That's not "the best I can do", but since you said you weren't an expert in the field, I would link a basic review. The paper was an OVERVIEW and not a paper with original work. Did you actually try and read it? The papers that you originally cited were PROVEN WRONG. The original papers that contradict your "nobel prize winners" and "virologist" are cited in the article.
And, anyway, Teeter's credentials are as valid as the ones you've brought up with your names -- moreso since he's probably done more AIDS work than the three you mentioned.
Do you have any argument with the actual TEXT of the paper? Howabout the citations in it -- do you doubt the research done? Or are you just making an ad hominem attack?
Do you want me to give you a bibliography of papers backing up the belief that HIV causes AIDS? Would you read them and understand them if I did?
1) Duesberg was listened to, and his ideas were proven wrong. His statements on HIV and AIDS causation have almost universally been shown to be false. He has not been "showered with money" or given media attention because his theories on AIDS are repeatedly proven incorrect.
2) When AIDS was initially reported, there was plenty of confusion in the media. People were linking it to being Haitian, with being gay, with living on the coasts of the US...and a dozen other things.
3) None of the people you mentioned seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. They don't appear to have training in areas like molecular biology or virology (one is a semiotician and a toxicologist!?!). They seem to have no stated theories on why AIDS takes place, or why HIV could not be the causative agent for AIDS. I have no reason to think they are "experts" on AIDS in any way.
4) 5,500 random people with some scientific training is not a significant number when compared with the number of experts who espouse the retroviral theory. Additionally, I never asserted that the names on your list were fake or forged, merely that they could be, and that it was entirely irrelevent.
5) Your classification of antiretrovirals as "extremely toxic drugs" is disingenuous and smells of trolling. This is equally true of your statement on chemotherapy, and your suggestion that the medical establishment is espousing harming patients.
6) Your glossing over of activist groups like Act Up! or GMHC that would love to find a cover-up in AIDS research only further classifies your posts as trolling.
I'm wasting to much time on this -- you don't want to learn enough about the subject to make an informed decision, but you doubt what is almost universally accepted among experts to be true. You say you don't trust people just because their deemed "experts", but you are going to consider alternative theories to the retroviral postulate because the people questioning it are experts?
1) I put you as a "foe" because I'm starting to question if you may be a troll, just so I remember who you are. I'm still giving this whole thing the benefit of the doubt. I have not "filtered" your messages, either.
2) As I've stated in my prior posts, I don't ignore contrarian views, but merely ask for evidence/arguments. Everything I've read on virusmyth.net seems to be wrong or outdated. There is frequent mention of many scientists' "doubt", but every bit of reason for doubt that I've seen turns out to be fallacious.
Its not that the scientific community ignored Duesberg's and other views on AIDS, nor were they left out of the debate. It is merely that many of these alternative views have been examined, tested, and discarded...meanwhile, the conventional HIV/retroviral theory has yet to be reliably contradicted -- that's how science is supposed to work: you eliminate postulates that turn out to have no real merit or evidence.
3) I find it hard to understand why you keep bringing up the 5,500 names, and the "prestigious scientists" -- if you are so skeptical, names should mean nothing to you, especially because far more prestigious names are connected to the conventional HIV/retroviral theory. You say you're skeptical of 'establishment' medicine, but you also say you haven't studied the question enough to have a basis for this skepticism. You just trade one set of experts for another?
Anyway, I doubt anyone has actually gone through all 5,500 names for any reason. I don't know if any of them are real. For all I know, my name might be on there, since I rarely check to see where my name has been published. That's really not the point. The point is that science isn't like an opinion poll, where a loud enough voice gains validity. If somebody, anybody from that list could cite valid evidence why the retroviral/HIV theory is wrong, or come up with a valid alternative, they'd be published in a second, and the NIH would be carting buckets of money to them, while Act Up! would be throwing tons of support to them, too. The fact is, there is no such evidence, there is no such alternative theory.
4) With regard to the Oath...well, don't get me started. Antiretrovirals are NOT intended as poisons, nor have they been shown to act that way towards AIDS patients. They prolong life. You might as well say chemotherapy is "deadly medicine" as well, too.
Furthermore, the Oath (as originally written)invokes the god Apollo (among others), prohibits doctors from performing surgeries, disallows abortion, and disavows physician-assisted suicide. I'd like to think that medicine has progressed beyond that archaic stage, and the original is not the oath that I took.
I'm perfectly willing to have a rational discussion about this with anyone, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to skepticism -- that's what makes good science happen. However, just giving names and stating beliefs isn't a persuasive argument. You've given me no substantive reason to doubt what I currently believe.
I know of Duesberg and read his papers on this matter, and I don't agree with his conclusions. I know of Mullins, and think he's a genius, but even a genius isn't infallible. In fact, I think it ironic that his own PCR has disproven one of Duesberg's famous early claims: that HIV is undetectable in some AIDS patients.
