AIDS (hah)

[Dabljuh]

Here's a link I found regarding the circumcision-HIV link
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/plos-mco062007.php

 

[Dabljuh]

What is the weapons lab theory?

I don't know the theory accurately. I'd guess the usual ******** about CIA / US Military laboratories creating biochemical weapons that they first tested on gays (which would obviously never enter the military, what with all the hulky, burly men there) and ultimately used to supress the black man, or something. The usual conspiracy drivel.

 

[kellyb]

This article sort of sums up my thoughts on the issue. The theories about what happened are the ones I've always thought were the most probable. I think it's probably a combination of several, although I don't know which ones.

http://www.annalsofian.org/article....lume=9;issue=1;spage=5;epage=10;aulast=Katrak

In conclusion, I would like to state that it is likely that we may never know when and where AIDS actually originated. Scientists become very attached to their pet theories and insist that theirs is the only true answer. Arguments over rival's theories and in defense of their own, have raged continuously and in the case of the contaminated OPV, viciously and at times far beyond the norms of scientific debate. From all the four theories, an obvious general conclusion is that for some puzzling reason, the origin of HIV was not natural. Something spurred the conversion of the benign SIV into the virulent HIV, although humans have been exposed to SIV for thousands of years.

 

[Dabljuh]

Now the US Military performs a lot of HIV tests. They test people when they apply, and they retest people in the service more or less regularly to check for new infections. Unfortunately they only use the relatively inaccurate Elisa/Western Blot tests, but ultimately, these are some of the biggest scale tests that allow for demographic figures. The admissions test, which I failed to find (before going to bed) is the one where I got my 0.35% prevalence in the US from, that was more or less evenly spread (I only read a third party summary at the time and my memory is of course highly fraudulent)

Now what I found now is the Military's surveillance testing statistic: Linky!

Interesting bits from the statistic: You're twice as likely to infect yourself with HIV if you're a male, and 4 times as likely if you're black. But all in all, the infection rate is going way down. Just to mention this as a counterweight to kellyb's "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE AAAAH" pamphlet.

 

[Deetee]

Oh, and Deetee: Liver Failure by Hepatitis is caused, as we have learned earlier in this thread, by the immune system slaughtering the infected liver cells. If the HIV destroys the immune system, we would see *less* liver failure in the HIV patients.

More ignorance about the immune system, I see.
Your simplistic infant school immunology won't hold up this time Dubya...
HIV disrupts normal CD4 cell function. Early in acute infection this is through significant cytopathic memory CD4 cell loss, particularly in mucosal associated lymphoid tissue and lymph nodes. As the host immune system recovers, there is compensatory cytotoxic (CD8) T cell production. T cell homeostasis is deranged, but the chronic phase of HIV infection is typified by immune activation, mainly nonspecific in nature, but which also results in bystander CD4 cell loss (the uninfected cells) and drives things such as apoptotic cell loss, NK cell and auto-immune cellular effects.

With chronic hepatitis, hepatocellular damage is mediated by cytotoxic T cell damage following upregulation and recognition of hepatitis markers expressed on the outside of cell membranes.

The immune system is not "destroyed" as you put it, merely deranged. In HIV infection there is evidence that cytotoxic T cell activity is heightened, so liver damage will still occur through this mechanism.

Conclusion - liver failure from chronic hepatitis still continues to occur in HIV-infected patients.

In addition, I from now on shall reject any study that claims something like "X died of AIDS" - "AIDS" is not good enough for me, it is unscientific. I want to know *what* they died of.

You have ably demonstrated from earlier posts that you don't have the slightest clue which infections are actually "AIDS-defining". So what good would telling you which infections they died from possibly do???

 

[Dabljuh]

@Deetee: Nice little theory. Out of your butt?

This article sort of sums up my thoughts on the issue. The theories about what happened are the ones I've always thought were the most probable. I think it's probably a combination of several, although I don't know which ones.

