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HIV Tracking Technology Could Pinpoint Who's Infecting Who
Daniel_Stuckey writes "No man is an island, but evolutionarily, each person functions like one for the HIV virus. That's according to Thomas Leitner, a researcher working on a project aimed at creating technology for tracking HIV through a population. The technology, which is being studied at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, may allow people to identify who infected them with the virus, a development that could have major implications in criminal proceedings. "If you're familiar with Darwin's finches, you have a population of birds on one island and they keep moving and evolving as they spread to other islands so that each population is a little different," Leitner said. "With HIV, it's the same. Every person infected with HIV has a slightly different form of the virus. It's the ultimate chameleon because it evolves this way.""
whom*
s/[stupid comments]/[intelligent discourse]/gi
Wow, I first read that wrong. I saw "HID Tracking Technology Could...". I looked down at my company badge (which uses HID) and started thinking about tinfoil...
I really do hope we're past the point that any major governments are populated with people that view AIDS as a "gay plague", because otherwise, I can easily see petty local leaders using this research to arrest sick people and charge them with murder.
If both the vector and recipient have dozens of varieties due to internal mutations, it would be hard to legally connect the two.
Is there some reason you are crying out for attention? That's your real issue.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
While I can understand residual anger at the profession of the person who did that to you, it's not actually the case that doctors are malicious or generally ignorant.
Who's infecting whom.
I can't figure out whether you're serious or not, but you certainly can get HIV even if you're "impotent".
I blame the niggers fucking monkeys.
At the risk of replying to a troll ac, they could just as easily gotten it from eating monkey meat.
...who gave me a cold?
Isn't America wonderful? Look how closely entwined the Legal and Medical professions have become...
Didn't you read his post? He's gives two good reasons. He even numbered them for you!
I'd say it's the people with HIV infecting the people who did not have HIV. I don't think you can get it twice
I wanna get PAID. The implications will be far more profound in the tort law landscape as this technology is extended to be able to pinpoint the identity of someone who gave you any generic disease.
Think big. Think HPV, Hepatitis, Herpes, and the whole range of STDs.
Imagine the payout if you can prove that a wealthy person gave you the HPV that caused your cervical cancer? Imagine the payout your family will get if you die from it.
Trial lawyers are absolutely salivating over this, and I would not be surprised to see lawyers "investing" in this technology.
And you sir... are not the donor...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_superinfection
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Surely you mean who's infecting whom? Let's get our priorities straight: grammar first, world-changing health improvements second.
I don't get your post. Do you think there's any relation between aids, tracking its spread vectors, and homosexuality?
Really? You can't catch it, so it doesn't matter?
That's like me saying: All those people who suffer from genital mutilation don't matter, because my genitals are just fine, thanks.
The world does not revolve around you. Have some fucking compassion.
My genitals were mutilated and I suffered all that physical pain that forced me to effectively chose impotence as the solution so that now I'm protected from AIDS/GRID
The bad news is - no, you are not protected from AIDS.
You are just less likely to catch it voluntarily.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
it's not actually the case that doctors are malicious or generally ignorant.
I disagree. I think the majority of doctors, just like any profession, don't have a clue what they are doing. You have to search around to find anyone competent. I've lost count of the number of times I've had problems that bugged me for years... until I walked into the right doctors office and the doctor knew exactly what to do and cured me within weeks. The biggest problem with healthcare is the incompetence of our medical professionals. When you can have 2 hospitals in the same city, sitting less than a mile apart and one has a survival rate for heart surgery that's double or even triple the other hospitals, somethings Fing wrong. That sort of disparity happens in every town in this country and it's criminal that it's allowed to continue. They are literally killing tens of thousands of people with their incompetence.
So we are going to post everyone's names and addresses ( and photos too) on the web of who is infected? Its for the kids remember.
Will just drive people underground and make them afraid to get tested.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ok, "Skeptics".