Listing names isn't convincing without a reason behind those folks' beliefs. I can look at those names, and still not have any idea why they would be skeptical of the retroviral hypothesis. You list 5,500 names but I expect that 550,000 (or more) scientifically trained folk would take the other side of the argument. Names don't mean anything in good science, nor do numbers. I don't even know if those names are real. Facts and hypothesis-testing do mean something, for they can be tested and put through trials.
I've stated in my prior post why I think Duesberg and others who deny the retroviral theory are wrong. I've stated why I think HIV comes very, very close to fulfilling Koch's postulate (even though we'er dealing with a viral agent, not a bacterial one, here). I've pointed out that almost everything Duesberg has said initially about HIV/AIDS turned out to be untrue. I can even direct you to a relatively recent paper here that gives a good basic overview why HIV seems to fit the bill as the causative agent for AIDS.
So far, nothing I've seen has conflicted with those points I made, and until they do, I really have no reason to question the HIV/retroviral theory of AIDS causation...And I have to wonder the specifics behind why you do.
You bring up an interesting point, but its pretty well established that Duesberg & other "non-retroviral" theorists are wrong on many counts here.
First of all, Duesberg's claim that "poverty, malnutrition and parasitic and tropical diseases" cause AIDS in third world populations, while "recreational drugs, irradiation and AZT" and nutrition are responsible for the syndrome in the Western world are patently false -- disproven repeatedly. AZT and other anti-retrovirals have been shown to increase lifespan and decrease symptomatology in AIDS patients. HIV is a heterosexual epidemic in many places, and viral loads do seem to correlate with diminished T-cell numbers.
Other "non-viral" theories of AIDS put forth, such as Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos' "oxidizing agent" theory have been equally disproven. It seems that, if there is an viable, alternative theory to the retroviral HIV of AIDS, nobody has presented it yet.
Secondly, it would be very difficult to demonstrate that the retroviral HIV theory of AIDS completely fulfills all the requirements of Koch's postulate in a human model (in fact, it would be an immoral and unethical act to test it this way), but the evidence is pretty strong in the support of it. People who show no evidence of HIV do not have AIDS (although similar syndromes exist). As far as I know, all people with AIDS have been shown to have HIV infection. Furthermore, people who have had AIDS and have begun antiretroviral therapy have shown dramatic regression of symptoms, while no other therapies (directed or not) seem to be effective.
The "non-viral" people -- Duesberg supporters in particular -- tend to argue against strawmen, using old data, and demanding that the HIV camp disprove negatives.
I have it on pretty reliable authority, second-hand from several Mennonites I know, that your average 30-something Amish man or woman has been pretty exposed to "Americanization" at one point or another, and this exposure is an essential part to their culture.
Heck, man! And here I was about to suggest that they shoot some bacteria and cold-tolerant lichens and moss spores up there -- intentionally!
I'm all for keeping natural environments untouched when there's a clear reason or there's something we're actually protecting...but what would you suggest is being damaged on the Moon or Mars? And, personally, I find the idea of "contaminating" Luna to be ludicrous. We're not talking intelligent life out there, nor are we talking about nutrient-rich environments. We're barely talking atmosphere. The moon (and, it seems, Mars) are about as close to the true definition of "wasteland" as you can get. And, if we kill off the native Martian unicellular organisms, so be it. I want that place to be well on its way to terraforming by the time I head up there with the first wave of manned flights.
Best way to get at that all that locked-up water and use that carbon dioxide atmosphere would be to send some tough bacteria, with some of your basic algaes and lichens to start putting down roots...
I lived in Philly for two years, myself, and I stand by my initial assessment. Philly is a real city, and Boston combined with Cambridge still isn't remotely as large.
Boston has not given IDG a free ride, at least not yet -- IDG was pushing for it, and looking for leverage in dealing with the Javitts people. There still isn't an offer on the table from Boston, and AFAIK it'll be 2006 before the center is completed anyway.
The "Silver Line" is a bus, still rides on the roads, and is no more a subway than the Green Line is (less, actually). A bad joke, especially for those of us South Enders who are expected to use it.
Finally, no one stays in downtown Boston, they stay in Back Bay/Copley, by the airport, or not in Boston at all...and I'd hate to have to walk from any of those places to downtown, the WTC in southie, N./S. End for restaurants or anywhere else in the July heat.
Please, don't compare the pathetic cab system they have in Boston to that of NYC or Philly -- apart from a couple of train stations & Logan, you simply can't get a cab unless you're on Mass Ave or Boyleston.
We'll just have to agree to disagree, but I think its clear that Boston is not the site for a world-class event that Apple needs. Tokyo, London, San Francisco, and...Boston? I think not.
