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#22
07-19-2006, 06:58 PM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] So have any of you looked into HIV/AIDS? I think all of us remember the fear when AIDS was first discovered in the 80s. I heard of a guy in my town committing suicide after finding out he was HIV positive. Anyway, the more I read about it, the more it looks like this was a huge hoax. For example, why aren’t all prostitutes dead? Why has the number of people who are HIV positive remained at 1 million for over 25 year (in the US)? Why has no health care worker ever gotten AIDS from a needle stick but 1500/year get hepatitis? Did you know that it was determined that Kaposi’s Sarcoma (the disease that Tom Hanks had in Philadelphia) cannot be caused by HIV? Anyway, I find this subject fascinating precisely because no one talks about it, or seems to know anything about it beyond sound-bites from celebrities. [/ QUOTE ] As a student of medicine/health care worker who sees patients on a daily basis and has dealt with personally with a needle stick (as have my colleagues) and as someone who has taken a good amount of microbiology, immunology and epidemiology, I can say you might be on crack. I did not know that kaposis sarcoma was not an HIV related disease. I only skimmed the above posts but a link to a relevant study would be nice. As of 2 days ago when I took my national boards, kaposis sarcoma was still associated w/ HIV. Also, did you ever think for a second that the reason the number of people infected with HIV has stagnated is because of the sheer amount of attention it was getting? I mean its nice to see results from the advertisement campaigns and research done no? The drug regimens (HAART) have become amazingly better as has the funding for the patients needing these drugs. If detected early (key) a patient with HIV can lead a decent life. That does not mean it isnt terrible thing and that it is easy to live with. Also, what you say about hep b and hiv is true. However, what you dont realize is that in health care, hep b is a big friggin deal. ALso, Universal or standard precautions are stressed to prevent any problems, not spec. b/c of HIV. And what you said in your other post about AIDS etc and the 26 people with those illnesses possibly being just those illnesses. Those illnesses are almost never seen in people w/o severely weakened immune systems. Other than the genetic diseases (SCID, Brutons, IgA def etc) and patients on chemo or other drug therapies, HIV is the major cause of a weakened immune systems. The point being, HIV isnt a HOAX, it may not be as easy to get as you may have believed, but is a definite real threat. -JP [/ QUOTE ] Does AZT weaken the immune system or lower the white cell count? 
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#23
07-19-2006, 07:11 PM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
Just to be clear: The HIV significantly lowers CD4 T cell counts...
However, AZT, as a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (the enzyme used by HIV and other retrovirus to create DNA from its RNA genome) and one of many drugs used in combinations to treat hiv, definitely has systemic effects (a friend who took a variation of HAART after a needle stick was sick as can be for a month). Im no HIV/aids expert but I know enough to know it probably causes anemia and WBC precursor suppression in bone marrow. These effects are probably not all that significant compared to the beneficial effects of therapy. Without really googling studies or anything, there may be movements out there that are seeking to stop the use of AZT and other NRTIs claiming that they in fact cause AIDS. Trust that these are probably crackpot groups siting wack studies (maybe im only thinking this as im writing a paper on the antiflouridation movement). -JP
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#24
07-19-2006, 07:13 PM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
[ QUOTE ]
For example, why aren’t all prostitutes dead? [/ QUOTE ] For one thing, most prostitutes make there customers use condoms. For another, heterosxual males have a pretty low rate of HIV infection, at least in the US. [ QUOTE ] Why has the number of people who are HIV positive remained at 1 million for over 25 year (in the US)? [/ QUOTE ] I doubt this is correc, but if it is, itwouldn't be hard to explain. If the number of new cases matches the number of deaths form AIDS in any time period, the number of cases will remain constant. [ QUOTE ] Why has no health care worker ever gotten AIDS from a needle stick but 1500/year get hepatitis? [/ QUOTE ] As others have pointed out, it is not true that no healt care worker has ever gotten HIV from a needle stick [ QUOTE ] Did you know that it was determined that Kaposi’s Sarcoma (the disease that Tom Hanks had in Philadelphia) cannot be caused by HIV? [/ QUOTE ] Nobody ever suggested that HIV causes Kaposi's sarcoma. It is not limited to AIDS sufferers. It also occurs in organ transplant patients, because of immonusuppressive drugs they are given. It primarily affects people with compromises immune systems. Guess what? HIV doesn't (directly) cause Pneumocystis pneumonia, either. That doesn't mean that AIDS is a hoax, either. [ QUOTE ] Anyway, I find this subject fascinating precisely because no one talks about it, or seems to know anything about it beyond sound-bites from celebrities. [/ QUOTE ] Nobody talks about it because nothing you have cited here (much of it apparently wrong, BTW) is significant. I'm no sure where you got this crap, but you really need to work on improving your [censored] detector.
