their own children and not being tricked into doing so for others. Both of those unfortunate events can have been easily avoided with a little reason and responsibility, and yet history has shown time and again that given half the chance people will exercise neither. There is zero evidence that today is any different, and why not? Unbridled lust has always been louder than caution and reason. Ask yourself - how many times in your life have the rigid opinions of other people been the only thing stopping you from making a foolish decision? If you can't think of any, try remembering what it was like to be a teenager.
We may today regard rigid social constraints as something inimical to our pluralistic society, but cold reality is proving them to be vital components of our survival.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
From the article: The vaccine is made from a patient's own dendritic cells and HIV isolated from the patient's own blood.
Think about what that means. No mass production. A blood sample from each patient must be taken, processed, and the finished vaccine returned to that patient, without error. There is no generic serum.
Forget the patent flame-war for a minute. The production costs of this thing are prohibitive. The costs of this thing will look more like the costs of in virto fertilization procedures than they will look like a vaccine.
I'm sorry to say that this announcement is, as yet, a nice bit of research and nothing more.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
HIV infection rates are quite low in most Islamic countries. Perhaps self control is possible and has long term evolutionary survival value. Who could have seen that coming?
Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
"Uncommon" is a social term, not a statistical term, so I'd say the second. But actually- since Kinsey's data is highly biased towards men in jail for rape and lonely rich housewives, ignoring most of the rest of society, there simply isn't any good data available on this topic at all.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Cuba's AIDS Quarantine Center Called 'Frightening'
Riiight ... and as we all know, no married person has ever got AIDS from an infected partner.
Not when they married a partner who was equally inexperienced in sex, drugs, unsafe transfusions, etc. HIV is not atmospherically transmitted.
See the thing is, not only do you have to have "will power over biological functions," you also have to have a trustworthy partner. And maybe you do, maybe you don't, but you can never know for absolute certain.
I can know for morally certain- because I bothered to do background checks and blood tests *before* we got married. This stuff isn't entirely unknowable.
And wow, your claim to feel "sorry" side-by-side with your cavalier dismissal of the problem (not to mention the finger-pointing at the parents) ought to be a big help to those afflicted with a deadly disease! Thanks for the insight!
It's meant to help the people that they would otherwise infect. Unlike most human beings, I don't pretend that I can change the past, only the future. Those people are already dead- so let them die, they're less than 2% of the population anyway. Don't mistreat them- Cuba has the best idea on this isolating them from the general population and treating them like any other person otherwise.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I wonder if any of the dendrite donors is named J. D. Shapely.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Depravation by being a fat chick or a geek, is more where I was coming from.
Those too are choices on what is more important; knowledge or instant gratification- so I don't see why that makes a difference.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
What is it with people like you who think there is some force out there that keeps populations in check? Populations fall for only few reasons, lack of food, a rapid change in climate or disease. Humans invented a new one with war. But those are just random occurances. There is no yardstick that says when nature has had "enough".
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Are you 100% sure you are aware of the sexual mores of all of human history before the invention of the pill?
Yes, but it's funny that you go on to make my case for me.
Before the "pill" was invented women didn't have a lot of rights. If they were raped or coereced into having sex no one cared or listened. It was even worse the farther back you go. Men having mistresses is common all throughout history. Its not as if people were chaste beings simply because there was no pill around.
And yet- go far enough back in history you'll find that having a mistress meant having your head cut off. No tribal society put up with these sorts of sexual problems- because doing so was a threat to the survival of the entire tribe.
And that doesn't even touch on all the child molestation that went on before relatively recent laws and customs came about, not that it has stopped completely now either.
Marrying people off at 12 helped that issue- if you go back far enough. But you don't- you're just regurgitating the lies told about sex in school AFTER Kinsey's report.
So whether Kinsey's study was biased or not, most people do NOT desire or have the capability to live a chaste lifestyle.
And yet, if you take the rapists out of it, most do. After all, that's what you're basing all of your beliefs on- a sex report mainly taken from men in prison for rape and child molestation, not reality.
Advocating an unrealistic solution which is really akin to some BDSM related form of self denial isn't the wisest way to go when talking about preventing STDs.
Neither is trying to force everybody to have sex through the media and use of birth control that isn't 100% effective at preventing STDs. But you do it anyway. Why?
You should also clarify your definition of chastity. To most folks it means not having any sex at all but since you are married what it means is you only have sex with your wife.