Will you get angry with me if I call this arsehole a "denier"?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
How about a test to show who gave who crabs. That's always a controversial topic, or so I've been told.
OK. "Is there some reason he is crying out for attention in this particular thread?"
This isn't a thread about genital mutilation or medical incompetence, it's about HIV. Unless you were infected with the latter while someone performed the former on you, there is no obvious reason to make the awkward leap from "HIV" to "genital mutilation" other than "Hey, I really want to tell you all about my awful genital mutilation experiences."
I wonder if GP goes into driverless car threads and says "yeah, driverless cars will reduce the number of awful car wrecks, which look JUST LIKE MY GENITAL REGION!". Or maybe in rocketry threads we might get "Of course, that big phallic rocket looks ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE ANYTHING IN MY UNDERWEAR!"
in 3....2......1.....
BTW- Does anyone who doesn't engage in dangerous activity (i.e. promiscuous unprotected sexual activity and/or IV drug use) still get AIDS? I mean other than unsuspecting spouses whose significant other does evil?
Do you get transfusions or donate blood, or did you do so before the tests improved? Do you share needles, or have you had surgery where a surgeon accidentally cut their hand, even wearing gloves?
AIDS requires the exchange of intimate body fluids, but it can still happen by accident. And given how quickly it spread originally from a very "active" gay man, the risk of a surgeon accidentally infecting patients or a hooker engaging in unsafe practices is still a real epidemiological tracking reason to want to track the source of an AIDS cluster.
Rhinoviruses are a major force in human genetics. If you eliminate the common cold, you will fuck over the entire race harder than you can possibly imagine. You may even realize the (up till now mythical) "devolution" process the old eugenicists used to worry so much about.
the likelihood of getting infected from unprotected heterosexual activity is near zero.
Incorrect.
The rate of actually acquiring an infection from an infected source by insertive anal (gay) intercourse is 6.5 in 10,000 exposures. The rate for Insertive vaginal (straight) intercourse is 5 in 10,000 exposures. The difference there...1.5 cases in 10,000 is pretty inconsequential.
It is different for the receptive partners. Receptive anal (gay) intercourse is 50 infections per 10,000 exposures. The rate for receptive vaginal (straight) intercourse is 10 per 10,000 exposures. Receptive gay sex is 5 times as likely to transmit the disease as receptive vaginal sex...but when it's 10 per 10,000 vs 50 per 10,000, it's still within the same order of magnitude.
(Source, the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/risk.html)
If you feel you have an unbearable surplus of faith and optimism in the human race today, simply browse these comments at -1. You'll soon be clenching your teeth and wishing incurable diseases on random internet bigots and morons!
Glad to be of service.
Cool story bro, but I think you typoed "reddit.com" in your address bar.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Do you get transfusions or donate blood, or did you do so before the tests improved?
How do you get HIV (or any other blood-borne disease) from donating blood?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"With HIV, it's the same. Every person infected with HIV has a slightly different form the the virus. It's the ultimate chameleon because it is intelligently designed and modified this way."
There, fixed the summary the right way.
And yes, I did intend the double meaning in the title and my comment.
it's still within the same order of magnitude.
You two are talking about different things. You're talking about certain types of intercourse given that exactly one subject is infected, and exactly one subject is uninfected. Anonymous Coward is talking about certain types of intercourse given that both subjects are members of the general population.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Don't worry, I'm sure our wonderfully competent amnd benevolent federal government will step in and take over everything and make it better. Because poor quality is always to be blamed on the free market, not past interference by our wise and saintly government. Or at least that's what I was conditioned to believe in school. (A government service.)
Or maybe...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt0tKl0J-S4 -- The Death of Healthcare, Part 1
I think the majority of doctors, just like any profession, don't have a clue what they are doing.
A big part of the problem is their effort to maintain their mystique. While working as a coder, I check the docs, or look up a problem on Stackoverflow a dozen times a day. Medicine is way more complex than coding, but I have never seen a doctor whip out a laptop and say to a patient "Let me just Google those symptoms!" because they want to maintain the illusion of omniscience. So they just "wing it" instead, and often get the diagnosis wrong.