Why on earth doesn't this farmer sue Monsanto and the local farmers that use GM plants for irresponsibly contaminating his plants?
Clearly, the poor design of these plants and their irresponsible use caused him financial hardship, and potentially have made his crop dangerous for the land and/or human consumption...He's now limited where he can sell his crop, and the jury's still out on the hazards of using GM foodstuffs.
Hey, if the megacorps want to play hardball to protect their bogus patents through illegal, extortionist tactics, then the victims should use any means available to strike back -- even hysterical, sensationalist ones.
Now we're really getting off on a tangent, but I have to contest most of your post.
The so-called "Silver Line" is a bad joke -- essentially the same bus-line that ran downtown before, from the run-down & unpleasant Roxbury area but with a new label... Another MBTA boondoggle, in lieu of a real transportation solution (e.g.: elevated tracks or underground line). The facts are that Boston has a skeletal train system in place, and a limited mass transit system overall -- to steal your approach: "The T closes?!? WTF is that!!!"
Boston's hotels are far fewer in number compared to NYC's, and are mostly grouped either in the airport cluster or the mega-hotel-mall monstrosity of Back Bay -- and they charge uniformly extortionate rates.
As for splitting the convention halls, well, they had to do it before in Boston and they'd have to do it again. To refresh everyone's memory, it sucked having to take yet another bus to get to yet another isolated hall (unless you were a UMass Boston student), and it gives visitors a less-than-pleasant view of Boston. They'd probably go back to using the so-called "world-trade center" -- and having MWE in Southie is about as minor-league as you can get.
Now, moving away from the logistics of the event, Boston isn't the kind of place that Apple should be placing as one of their showplace forums. The night-life of Boston, not to mention the restaurants, can't begin to compare to NYC, and business-wise, Boston is third-tier. If Apple is worried about image and amenities, Boston just can't compare to New York, Chicago, SF, LA...hell, I'd rather see MWE move to Philly than come back to Boston. At least Philadelphia has the SEPTA and a decent cab system.
In any case, from what I've heard, this was more a ploy to negotiate a more favorable arrangement in NYC for the next five years, and at worst will look for a site in the outer boroughs or in NJ...so at least that worry is behind us.
Here in Boston, we've had a similar experience with first Telocity, and then DirecTV (who bought up Telocity). Fast, reliable, and prompt service when needed (rarely).
My wife (a professional computer geekess) tweaks things on the home network to her heart's content...we'll sometimes have six machines and a wireless hub running on it. We were worried when Telocity was bought, but no problems. We were worried when we moved to the other side of town, but no problems.
Every once in a while, we get something in the mail from Earthlink or Verizon, saying how great it is that we can switch to their service and pay more ($59.95 in some cases) for less (no static IP, no in-home networks). Someday, these services will get a clue. For now, DirecTV does it right.
I know its bad form to reply to your own posts, but I just looked it up, and the numbers have dropped over the last couple of years. Just correcting myself to save someone else the effort.
Well, I won't get into personal preferences, but Boston is tiny, less active, relatively less accessible, and there's a much more limited market for hotel rooms. The locations available in Boston for such an expo are smaller, and less centrally located.
The last Boston expo I attended had to be split between two locations that were both on the fringes of the city. The public transit system here is weak compared to NYC, the restaurants and the sites are also a far cry from what's available in Manhattan. NYC has world-wide cachet and recognition, as well as being the cultural and financial capital of the US... Boston is -- to put it kindly -- not.
I'm a veteran of several MacWorld Expos (both Boston and NY) and I'm a Boston resident. Personally, I think it'd be a huge error to have the MWExpo in Boston again.
I understood that the numbers since going to NYC had been rising...In fact, I'm sure that there were some web sites touting the fact that this years numbers had surpassed last years.
Anyway, Boston is a horrible city for this, and relocating to there would only cement a second-rate image for Apple -- and I live there.
Of course, thats what the RSVP thing is for...I'm signed up, but had other obligations, so we didn't say we'd be there. Now, the folks who do RSVP and never turn up -- they're the ones you should be chastising...As for location, I'd think somewhere either along Mass Ave or Boyleston would be easy to get to, easy to leave. And next time a non-weekend night would be a very good idea to avoid the normal crowds in cities.
Well, to some degree you're absolutely right, and this is often what is done now in clinics of all types. We have a variety of professionals who are making these type of assessments all along, even without the computer. Many patients never see a doctor at all, only physicians assistants and nurse practitioners.
The big "however" is that this system does not (actually, cannot) make a diagnosis, only add or suggest things to a differential list. To a large degree, though, this could change the way doctors reach their diagnosis -- and, assuming this works, why would a physician bother with the redundancy of making a differential the old way when with the computer you do it more effectively? For example, why would you ask the same questions of a patient over and over?