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#26
07-20-2006, 09:00 AM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
I was stunned the first time I heard about the teenager who died of AIDS in 1969.
New York Times article BOY'S 1969 DEATH SUGGESTS AIDS INVADED U.S. SEVERAL TIMES By GINA KOLATA Published: October 28, 1987 LEAD: New evidence that a St. Louis teen-ager died of AIDS in 1969 suggests that the AIDS virus may have been introduced into the United States several times before touching off the current epidemic, according to experts in disease transmission. New evidence that a St. Louis teen-ager died of AIDS in 1969 suggests that the AIDS virus may have been introduced into the United States several times before touching off the current epidemic, according to experts in disease transmission. Until now, many experts have assumed that the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome first appeared in the country sometime in the mid-1970's. Evidence indicates to many experts that the disease originated before then in Africa, although this has not been proved. The patient, identified only as Robert R., died in 1969 of an illness that baffled his doctors at Washington University in St. Louis. They published a paper in 1984 suggesting that, with hindsight, his symptoms resembled those of AIDS. About two months ago, molecular biologists at Tulane University in New Orleans examined stored specimens of Robert R.'s tissues for signs of the AIDS virus and found that the 15-year-old was apparently infected with it. ''Our diagnostic tests confirmed the presence of the AIDS virus,'' said Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane. ''We're pretty confident about this case now.'' Speculation on Significance Press accounts last weekend about the finding led AIDS experts to speculate on its implications. The evidence that Robert R. died of AIDS in 1969, nearly a decade before what had been the country's first known AIDS cases, indicates that the virus may have been introduced and re-introduced into the American population on several occasions, but that it may have died out for lack of a large, very sexually active population to transmit it, said Dr. Richard Rothenberg, an epidemiologist at the Federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The virus spreads through sexual intercourse or infected blood's entry into the body. Since it is not transmitted in every act of intercourse by a virus carrier, experts said, the disease might not spread widely from a small number of carriers unless they engaged in frequent intercourse with a large number of partners, a condition that was met among male homosexual populations in some cities in the 1970's. When the virus became entrenched among addict populations - exactly when this happened is also unknown -sharing of needles was an even more efficient means of spread. Dr. Robert May, a mathematician at Princeton University who has studied the spread of AIDS, remarked, ''It wouldn't be surprising if AIDS appeared once, twice, three times before it finally took.'' Origin of Virus Dr. Robert C. Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, an expert on the disease, said he felt certain that ''the AIDS virus didn't come in one bout at one time.'' Cases like that of Robert R. are to be expected, said Dr. Gallo, who said he was convinced the virus originated in Africa. Robert R.'s former doctors suspected that he had engaged in homosexual intercourse. But none of the experts had any idea where he could have become infected. ''It seems odd to me that it was in St. Louis to begin with,'' said Dr. Harold Jaffe, chief AIDS epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control. He noted that St. Louis was not one of the first cities to be hit by the AIDS epidemic, which was first detected in New York and California. In 1968 Robert R. appeared at a clinic associated with Washington University suffering from an assortment of illnesses. Most striking, said Dr. William Drake, a St. Louis pathologist who is now retired, were swollen lymph nodes in Robert R.'s neck and ''swelling of the legs, lower torso and genitalia for no apparent reason.'' Dr. Drake said Robert R.'s physicians tried unsuccessfuly to treat him by surgically draining his lymph nodes. Although the St. Louis doctors tried for 15 months to help Robert R., his disease followed an unremittingly downhill course. He was exhausted, he lost weight, and he was plagued with a severe infection with chlamydia, a bacteria that