I use the real definition, not some made up one. The real definition is using sex for procreation only- something my wife and I have agreed on (it's helped by the fact that we also co-sleep; hard to have sex when the 18-month-old is still in the family bed).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
For a start you are assuming that all homosexual infection is irresponsible, which is just insulting.
Further you are assuming that the "other/unknown" category is irresponsible.
Further you do not take into account the likelihood that the rate of HIV reporting among gay men is likely to be far higher than among the general population, because of the historic prevalance of infection in this group.
Further you do not take into account the fact that hetrosexual transmission of HIV is increasing.
I don't base my beliefs on the Kinsey reports at all. You're the one who brought them up. There are many sources on sexual behaviour other than what Kinsey found out.
The media doesn't force anyone to have sex. Displaying sex and forcing people to have it are two different things. One is entertainment and the other is rape. It is unfortunate you can't differntiate between the two.
"And yet- go far enough back in history you'll find that having a mistress meant having your head cut off. No tribal society put up with these sorts of sexual problems- because doing so was a threat to the survival of the entire tribe."
After that very short period of time it became fashinonable to have a mistress. If you take the entire history of humanity into account there is more total time given to society prefering a virile male than a chaste one.
So you and your wife only have sex when you want a child? Never for pleasure?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I've never thought of it that way, but I think you might be on to something.
Still, there seems to be some evidence that vaginal intercourse with an HIV+ partner is far safer than anal intercourse with the same. There are more anatomical safeguards, evidently.
I don't base my beliefs on the Kinsey reports at all. You're the one who brought them up. There are many sources on sexual behaviour other than what Kinsey found out.
And yet- all of them seem equally biased to behavior in certain sub-cultures and avoid even looking at the several centuries before.
The media doesn't force anyone to have sex. Displaying sex and forcing people to have it are two different things. One is entertainment and the other is rape. It is unfortunate you can't differntiate between the two.
One is acutally PEER PRESSURE, and the other is rape. I see no difference between the two.
After that very short period of time
Yeah, the first two million years or so.
it became fashinonable to have a mistress. If you take the entire history of humanity into account there is more total time given to society prefering a virile male than a chaste one.
Actually, no- tribal society has a far longer history than your oppressive agricultural society.
So you and your wife only have sex when you want a child?
That's the purpose of sex.
Never for pleasure?
There are tons of more pleasurable, far more satisfying things to do with our time than sex. But only one way to have kids.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Having kids is ONE purpose of sex. Who says it isn't also supposed to be pleasureable? Many types of animals have sex without intending to procreate, primates and other mammals primarily.
"Yeah, the first two million years or so."
Darwinist Theory or Creationist Theory, whichever one you choose humans have been on the planet a lot longer than millions of years. Its either 100,000 or 6,000. Take your pick.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Approximately 5% of the population possess full or partial immunity to the AIDS virus, cf
2 48
http://www.sciforums.com/archive/index.php/t-38
[that's just the first google response I got to AIDS immunity "black plague"]
Having kids is ONE purpose of sex. Who says it isn't also supposed to be pleasureable?
Rather, it's pleasurable so that you will want to have kids; and want to stay together for the 18 years it takes to raise those kids. Thus the pleasure is part and parcel of sex being for the purpose of having kids.
Many types of animals have sex without intending to procreate, primates and other mammals primarily.
That's a funny line also- since only human beings have the ability to reason and thus the ability to intend anything at all.
Darwinist Theory or Creationist Theory, whichever one you choose humans have been on the planet a lot longer than millions of years. Its either 100,000 or 6,000. Take your pick.
Funny again- both the nubmers you quote- 100,000 years and 6,000 years- are a lot less than the 2 million given to the first "True human" upright walking fossils.....and you say that it is more. The point however is that your observations only really apply to agriculturalist societies- and not even all of them (I see no point, for instance, in having yet another illogical female in my life)- since agriculture has only been around, at most, for 10,000 years. BTW, that's where the Creationist Theory comes from- they assume that the only true human beings ARE the agriculturalists- and thus they start counting time from the Agricultural Grouping of the Fertile Valley Crescent, which was indeed 6000 years ago. Cain didn't kill Abel out of jealousy- Cain killed Abel so that he could farm the meadows, just as the farmers in Brazil are killing off the natives so that they can farm the jungle today.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Ah- that's more a case of personal preference than morals. I hated dating and now that I've had kids, see no point whatsoever in doing it again- even after my spouse's death. I've got better things to do with my time.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That's a funny line also- since only human beings have the ability to reason and thus the ability to intend anything at all.