Trust me, this is more than a usability issue -- if this is for real, it could change the way medicine fundamentally works for the physician.
Data collection is not developing a differential, which is what this system would help the doctor focus on. One needs to assess quickly and accurately what type of data you need to harvest on a patient, and how that will change treatment and patient outcome. The original article brought up some important points about how we're currently trained to look for the most likely causes of a health problem and then the most serious. This system would fundamentally change the way doctors are trained -- not just how basic data is harvested.
As for my debt, I attend one of the more over-priced schools in the US (I could have gone to one of the wonderful, less expensive state programs like New York or California), but my tuition alone is $40,000 per year. That doesn't include travel, food, housing (I live in a major city), utilities, clothing, etc..
And your comparison of fracture-mending seems a bit oversimplified for several reasons.
When you pay for a doctor, you're not just paying a for single, particular service. You pay to have a trained doctor available in the first place -- just because your child had a simple fracture doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a doctor available for complex cases, too. Therefore, you pay for their expertise (which has greatly improved since 1960). No matter how simple the case eventually turned out to be, that doctor's time was consumed providing the service, and that's one minute/hour/day less the system has to treat other cases.
You pay for improvements to the system as a whole...while your child had a simple fracture, orthopedic medicine is now better able to handle all sorts of problems that were intractable in 1960.
Finally, there's the unfortunate fact that people or insurance groups or coverage services that pay have to cover the massive number of people who never do. Back in the day of out-of-pocket, medicine was more like every other service -- you paid for work done. Nowadays, it seems like half the patients I see never pay a cent, and money needs to come from somewhere to cover this.
At least in the US, much of the economic problem comes from the fact that we can do so much now to help people live better and longer, but nobody wants to foot the bill. Ironically, because people live longer and through worse illnesses, it costs more to keep things going.
Its all fine and good to demand universal health care, and to say that we must do everything in our power to save lives -- that's why I went into this. But if health care is a right, society better be willing to pay for it, and not expect further and further corner cutting. If health care is such a large priority for Americans, we need to fund it like it is -- if not, then expect to see people leave the industry and patients to get substandard care, irrespective of the computer systems designed to support doctors.
As someone who will be graduating medical school in about a year, I can point out what my biggest hope/fear is with this kind of software -- and its not what readers have been suggesting in this thread up until now.
The thing that makes me both intensely interested and worried about this method of diagnosis is... time management. Most patients don't seem to realize what ridiculous time constraints we're on -- the massive patient load we need to see just to tread water and keep the HMOs/hospital adminstrators/etc happy.
One of the most important parts of our training is learning how to balance diagnostic thoroughness with constant efficiency, and we learn all sorts of methods to do this. Any system like this software could seriously disrupt our breakneck pace, and its value is entirely unproven. Since the healthcare system is already stretched to its breaking point in the US, I worry that any changes that lower efficiency will send us into a tailspin.
Conversely, the idea that we could add such a powerful new tool to our arsenal seems like a dream come true. I would be thrilled to spend more time with each patient, to have a system that makes our diagnoses even more accurate and more focused, and to always be able to encompass the latest literature's suggestions and results.
The big hurdle to overcome in testing and implementing a system like this is getting the necessary volunteers. I'm not sure that I would be comfortable (when I'm about $300,000 in debt from medical school) being trained in such an unproven method of diagnostics. I suspect that most other medical students/schools, when faced with the uncertainty of the situation, would be equally reluctant to commit their money and their years to take such a risk when practicing modern medicine is already such an uncertain proposition.
And if there were a self-replicating protein, what would prevent it from continuing to exist today? Where is it?
They're called "prions". You find them in mad cows (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), and very possibly in people (Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease). Even today.
We're not dealing with "capitalism" here, because in most cases the individuals looking for another service don't have any other options -- especially with the "non-compete" decision recently handed down about ISPs in the US. Keep in mind, too, that the internet was a government-derived project when it started. I'm not sure why its acceptable for corporations to restrict access to this communications backbone.
Parcelling out regions of citizens/consumers to monopolistic "providers" doesn't serve the nation, and our government should be keeping an eye out for us that we don't get gouged or unilaterally controlled. I'd like to see some folks bringing a few anti-trust cases up to keep everyone on the up and up, and not view the US populace as sheep for fleecing.
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That's not "the best I can do", but since you said you weren't an expert in the field, I would link a basic review. The paper was an OVERVIEW and not a paper with original work. Did you actually try and read it? The papers that you originally cited were PROVEN WRONG. The original papers that contradict your "nobel prize winners" and "virologist" are cited in the article.
And, anyway, Teeter's credentials are as valid as the ones you've brought up with your names -- moreso since he's probably done more AIDS work than the three you mentioned.