frequently infects gay men and that is sexually transmitted. His physicians treated him with a battery of antibiotics, but the youth died in 1969 after a bout with bronchial pneumonia, Dr. Drake said. AIDS-Linked Cancer Found An autopsy showed that the Robert R. had Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer that is almost a hallmark of AIDS infections in gay men. The youth had just one outward sign of the cancer, a tiny purple spot on his thigh, Dr. Drake said. But when Dr. Drake performed an autopsy, he found other Kaposi sarcoma lesions throughout the soft tissues of the youth's body. Dr. Memory Elvin-Lewis, a chlamydia specialist at Washington University, said she was fascinated by Robert R.'s illness and wanted to study his tissues to determine the extent of his chlamydia infection. When the autopsy was done, Dr. Elvin-Lewis requested that tissues from the body be frozen so she could examine them at a later time. Several of Robert R.'s doctors, who had since moved to the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, later suspected that the teen-ager had AIDS. Robert R. had admitted to being sexually active, although not to being gay, but his doctors said they thought he was homosexual or bisexual because he had certain rectal lesions and chronic hemorrhoids, which are frequently seen in gay men. But Robert R. gave no hint of his sexual contacts, according to Dr. Elvin-Lewis. ''He was not communicative,'' she said. ''He barely said boo. He never told us what he was doing.'' His doctors said they doubted that he had ever left the St. Louis area. When tests for the presence of the AIDS virus became available a few years ago, Dr. Marlys Witte of the University of Arizona, one of Robert R.'s doctors, tried to contact Dr. Elvin-Lewis to ask for the frozen tissue samples. But Dr. Elvin-Lewis said she was out of the country for much of the time that Dr. Witte was trying to reach her. Finally, about a year ago, Dr. Witte reached Dr. Elvin-Lewis, who supplied the tissue samples. Last spring, Dr. Garry of Tulane agreed to do the tests. Dr. Garry said he had done Western blot tests on Robert R.'s serum. The procedure is a a highly precise test for AIDS virus antibodies. Dr. Garry has also completed tests for the P24 antigen, a virus protein that gives futher evidence of infection. Both tests were positive for the HIV virus, which causes AIDS. . While the evidence of AIDS virus infection seems virtually conclusive, Dr. Garry said, he also plans to examine Robert R.'s cells for the actual DNA, the genetic material, of the AIDS virus. But that is an uncertain and difficult procedure, he said.
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#27
07-20-2006, 09:28 AM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
I am glad that our understanding and knowledge of AIDS, and its origins, have improved significantly, for the bulk of the population over the last 19 years or so. Of course, some people are retarded in their knowledge.
[ QUOTE ] Published: October 28, 1987 LEAD: New evidence [/ QUOTE ] LOL, thanks for the internet! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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#28
07-20-2006, 12:22 PM
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Re: HIV/AIDS
People will mock you for buying into "conspiracy theories" on the basis that people are dying from this very real disease.
Like the war on Iraq, it becomes taboo to look at things from another perspective because of the notion that we have to "support our troops" (which in this case are AIDS victims). AIDS is very real and I think we all agree that the AIDS epidemic is no joke. Something tragic is occuring. But to dismiss all the dissenting views as conspiracy theories is a huge mistake. There are some very credible and respected names amongst the theorists and we owe it to the sick and dying to study the dilemma on all fronts. This is simply not done. With a large portion of scientific funding coming from drug companies the likes of Glaxo Smith Kline is it not surprising that the majority of our AIDS research involves the implementation of these horribly toxic drugs? The following sites among others provide a very interesting perspective on the issue. http://www.duesberg.com http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm I don't advocate adopting these ideas frivolously without further study, but I think it is foolish that the subject is on the verge of taboo.
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