In conclusion, I would like to state that it is likely that we may never know when and where AIDS actually originated. Scientists become very attached to their pet theories and insist that theirs is the only true answer. Arguments over rival's theories and in defense of their own, have raged continuously and in the case of the contaminated OPV, viciously and at times far beyond the norms of scientific debate. From all the four theories, an obvious general conclusion is that for some puzzling reason, the origin of HIV was not natural. Something spurred the conversion of the benign SIV into the virulent HIV, although humans have been exposed to SIV for thousands of years.

http://www.annalsofian.org/article....lume=9;issue=1;spage=5;epage=10;aulast=Katrak

"Unnatural origin" for HIV, huh?

What now. More Weapons-Lab-Theory? Is HIV the modern equivalent of the Alien Butt-Plug? Geez. That is what happens when people continuously refuse to even consider that HIV might be harmless. Harmless *or* alien buttplug implant. Science uses Ockham's Razor there, so obviously it must be the alien buttplug.



Here's my theory (Out of my butt, yes)

HIV has been with humans for 1000's of years. But only since the 60ies people began to chart retroviruses.

Duesberg initiated the theory that retroviruses may be a cause for cancer, and cancer research during the 70ies was delighted to find retroviruses in every tumor. But by 1980, most people had realized that retroviruses are harmless, and everywhere. This was also, again, propagated by Duesberg and others, in the early 70ies already.

Not so Robert Gallo. He continued to blame retroviruses for every condition that no cause had been found for, like alzheimers, or parkinson. And cancer, of course. Hey, you find those retroviruses in those parkinson patient's brains, there HAS to be a connection, right?

When in 1980 the "Gay Plague" (named AIDS in 1981) ravaged the gay scene of the US, scientists from all over the world were hard pressed to look for an answer.

There were people like Duesberg, who - by far - were not a minority back then, who suspected that lifestyle issues were the reason for these "Gay diseases", a view he holds even today.

But when Montagnier, just casually mapping more retroviruses, published a report on an ordinary retrovirus that happened to infect the CD4 T-Cells, Gallo smelled something.

In a meeting with the then-chief of the NIH, he convinced her that he had discovered the reason for the "Gay Plague" (aka AIDS) - in this retrovirus, which he obviously also claimed to have discovered, and this detection kit he designed which was really so inaccurate that it could have false positived on anything remotely viral.

Well if you got the ear of an NIH chief, who is hard pressed by the media to find the "cure" for the "Gay plague", you don't have a hard time convincing her if other theories like duesberg's lifestyle hypothesis is so utterly mundane. Here's Gallo, and he even has a kit for detecting the new bug

(Never mind even of the first "gay plague" victims, most tested negative on gallo's little test kit)

Anyhow, the retroviral-cancer-researchers who were just about to lose their jobs because retroviruses didn't cause cancer, were delighted to use their retroviral experience to fight this new disease! They'd get government grants and stuff!

Basically, retrovirologists were in need of a disease that retroviruses caused, the NIH was in need of a reason for the "gay plague", and the CDC which had just defeated polio and smallpox needed some new infectious disease to continously receive government funding. And the media needed something exciting too. And the religious right? Hey, they had their "Gay plague" - Thank god for AIDS, right?

So everyone was happy about HIV being the cause for AIDS, and nobody questioned it, despite this never having been proven.

I think by about 1987 to 1990, it was clear that HIV wasn't the cause of the "gay plague" but if all those retrovirologists had done the same thing as Duesberg, they'd have lost their jobs - which was, basically, finding a vaccine against HIV. And the pharmaceutical industry was just about to get the FDA to approve the "antiretroviral" therapy of AZT. The admission was rushed (Hey, it was about damn TIME! We don't have TIME to really test this stuff out! Gay plague! Soon everyone on the world will be infected! DOOMSDAY!)

But when the "plague" didn't sweep the streets, the scientists needed an excuse for the 50 something billion dollars they had wasted. You can't just take 50 billions from society and go ahead "Oh, it was all just a hunch. I guess we were wrong", there was something that sounded a bit more dramatic.