Do you have any argument with the actual TEXT of the paper? Howabout the citations in it -- do you doubt the research done? Or are you just making an ad hominem attack?
Do you want me to give you a bibliography of papers backing up the belief that HIV causes AIDS? Would you read them and understand them if I did?
1) Duesberg was listened to, and his ideas were proven wrong. His statements on HIV and AIDS causation have almost universally been shown to be false. He has not been "showered with money" or given media attention because his theories on AIDS are repeatedly proven incorrect.
2) When AIDS was initially reported, there was plenty of confusion in the media. People were linking it to being Haitian, with being gay, with living on the coasts of the US...and a dozen other things.
3) None of the people you mentioned seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. They don't appear to have training in areas like molecular biology or virology (one is a semiotician and a toxicologist!?!). They seem to have no stated theories on why AIDS takes place, or why HIV could not be the causative agent for AIDS. I have no reason to think they are "experts" on AIDS in any way.
4) 5,500 random people with some scientific training is not a significant number when compared with the number of experts who espouse the retroviral theory. Additionally, I never asserted that the names on your list were fake or forged, merely that they could be, and that it was entirely irrelevent.
5) Your classification of antiretrovirals as "extremely toxic drugs" is disingenuous and smells of trolling. This is equally true of your statement on chemotherapy, and your suggestion that the medical establishment is espousing harming patients.
6) Your glossing over of activist groups like Act Up! or GMHC that would love to find a cover-up in AIDS research only further classifies your posts as trolling.
I'm wasting to much time on this -- you don't want to learn enough about the subject to make an informed decision, but you doubt what is almost universally accepted among experts to be true. You say you don't trust people just because their deemed "experts", but you are going to consider alternative theories to the retroviral postulate because the people questioning it are experts?
1) I put you as a "foe" because I'm starting to question if you may be a troll, just so I remember who you are. I'm still giving this whole thing the benefit of the doubt. I have not "filtered" your messages, either.
2) As I've stated in my prior posts, I don't ignore contrarian views, but merely ask for evidence/arguments. Everything I've read on virusmyth.net seems to be wrong or outdated. There is frequent mention of many scientists' "doubt", but every bit of reason for doubt that I've seen turns out to be fallacious.
Its not that the scientific community ignored Duesberg's and other views on AIDS, nor were they left out of the debate. It is merely that many of these alternative views have been examined, tested, and discarded...meanwhile, the conventional HIV/retroviral theory has yet to be reliably contradicted -- that's how science is supposed to work: you eliminate postulates that turn out to have no real merit or evidence.
3) I find it hard to understand why you keep bringing up the 5,500 names, and the "prestigious scientists" -- if you are so skeptical, names should mean nothing to you, especially because far more prestigious names are connected to the conventional HIV/retroviral theory. You say you're skeptical of 'establishment' medicine, but you also say you haven't studied the question enough to have a basis for this skepticism. You just trade one set of experts for another?
Anyway, I doubt anyone has actually gone through all 5,500 names for any reason. I don't know if any of them are real. For all I know, my name might be on there, since I rarely check to see where my name has been published. That's really not the point. The point is that science isn't like an opinion poll, where a loud enough voice gains validity. If somebody, anybody from that list could cite valid evidence why the retroviral/HIV theory is wrong, or come up with a valid alternative, they'd be published in a second, and the NIH would be carting buckets of money to them, while Act Up! would be throwing tons of support to them, too. The fact is, there is no such evidence, there is no such alternative theory.
4) With regard to the Oath...well, don't get me started. Antiretrovirals are NOT intended as poisons, nor have they been shown to act that way towards AIDS patients. They prolong life. You might as well say chemotherapy is "deadly medicine" as well, too.
Furthermore, the Oath (as originally written)invokes the god Apollo (among others), prohibits doctors from performing surgeries, disallows abortion, and disavows physician-assisted suicide. I'd like to think that medicine has progressed beyond that archaic stage, and the original is not the oath that I took.
I'm perfectly willing to have a rational discussion about this with anyone, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to skepticism -- that's what makes good science happen. However, just giving names and stating beliefs isn't a persuasive argument. You've given me no substantive reason to doubt what I currently believe.
I know of Duesberg and read his papers on this matter, and I don't agree with his conclusions. I know of Mullins, and think he's a genius, but even a genius isn't infallible. In fact, I think it ironic that his own PCR has disproven one of Duesberg's famous early claims: that HIV is undetectable in some AIDS patients.
Listing names isn't convincing without a reason behind those folks' beliefs. I can look at those names, and still not have any idea why they would be skeptical of the retroviral hypothesis. You list 5,500 names but I expect that 550,000 (or more) scientifically trained folk would take the other side of the argument. Names don't mean anything in good science, nor do numbers. I don't even know if those names are real. Facts and hypothesis-testing do mean something, for they can be tested and put through trials.