You can compare the survival rates or any other statistics only if both hospitals have the same or similar enough number and type of cases. Otherwise the comparison is made difficult and you need a real statisticomagician to get to the truth. This is not to say that the difference you talk about are not criminal - I am sure some of them are a result of criminal negligence possibly.
Why does everybody always assume that the unintended consequences of an action will be:
1. A net negative
2. *More* negative than the intended consequences
3. Non-mitigable
Also, why do multiple browsers put red-squiggles under "mitigable"? It's a real adjective.
Also, my imagination is capable of encompassing species-wide extinction and also species-wide eternal slavery to parasitic mind slugs. I don't think there's any way that eliminating the common cold could fuck us over worse than those outcomes.
I knew about the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. But not the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Virus.
FYI, that joke was generated with a PHP Preprocessor on my IBM Machine.
Don't be too hard on him, it's a sore point.
He has a bumper sticker that reads, "Ask me about my genital mutilation"
Not to be too contrary, but when I recently picked a new primary physician, we were talking about my Zantac use for acid reflux. This guy went to the laptop he always keeps in the examining room to look up maximum dosage, and possible ill-effects. He found what he needed, and advised me to cut back to avoid negative effects on vitamin absorption that may occur at the dose I was using.
He's a keeper.
Ah so is this the "super AIDS" I've heard so much about?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It is? Most people in the modern world have some idea of what makes them sick and what to do to get better. Most people in the modern world don't have the first clue about software or what makes their computer crash. Attitudes like yours do nothing to demystify medical doctors' "illusion of omniscience".
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
Some hospitals specialize in the sickest, most likely to die patients. That is going to skew their statistics.
Experience.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
grammar
Nerd Rock In Progress
When you can have 2 hospitals in the same city, sitting less than a mile apart and one has a survival rate for heart surgery that's double or even triple the other hospitals, somethings Fing wrong.
Sigh. Statistics isn't so simple. Lets say there are two heart surgeons, Dr. Smith and Dr. Doe:
90% of Dr. Smith's patients do very well.
50% of Dr. Doe's patients do very well.
So, you should choose Dr. Smith for your heart surgery, right?
Wrong. Dr. Doe is the best heart surgeon in the city, and tends to get the toughest heart cases. Many of Dr. Doe's patients do badly, because they were in very bad shape to begin with.
Dr. Smithis nowhere near as good, and tends to get the easy patients because that's all that hospitals trust Dr. Smith to deal with.
You want to look at success rates with comparable patients.
Having dealt with different health issues over the years, it is difficult for the layperson to judge the quality of their health care.
Kind of in the way not living near tigers makes you less likely to be eaten by one. Sure an escaped zoo tiger *might* eat you, but is just very unlikely.
No disease is magic, basic behavioural changes can be very effective in reducing their spread. We need to remind people we already know everything needed to stop the spread of HIV.
Having dealt with different health issues over the years, it is difficult for the layperson to judge the quality of their health care.
...and that's no accident. It doesn't have to be that way.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
While working as a coder, I check the docs, or look up a problem on Stackoverflow a dozen times a day. Medicine is way more complex than coding, but I have never seen a doctor whip out a laptop and say to a patient "Let me just Google those symptoms!"
It happens all the time, even if you didn't notice.
- doctors look things up in paper & electronic reference texts such as Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, The Cochrane Library or pharmaceutical guides
- doctors informally ask other doctors
- doctors formally ask other doctors (sometimes billed as a "phone consult")
- doctors refer you to see a specialist
FYI, google isn't always the best source of health info - there are many kooks & quacks peddling snake oil.
Most people in the modern world have some idea of what makes them sick
Most people understand that if you drop a rock on your foot, it will hurt. But that doesn't mean they understand general relativity, and the gravitational warping of space-time that makes it happen.