Now people like Gallo aren't dumb. They know: you find retroviruses everywhere, and so do you find antibodies. And with an immunodeficiency, you can declare ANY disease as being caused by the retroviruses, and no one can prove you wrong. not even a kolibri would catch you.

So they went to africa and simply proclaimed: All you people are so sick, its impossible that this is *not* because of HIV. So malaria became AIDS, malnutrition became AIDS, lack of sanitation became AIDS, any sort of tropical fever became AIDS, poverty became AIDS. And the UN now pump more and more money into these countries.

You know, in africa, if you have a diarrhea, you don't get anything. But if you have AIDS-Diarrhea, you get money from the UN, your doctor gets money from the UN, your hospital gets money from the UN, your country gets money from the UN. And of course: The pharmaceutical industry, that provides you with superexpensive "treatment" for your "AIDS", also gets a truckload of money. There's simply too much money involved to give the whole "AIDS in Africa" thing up now.

 

[Deetee]

Yup - definitely out of your butt.
A wild mix of conspiracy theory, fantasy, ignorance and total misunderstanding of biomedical science.

Troll.

 

[Deetee]

I read the report you linked to, http://www.mrc.ac.za/bod/complete.pdf and it is clear you did not read it. It clearly states that the data is unreliable, and that the statistics are estimates, that they are projections, not real data.

The first half of the MRC report deals with reported figures. Figs 1 (Stats SA mortality data) and Fig 2 (DHA data) are not projections.
The second half of the report goes into projected mortality, a quite sensible thing to do and something that was in the MRC's remit.
The study mentions data limitations, primarily that of under-reporting of deaths.

I find it odd you think this study states it is filled with "unreliable data, statistics that are estimates" and that "the entire study should not be considered as fact". Were you reading a different study?

Even if you discount that this is only projection, not actual data, your statement is incorrect. If the death rate increases from 1% of the total deaths, to 2% of the total deaths, this does not mean twice as many people died. Your comment is so wrong, I would have to explain a dozen things to show you why. Not worth the effort.

I agree I phrased that clumsily. What I should have said was that the age specific mortality rate doubled.

If you simply check the latest data, http://indexmundi.com/south_africa/age_structure.html or
http://indexmundi.com/south_africa/manpower_fit_for_military_service.html
you can see for yourself why projections and hype just don't stand up to scrutiny. There was no massive loss of young people, and the population is still growing.

These links do not show what you think they show. The first shows the population growth is NEGATIVE (2007 estimate), and the graph of "manpower fit for military service", which you presumably feel is a surrogate for how many fit young adult males there are, shows a 32% DECLINE in numbers from 2004 to 2005.

Why are you citing sources that actually undermine your claims?
Why do you prefer to cite CIA data rather than data collected within South Africa itself?

Statistics are based on testing done on pregnant women. If you actually read how they come up with the projections, and you understand how unreliable the HIV tests are, it isn't hard to see why the figures don't match the reality.

They used to base projections on pregnant women seroprevalence, but they soon learned these overestimated total prevalence. Antenatal seroprevalence in SA was 26.5% in 2002, but no-one claims a quarter of all South Africans have HIV.

In fact, the same year (2002), the Nelson Mandela/Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) tested over 8,000 people from across all walks of South African society. 11.4% tested HIV-positive.

Out of interest you might like to read the most recent HSRC document on new, incident infections of HIV -
"Of all new HIV infections, 34% occurred in young people in the 15-24 age group. The incidence rates among young women in the prime childbearing age are especially alarming. The HIV incidence in the age group 20-29, was 5.6%, 6 times more than in males of the same age (0.9%)."

 

[Deetee]

That brings up an opportunity to ask, how can you test for HIV if somebody is long dead? How can you test for it in old blood or tissue samples? If the strains are easy to trace, why can't it be traced by genome, back to the source?