I've stated in my prior post why I think Duesberg and others who deny the retroviral theory are wrong. I've stated why I think HIV comes very, very close to fulfilling Koch's postulate (even though we'er dealing with a viral agent, not a bacterial one, here). I've pointed out that almost everything Duesberg has said initially about HIV/AIDS turned out to be untrue. I can even direct you to a relatively recent paper here that gives a good basic overview why HIV seems to fit the bill as the causative agent for AIDS.
So far, nothing I've seen has conflicted with those points I made, and until they do, I really have no reason to question the HIV/retroviral theory of AIDS causation...And I have to wonder the specifics behind why you do.
You bring up an interesting point, but its pretty well established that Duesberg & other "non-retroviral" theorists are wrong on many counts here.
First of all, Duesberg's claim that "poverty, malnutrition and parasitic and tropical diseases" cause AIDS in third world populations, while "recreational drugs, irradiation and AZT" and nutrition are responsible for the syndrome in the Western world are patently false -- disproven repeatedly. AZT and other anti-retrovirals have been shown to increase lifespan and decrease symptomatology in AIDS patients. HIV is a heterosexual epidemic in many places, and viral loads do seem to correlate with diminished T-cell numbers.
Other "non-viral" theories of AIDS put forth, such as Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos' "oxidizing agent" theory have been equally disproven. It seems that, if there is an viable, alternative theory to the retroviral HIV of AIDS, nobody has presented it yet.
Secondly, it would be very difficult to demonstrate that the retroviral HIV theory of AIDS completely fulfills all the requirements of Koch's postulate in a human model (in fact, it would be an immoral and unethical act to test it this way), but the evidence is pretty strong in the support of it. People who show no evidence of HIV do not have AIDS (although similar syndromes exist). As far as I know, all people with AIDS have been shown to have HIV infection. Furthermore, people who have had AIDS and have begun antiretroviral therapy have shown dramatic regression of symptoms, while no other therapies (directed or not) seem to be effective.
The "non-viral" people -- Duesberg supporters in particular -- tend to argue against strawmen, using old data, and demanding that the HIV camp disprove negatives.
You do have a cute ignorance about the Amish, doncha?
Just 'cause you're Amish doesn't mean you don't go through a period of druggin' drinkin' drivin' and enjoying the sins of the flesh
I have it on pretty reliable authority, second-hand from several Mennonites I know, that your average 30-something Amish man or woman has been pretty exposed to "Americanization" at one point or another, and this exposure is an essential part to their culture.
If it were Hamas, it would have to be an illogic bomb, I'd think...
Heck, man! And here I was about to suggest that they shoot some bacteria and cold-tolerant lichens and moss spores up there -- intentionally!
I'm all for keeping natural environments untouched when there's a clear reason or there's something we're actually protecting...but what would you suggest is being damaged on the Moon or Mars? And, personally, I find the idea of "contaminating" Luna to be ludicrous. We're not talking intelligent life out there, nor are we talking about nutrient-rich environments. We're barely talking atmosphere. The moon (and, it seems, Mars) are about as close to the true definition of "wasteland" as you can get. And, if we kill off the native Martian unicellular organisms, so be it. I want that place to be well on its way to terraforming by the time I head up there with the first wave of manned flights.
Best way to get at that all that locked-up water and use that carbon dioxide atmosphere would be to send some tough bacteria, with some of your basic algaes and lichens to start putting down roots...
Unless...
There's always hope...right?
Does anyone else think this looks like one of Dr. Seuss' worst nightmares?
Somewhere, a Lorax is crying...
I lived in Philly for two years, myself, and I stand by my initial assessment. Philly is a real city, and Boston combined with Cambridge still isn't remotely as large.
Boston has not given IDG a free ride, at least not yet -- IDG was pushing for it, and looking for leverage in dealing with the Javitts people. There still isn't an offer on the table from Boston, and AFAIK it'll be 2006 before the center is completed anyway.
The "Silver Line" is a bus, still rides on the roads, and is no more a subway than the Green Line is (less, actually). A bad joke, especially for those of us South Enders who are expected to use it.
Finally, no one stays in downtown Boston, they stay in Back Bay/Copley, by the airport, or not in Boston at all...and I'd hate to have to walk from any of those places to downtown, the WTC in southie, N./S. End for restaurants or anywhere else in the July heat.
Please, don't compare the pathetic cab system they have in Boston to that of NYC or Philly -- apart from a couple of train stations & Logan, you simply can't get a cab unless you're on Mass Ave or Boyleston.
We'll just have to agree to disagree, but I think its clear that Boston is not the site for a world-class event that Apple needs. Tokyo, London, San Francisco, and...Boston? I think not.