Most people in the modern world don't have the first clue about software or what makes their computer crash.
This is because of apathy or intimidation rather than inherent complexity. The basic principles of computing are amazingly simple.
Just go ask Pat Robertson, he seems to know who is infecting whom all the time
I have to agree about the health profession. And here's an example that may be useful for geeks. For years I suffered from painful hips. At the age of 35 I thought I had early onset arthritis. Two different doctors about two years apart said no, but didn't know what it was. The pain got so bad after four years that I went to another doctor who asked me questions about my lifestyle. He established that I sat in front of a computer too long and then asked me to touch my toes. I couldn't. He said the problem was my hamstrings had shrunk so badly that they were crunching my leg bones up into my hip sockets. Answer simple stretches. Instant relief. Now I do my !@%$! stretches.
work in progress
While there are differences in skill among doctors, 90% of complaints are very routine and almost all board certified doctors will arrive at the correct diagnosis and treatment. Differences in survival are far more closely related to patient population than skill (e.g. a university hospital with some of the best equipment and top specialists in their field will have a lower survival rate as only the sickest patients are transferred to them).
Now, we can interpret your anecdote in one of two ways:
No, I'll just ignore your Ad hominem remarks like I always do when people here who are too lazy/ignorant to address specifics resort to them, thus betraying their ignorance of the subject matter and rending their opinions entirely irrelevant.
For the rest of the readers, a fascinating book about the antics of Robert Gallo is : "Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Cover-up and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo by John Crewdson.
You _give_ AIDS by donating blood, and already being infected.
Of course there is. On Fox News at least. That was three halfs the point of the post. btw, I am glad it was downmodded. Shows that the other mods at least have sense, although I'm surprised how many folks responded to it.
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I don't.
Nobody will ever catch AIDS from my blood. That's because they've figured out that only fags get AIDS/GRID, so they won't let me donate blood unless I'm comfortable about lying about when the last time I slept with a hot guy was.
Since I don't have AIDS/GRID, it does make me quite a bit uncomfortable about the possibility that I might receive blood. I don't want that infection.
If the precautions you straight people take against AIDS/GRID is only limited to the idiocy of beliving it only affects t3h g4h, I'm safer refusing all treatment that might involve some straight idiot's blood.
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Allow me to elaborate.
#2 was supposed to be ironic. Of course circumcision doesn't protect me in any meaningful statistical way.
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Please forgive me for this, but I'm going to try to be logical for the education of other slashdot readers who have to think about real risks.
There are other means: the blood supply is one of them: I've even had injured people bleed on me, on open cuts. Many years ago, I helped a convulsing man who bit me and drew blood, and he was choking on blood from his bitten tongue. If he'd had AIDS, I'd have been at serous risk. It wouldn't have stopped me from helping him stop choking, but it gave me pause later when I thought about such risks, and I did wind up getting a tetanus booster shot.
'cos rape never happens in your tiger-free neighbourhood?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
It's sad that AIDS was originally started with "gay cancer" because it really isn't a gay thing and HIV isn't a sexually transmitted disease, it's a blood-bourne disease -- you get it from infected blood getting into your bloodstream. Asimov died of AIDS he got from a transfusion in a hospital. You can get it from anal sex because the anal tissues often tear, allowing the infected semen into the bloodstream.
Most infections these days are from the same thing as Hep C -- junkies sharing needles.
BTW, mentally ill != psychopath.
Free Martian Whores!
They also can't be eradicated, because they are not a life form, they are a virus that is part of the human genome. Even if you were able to wave a magic wand and destroy all motile rhinoviruses in the world at a given moment, they would evolve again through normal human processes of DNA replication.
You can be completely isolated from human contact, and still contract rhinovirus spontaneously from your own DNA activating a rhinovirus strain.
Thanks for the reply and the sanity. I'm sorry I was a bit off my rocker when I posted that.
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Ah so is this the "super AIDS" I've heard so much about?
no, that's Windows 8.1
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.