Zhu, Tuofu, Korber & Nahinias. "An African HIV-1 Sequence from 1959 and Implications for the Origin of the Epidemic" Nature, 1998: 391: p. 594-597

Follow the links on the right for more related articles

 

[kellyb]

What's your theory on how it emerged, DeeTee?
Do you think it was cut hunter and sexual transmission alone?

 

[Deetee]

What's your theory on how it emerged, DeeTee?
Do you think it was cut hunter and sexual transmission alone?

I do subscribe to the ape/hunter interface theory.
There is plenty of evidence that retroviruses continue to cross the species barrier:
Articles here, and here

 

[Dabljuh]

How does the "Cut Hunter" theory explain why nobody's ever heard of AIDS until the 1980ies? I mean, realistically, the cut hunter would have infected himself some 50'000 years ago. And since HIV is presumed super dangerous, died out. In a possibly repetitive cycle at the end of which large portions of the african population would be genetically immune to SIV/HIV.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...Skeptigirl, you probably think you understand science....

Yes, as a matter of fact I'm quite well versed on this particular subject. I've enjoyed a 17 year successful private practice specializing in occupational infectious disease hazards. HIV-AIDS is at the top of the list along with hepatitis B and C.

But that aside, I posted the supporting material. Other than my opinion of your opinions, nothing much else in those last two posts were my personal interpretations of the evidence. As for your unsupported opinions, that's another matter.

We are now down to the crux of the issue. There is the science, and then there is your choice to believe 10-20 year old hypotheses which are now completely discredited. In other words, those ideas didn't pan out. It's a very curious thing when people choose to do that, believe these minority opinions long after the ideas have failed to be confirmed, and in this case as in most cases, have actually been disproved.

Other than you read the stuff and it made sense to you, have you ever stopped to consider why you are choosing to believe disproved theories? It is a most curious phenomena.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How does the "Cut Hunter" theory explain why nobody's ever heard of AIDS until the 1980ies? I mean, realistically, the cut hunter would have infected himself some 50'000 years ago. And since HIV is presumed super dangerous, died out. In a possibly repetitive cycle at the end of which large portions of the african population would be genetically immune to SIV/HIV.

There is an excellent, very thorough discussion of the origin of HIV on this web site.

 

[autumn1971]

Man, Dab, where in the hell is your evidence that American hemophiliacs had severely supressed immune systems in only the eighties.
You are obtuse to a degree I have never encountered outside of geometry.

 

[autumn1971]

How does the "Cut Hunter" theory explain why nobody's ever heard of AIDS until the 1980ies? I mean, realistically, the cut hunter would have infected himself some 50'000 years ago. And since HIV is presumed super dangerous, died out. In a possibly repetitive cycle at the end of which large portions of the african population would be genetically immune to SIV/HIV.

I don't even know how to explain the lack of basic knowledge of infectious diseases you seem to embrace as evidence of your ability to make inferences. You seem to be proud that you in no way base your opinions on the results of countless (even though that is, for you, any number greater than the twelve fingers you have) studies that implicate HIV in a very peculiar syndrome.
You are correct in stating that the virus is not the syndrome, and that each individual disease is not a diagnosis of AIDS, and beyond that you leap triumphantly into the realm of the awesomely unintelligent.
Guess what, your minor fever was not the flu, but some with a minor fever have the flu.

There are degrees of subtlety in this universe which you are very likely evoloutionarily (there are advantages to being an insensate yes-man) unable to appreciate.

 

[autumn1971]

Dabljuh, I do apologize if I seem to be attacking you, but your ignorance and inability to examine data offend me personally.
I went to high-school (grades nine to twelve in the USA) when there was, unfortunately, a dentist in my area who apparantly willfully disregarded sanitation protocols for his instruments after he discovered he was HIV positive. As a result, a very well-regarded former teacher was diagnosed as HIV positive. At the time I attended, she was active as a substitute, and was as well-liked by us as she had been by her full-time students (including my two brothers).
This woman continued to teach, and, after she was too weak to teach, returned to our school to teach us about discrimination (and much science that you seem to have avoided), as well as tolerance for those different from you. Her only shortcoming was her love of teaching, which probably took a few years off of her life.