Why on earth doesn't this farmer sue Monsanto and the local farmers that use GM plants for irresponsibly contaminating his plants?
Clearly, the poor design of these plants and their irresponsible use caused him financial hardship, and potentially have made his crop dangerous for the land and/or human consumption...He's now limited where he can sell his crop, and the jury's still out on the hazards of using GM foodstuffs.
Hey, if the megacorps want to play hardball to protect their bogus patents through illegal, extortionist tactics, then the victims should use any means available to strike back -- even hysterical, sensationalist ones.
Now we're really getting off on a tangent, but I have to contest most of your post.
The so-called "Silver Line" is a bad joke -- essentially the same bus-line that ran downtown before, from the run-down & unpleasant Roxbury area but with a new label... Another MBTA boondoggle, in lieu of a real transportation solution (e.g.: elevated tracks or underground line). The facts are that Boston has a skeletal train system in place, and a limited mass transit system overall -- to steal your approach: "The T closes?!? WTF is that!!!"
Boston's hotels are far fewer in number compared to NYC's, and are mostly grouped either in the airport cluster or the mega-hotel-mall monstrosity of Back Bay -- and they charge uniformly extortionate rates.
As for splitting the convention halls, well, they had to do it before in Boston and they'd have to do it again. To refresh everyone's memory, it sucked having to take yet another bus to get to yet another isolated hall (unless you were a UMass Boston student), and it gives visitors a less-than-pleasant view of Boston. They'd probably go back to using the so-called "world-trade center" -- and having MWE in Southie is about as minor-league as you can get.
Now, moving away from the logistics of the event, Boston isn't the kind of place that Apple should be placing as one of their showplace forums. The night-life of Boston, not to mention the restaurants, can't begin to compare to NYC, and business-wise, Boston is third-tier. If Apple is worried about image and amenities, Boston just can't compare to New York, Chicago, SF, LA...hell, I'd rather see MWE move to Philly than come back to Boston. At least Philadelphia has the SEPTA and a decent cab system.
In any case, from what I've heard, this was more a ploy to negotiate a more favorable arrangement in NYC for the next five years, and at worst will look for a site in the outer boroughs or in NJ...so at least that worry is behind us.
Here in Boston, we've had a similar experience with first Telocity, and then DirecTV (who bought up Telocity). Fast, reliable, and prompt service when needed (rarely).
My wife (a professional computer geekess) tweaks things on the home network to her heart's content...we'll sometimes have six machines and a wireless hub running on it. We were worried when Telocity was bought, but no problems. We were worried when we moved to the other side of town, but no problems.
Every once in a while, we get something in the mail from Earthlink or Verizon, saying how great it is that we can switch to their service and pay more ($59.95 in some cases) for less (no static IP, no in-home networks). Someday, these services will get a clue. For now, DirecTV does it right.
I know its bad form to reply to your own posts, but I just looked it up, and the numbers have dropped over the last couple of years. Just correcting myself to save someone else the effort.
Well, I won't get into personal preferences, but Boston is tiny, less active, relatively less accessible, and there's a much more limited market for hotel rooms. The locations available in Boston for such an expo are smaller, and less centrally located.
The last Boston expo I attended had to be split between two locations that were both on the fringes of the city. The public transit system here is weak compared to NYC, the restaurants and the sites are also a far cry from what's available in Manhattan. NYC has world-wide cachet and recognition, as well as being the cultural and financial capital of the US... Boston is -- to put it kindly -- not.
I'm a veteran of several MacWorld Expos (both Boston and NY) and I'm a Boston resident. Personally, I think it'd be a huge error to have the MWExpo in Boston again.
I understood that the numbers since going to NYC had been rising...In fact, I'm sure that there were some web sites touting the fact that this years numbers had surpassed last years.
Anyway, Boston is a horrible city for this, and relocating to there would only cement a second-rate image for Apple -- and I live there.
At the expense of feeding the trolls, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME, RIGHT!?!?
Where on earth (no pun intended) did you get the idea that there was only one manned lunar landing in the Apollo program?
Sheesh -- those who don't follow history...are doomed to say dumb things on Slashdot.
My "no-button" Apple Pro optical mouse has these tabs you speak of. Right out of the box, I can click the mouse in mid-air and hold it.
And, some of us LIKE the one-button mice. I find that multi-button mice are a UI abomination, myself...although I do love that scroll-wheel.
Of course, thats what the RSVP thing is for...I'm signed up, but had other obligations, so we didn't say we'd be there. Now, the folks who do RSVP and never turn up -- they're the ones you should be chastising...As for location, I'd think somewhere either along Mass Ave or Boyleston would be easy to get to, easy to leave. And next time a non-weekend night would be a very good idea to avoid the normal crowds in cities.