Bonobos frequently engage in sexual activity innately incapable of resulting in reproduction -- something which allows presence or lack of "intent" (in at least some sense of the word) to be inferred.
I don't know offhand of other examples, however, or care to defend any of the parent's other assertions/positions.
Bonobos frequently engage in sexual activity innately incapable of resulting in reproduction -- something which allows presence or lack of "intent" (in at least some sense of the word) to be inferred.
Yeah- but I bet the bonobos don't know that- they just think it's fun and fullfills their instinct. No REAL intent there besides what the bonobo-watchers anthromorphize into the behavior.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
As you said -- "they ... think it's fun". If they take some action because having fun is an anticipated or expected outcome, I'd argue that that fulfills the definition of intent (using definition n1 from WordNet).
Unless you're arguing that anticipation or expectation are inherently capable of being experienced only by sentient beings (using one of the more restrictive definitions of sentience)?
Unless you're arguing that anticipation or expectation are inherently capable of being experienced only by sentient beings (using one of the more restrictive definitions of sentience)?
I'd go even further than sentience- and say that this form of intent (anticipation and expectation of long-term results, after all, most hominids and primates experience gestation periods of MONTHS between sex and the child showing up) requires the specific abilities of time awareness and story telling- without which the cause-effect nature of sex and childbirth is not immediately apparent to anybody.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That's a possibility, and I'm willing to concede such, but I am not certain. Biology is not my strong point.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
The knowledge you refer to would indeed be necessary to have a specific intention wrt reproducing or failing to reproduce as a consequence of a specific set of actions.
In this case, however, the assertion was that there existed intent other than reproduction (as distinct from intent not to reproduce). Intent to have fun is entirely capable of existing with or without knowledge of reproduction.
(That said, there's an underlying point which is perhaps what you were getting at -- if no animal engages in sexual activity with intent to reproduce, because of lack of knowledge of said consequence, what makes the bonobo's actions any different? I'd argue that the bonobo's activities are different because the underlying cause (referring not to the intent of the animals, but the "invisible hand" -- evolutionary forces, $DEITY, or what-have-you) behind their behaviour is obviously resulting in said behaviour occuring despite its inability to result in reproduction occurring. This is obviously not literal intent on the part of the individual bonobo, but I'd argue that it's a form of (2nd-level?) "intent" nonetheless.
(That said, there's an underlying point which is perhaps what you were getting at -- if no animal engages in sexual activity with intent to reproduce, because of lack of knowledge of said consequence, what makes the bonobo's actions any different? I'd argue that the bonobo's activities are different because the underlying cause (referring not to the intent of the animals, but the "invisible hand" -- evolutionary forces, $DEITY, or what-have-you) behind their behaviour is obviously resulting in said behaviour occuring despite its inability to result in reproduction occurring. This is obviously not literal intent on the part of the individual bonobo, but I'd argue that it's a form of (2nd-level?) "intent" nonetheless.
Ah, but unfortuneately, the same thing that applies AGAINST my arguing from "God told us not to so we shouldn't do it" in the case of sexual activity also applies here- we cannot know the mind of God. Plus- if (as all appearances from evidence that we do know about) it is correct to say that God's method is evolutionary trial and error (from the idea that science is what gives us insight into the mind of God and God's true intentions) what is to prevent the bonobo's actions from being part of the error (and by extension, all of mankind's sexual perversions from being part of the error as well, since they all showed up long after we gained enough intelligence to start messing with evolution of our own species by growing food and letting the weak survive)?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
what is to prevent the bonobo's actions from being part of the error (and by extension, all of mankind's sexual perversions from being part of the error as well, since they all showed up long after we gained enough intelligence to start messing with evolution of our own species by growing food and letting the weak survive)?
Well... theory would be that errors generally don't propagate far (unless they're paired with other mutations sufficiently beneficial as to make up for the decrease in survivability they cause -- a pretty likely thing, since effects of genetic changes tend to clump). That exception being a large enough one to drive a tanker truck through, I thus cede the point.
('Twas an interesting discussion; I hope you think likewise).
('Twas an interesting discussion; I hope you think likewise).
I do indeed- which is why it always amazes me that the conservatives react to me like bmeztler did yesterday....posting a JE getting mad merely because I had failed to answer a point of his.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You sir, just returned to my friend list.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
If you are talking about the ape variety of prison rape, dogs do that too, if you are talking about some other behaviour, please provide a link.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Per request, a link.
Oh? Do tell.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)