Anyway, this example from south Florida discounts any idiotic theories about the cause of what is termed AIDS.

AIDS results from the decline in immune function brought about by the infection of HIV.

Please contact the CDC if you have even an iota of evidance which could possibly explain the Dr. Acer cases in any way that the current (that is to say, intelligent and sane) peer-reviewed evidence does not.

 

[Taffer]

Basically, the antiretrovirals don't kill retroviruses, what they actually do is they slow down cell mitosis, slow down transcription of RNA->DNA and stuff like that. Even if they would work, they wouldn't cure or help much, they'd only slow down the suspected immunological degression that HIV causes. Duesberg of course says, since they slow down cell mitosis, they actually damage the immune system severely, which depends on fast mitosis during an infection. Which is sound to me. Human cells also use reverse transcriptase for various purposes, sabotaging this enzyme may be unhelpful after all.

W, I know how antiretrovirals work, you needn't explain it to me.

I was just curious over your "evidence" for stating that HIV is not affected by antiretrovirals.

Secondly, I see you have still failed to provide evidence that, as you suggest, all the gay me who had HIV/AIDS were, in fact, closet drug users.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...You are correct in stating that the virus is not the syndrome, and that each individual disease is not a diagnosis of AIDS, ...

Measles 'virus' is not measles 'disease' either. The HI virus causes the disease, HIV-AIDS.

And once you have the virus, HIV-AIDS disease onset is defined as either a CD4+ count less than 200 T- lymphocytes/uL or a CD4+ T-lymphocyte percentage of total lymphocytes of less than 14 or less or any of a specific list of opportunistic infections persons with intact immune function simply do not get.

It's a bit complicated but there are specific diagnostic guidelines for defining HIV-AIDS onset.

1999 - Appendix: Revised Surveillance Case Definition for HIV Infection*

1993 Revised Classification System for HIV Infection and Expanded Surveillance Case Definition for AIDS Among Adolescents and Adults

1994 Revised Classification System for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Children Less Than 13 Years of Age

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It is a bit of a misnomer to say something does or doesn't 'kill' a virus. Some would argue a virus is not a living organism. It's better to think of antiviral drugs as inhibiting viral replication or inhibiting viral activity. Then you can discuss whether the virus is eliminated from the body such as occurs with most respiratory or GI tract viruses which are gone completely as infected cells slough off. Or you might have permanently disabled viruses that it is unknown if their genetic material remains within cells in the body. I am not aware of any studies that have looked for inactive hepatitis A virus within liver cells for example but we know hepatitis A is not a dormant virus within a person previously infected. Immunocompromised persons with past hepatitis A are not at risk of having their hepatitis A reactivate. At the same time I do not believe liver cells infected with hepatitis A all die or are removed from the body.

Not all viruses enter the cell's nuclei. In those cases it may be the virus is completely eliminated from the cell after being inactivated by treatment or by natural immune mechanisms.

Then there are the viruses we know are present but dormant. CMV infected blood, for example, is hazardous to a bone marrow transplant patient while a person with an intact immune system has no effects from the virus itself after the initial infection. Fetuses are only at risk from infections like CMV and rubella if the mother is infected during the pregnancy. Past infection has no lingering effects on the fetus.

And we have the somewhat unique varicella virus which in a person with an intact immune system can erupt as shingles one time. In an immunosuppressed person it can erupt more than once and systemically rather than locally. I am not aware that any of the herpes family viruses are transmitted to immunosuppressed persons via blood transfusions but the HS viruses are merely dormant after infections and can be reactivated in both healthy and immunosuppressed persons.

So what does it mean the virus is 'killed'? Simply that it is rendered permanently incapable of reactivating and/or replicating. It is possible we will be able to cure HIV infections at some point in the future. Currently people with chronic hepatitis B and C have been successfully treated. It is unknown if their infections are permanently disabled or merely dormant. Some of them certainly look cured. It will take time to know how permanent such cures are.