Well, to some degree you're absolutely right, and this is often what is done now in clinics of all types. We have a variety of professionals who are making these type of assessments all along, even without the computer. Many patients never see a doctor at all, only physicians assistants and nurse practitioners.
The big "however" is that this system does not (actually, cannot) make a diagnosis, only add or suggest things to a differential list. To a large degree, though, this could change the way doctors reach their diagnosis -- and, assuming this works, why would a physician bother with the redundancy of making a differential the old way when with the computer you do it more effectively? For example, why would you ask the same questions of a patient over and over?
Trust me, this is more than a usability issue -- if this is for real, it could change the way medicine fundamentally works for the physician.
Data collection is not developing a differential, which is what this system would help the doctor focus on. One needs to assess quickly and accurately what type of data you need to harvest on a patient, and how that will change treatment and patient outcome. The original article brought up some important points about how we're currently trained to look for the most likely causes of a health problem and then the most serious. This system would fundamentally change the way doctors are trained -- not just how basic data is harvested.
As for my debt, I attend one of the more over-priced schools in the US (I could have gone to one of the wonderful, less expensive state programs like New York or California), but my tuition alone is $40,000 per year. That doesn't include travel, food, housing (I live in a major city), utilities, clothing, etc..
And your comparison of fracture-mending seems a bit oversimplified for several reasons.
When you pay for a doctor, you're not just paying a for single, particular service. You pay to have a trained doctor available in the first place -- just because your child had a simple fracture doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a doctor available for complex cases, too. Therefore, you pay for their expertise (which has greatly improved since 1960). No matter how simple the case eventually turned out to be, that doctor's time was consumed providing the service, and that's one minute/hour/day less the system has to treat other cases.
You pay for improvements to the system as a whole...while your child had a simple fracture, orthopedic medicine is now better able to handle all sorts of problems that were intractable in 1960.
Finally, there's the unfortunate fact that people or insurance groups or coverage services that pay have to cover the massive number of people who never do. Back in the day of out-of-pocket, medicine was more like every other service -- you paid for work done. Nowadays, it seems like half the patients I see never pay a cent, and money needs to come from somewhere to cover this.
At least in the US, much of the economic problem comes from the fact that we can do so much now to help people live better and longer, but nobody wants to foot the bill. Ironically, because people live longer and through worse illnesses, it costs more to keep things going.
Its all fine and good to demand universal health care, and to say that we must do everything in our power to save lives -- that's why I went into this. But if health care is a right, society better be willing to pay for it, and not expect further and further corner cutting. If health care is such a large priority for Americans, we need to fund it like it is -- if not, then expect to see people leave the industry and patients to get substandard care, irrespective of the computer systems designed to support doctors.
As someone who will be graduating medical school in about a year, I can point out what my biggest hope/fear is with this kind of software -- and its not what readers have been suggesting in this thread up until now.
... time management. Most patients don't seem to realize what ridiculous time constraints we're on -- the massive patient load we need to see just to tread water and keep the HMOs/hospital adminstrators/etc happy.
The thing that makes me both intensely interested and worried about this method of diagnosis is
One of the most important parts of our training is learning how to balance diagnostic thoroughness with constant efficiency, and we learn all sorts of methods to do this. Any system like this software could seriously disrupt our breakneck pace, and its value is entirely unproven. Since the healthcare system is already stretched to its breaking point in the US, I worry that any changes that lower efficiency will send us into a tailspin.
Conversely, the idea that we could add such a powerful new tool to our arsenal seems like a dream come true. I would be thrilled to spend more time with each patient, to have a system that makes our diagnoses even more accurate and more focused, and to always be able to encompass the latest literature's suggestions and results.
The big hurdle to overcome in testing and implementing a system like this is getting the necessary volunteers. I'm not sure that I would be comfortable (when I'm about $300,000 in debt from medical school) being trained in such an unproven method of diagnostics. I suspect that most other medical students/schools, when faced with the uncertainty of the situation, would be equally reluctant to commit their money and their years to take such a risk when practicing modern medicine is already such an uncertain proposition.
And if there were a self-replicating protein, what would prevent it from continuing to exist today? Where is it?
They're called "prions". You find them in mad cows (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), and very possibly in people (Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease). Even today.
We're not dealing with "capitalism" here, because in most cases the individuals looking for another service don't have any other options -- especially with the "non-compete" decision recently handed down about ISPs in the US. Keep in mind, too, that the internet was a government-derived project when it started. I'm not sure why its acceptable for corporations to restrict access to this communications backbone.
Parcelling out regions of citizens/consumers to monopolistic "providers" doesn't serve the nation, and our government should be keeping an eye out for us that we don't get gouged or unilaterally controlled. I'd like to see some folks bringing a few anti-trust cases up to keep everyone on the up and up, and not view the US populace as sheep for fleecing.