The biggest (untrue) myths concerning AIDS
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, September 19, 2005 21:27
VIEWED: 5236
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Quote:Dude, how many virus' can dance on the head of a pin?
Originally posted by BlueBomber:
a mosquito's tube is slick, and so any blood it had around its mouth wouldn't stick there, for one. Secondly, the concentration of HIV in a person's blood stream isn't uniform; a drop that small (remember, we're talking about the area around a mosquito's mouth) isn't guaranteed to even contain the virus. www.aids.org/information.html
A sample of blood too small to see could contain the virus, and I'm not talkin' about the mosquite's outer mouth, I'm talkin' about the tube it inserts into the skin, then lets a little anti-coagulant slip backward to prevent the blood from getting clotty, which may or may not include blood from it's previous suckfest. Ask people in Africa why Aids is so prevalent, they don't have more drug/needle sharing than most other places, and sexual activity prolly isn't any higher, either.
Side note: you CAN get it from kissing, the odds are just incredibly, INCREDIBLY small.
Doc Chrisisall
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There is a persistent group of scientists and patients who question whether HIV is the sole cause of AIDS or if it causes AIDS at all. Indeed, some even go so far as to challenge whether HIV can be proven to exist. (They argue that the HIV test looks for fragments of what is believed to be the virus, and that HIV has never been found in its entirety.) These folks say that the HIV-AIDS link is the biggest myth of all.
http://www.aliveandwell.org/
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/
[For good measure, here is NIH's response.
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm]
Just thought I'd throw a little bit more counterculture into your soup. ;)
Can't Take My Gorram Sky 
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Dude, how many virus' can dance on the head of a pin?
A sample of blood too small to see could contain the virus, and I'm not talkin' about the mosquite's outer mouth, I'm talkin' about the tube it inserts into the skin, then lets a little anti-coagulant slip backward to prevent the blood from getting clotty, which may or may not include blood from it's previous suckfest.
Smellin' a lotta "if" comin' off that conclusion, Cap'n. In your own words, that tube "may or may not" be stained with infected blood. Given what we know, (see above references) "may not" is more likely.
Quote:
Ask people in Africa why Aids is so prevalent, they don't have more drug/needle sharing than most other places, and sexual activity prolly isn't any higher, either.
You got numbers to back that up? Some sort of factual reference?
Quote:
Side note: you CAN get it from kissing, the odds are just incredibly, INCREDIBLY small.
Um...that's what "infinitesimal" means. Just like with the mosquito thing; tranmitting HIV through kissing is, theoretically, possible (if one of the kissers was HIV+ and had an open sore in his/her mouth), but I have found not a single instance in which that was the case. Even then, the amount of HIV found in saliva is so small, you'd have to drink about 2 liters of an infected person's spit in order to get it. I never said it couldn't happen. The chances of it, though, are about one in.....a very large number.
"Mwah ha ha ha...mine is an evil laugh. Now die."
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Zher you hui shuo ying-yu de dai-fu ma?
Nope, not here, not me... but I suppose I'll do.
Wo jiao HaniTrader- wo cong Seattle.
"Any want to get into it and teach us something (or maybe learn something)?"
Sure. Dui.
"1) The Aids virus evolved naturally."
Well, even though I've worked in the medical community since 1987, I'm not going to touch that one! Most likely due to the fact of my own paranoia as well as reasonable evidence for both sides of the arguement. There is a reasonable amount of epidemiological evidence to support the fact that HIV did in fact evolve naturally. However, anyone recall the U.S. inoculating African-American soldiers during WW2 with Syph. and without their consent- merely to observe the progression of the disease until death occured? Nasty, that. The fun does not stop there... In 1960 both the Salk and the Sabin Polio vaccines were found to have been contaminated with SV-40, a virus found in the rhesus monkey formally referred to as a oncogenic simian polyomavirus. So, what's so bad? If you were around in 1960-1963, you were innoculated with a known cancer-causing virus. Cancer-causing for humans? Well, that debate is still ongoing, but feel free to bounce around on the WWW- even the beloved U.S. CDC has it's slant on the information... Enough- I'm gettin' kinda jumpy; on to the next.
"2) The Aids virus cannot be transmitted by mosquitos."
Well, on this one I'm not too concerned- why? Because (Oh Muses forgive me for starting a sentence with "because")AIDS cannot be transmitted by mosquitos. Grumblegrumblegrumble- And I swore I would'nt put on my Lab coat on the weekend...
Consider:
-The results of experiments and observations of insect biting behavior indicate that when an insect bites a person, it does not inject its own or a previously bitten person's or animal's blood into the next person bitten. Rather, it injects saliva, which acts as a lubricant so the insect can feed efficiently. Diseases such as yellow fever and malaria are transmitted through the saliva of specific species of mosquitoes. However, HIV lives for only a short time inside an insect and, unlike organisms that are transmitted via insect bites, HIV does not reproduce (and does not survive) in insects. Thus, even if the virus enters a mosquito or another insect, the insect does not become infected and cannot transmit HIV to the next human it bites.-
So as for those Nasties like West Nile Virus and Malaria???
-Arthropod-borne viruses (termed "arboviruses") are viruses that are maintained in nature through biological transmission between susceptible vertebrate hosts (in this case You or I) by blood-feeding arthropods (mosquitoes, sand flies, ceratopogonids (too many syllables there) "no-see-ums", and ticks). Vertebrates can become infected when an infected arthropod bites them to take a blood meal. The term 'arbovirus' has no taxonomic significance.-
pant, pant, pant, deep breath and...
-Infected female Anopheles mosquitoes carry Plasmodium sporozoites (Malaria to the rest of us) in their salivary glands. If they bite a person, which they usually do starting at dusk and continuing throughout the night, the sporozoites enter the person's body via the mosquito's saliva, migrate to the liver where they multiply within hepatic liver cells. They then turn into merozoites which then enter red blood cells. There they multiply further, periodically breaking out of the red blood cells. The classical description of waves of fever coming every three or four days arises from simultaneous waves of merozoites breaking out of red blood cells during the same day.-
Qing gei wo na yi-xie chu-chong-ji?
Nope, not unless the last two baddies are in your geographical location.
'Nuff on that... Next!
"3) Getting the Aids virus is an automatic death sentance for everyone; it's just a matter of time."
So true. I have over time known many a friend to pass on due HIV related complications, as well as those that choose to hang onto their mortal coil despite the odds. Same thing wit
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I always thought the biggest AIDS myth was that Ronald Reagan released it to kill all the gays. A close second is that George Bush (father, not son) released in while working for the CIA to kill all the blacks and gays.
AIDS has always been a political issue as well as a medical one. I think this is because its initial victim class was homosexual men. It is also a sexually transmitted disease or one transmitted via needle. Thus the victims and potential victims were held in general disfavor by the public and political establishment. Its not until it emerged into the general populace (and the issue of infected blood supply) that it got the scrutiny it deserved.
I don't blame anyone, thats just the way it happened. Like a broken levee. Poor judgement in the begininng compounded by contemporary errors and some plain old bad luck.
H
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Quote:Thanks so much for chiming in w/the scientific angle (I just knew my trap would catch some learned info).
Originally posted by HaniTrader:
You gave us all stuff to chew on, but one last query:
Well, on this one I'm not too concerned- why? Because AIDS cannot be transmitted by mosquitos.
Then why IS Aids ripping through parts of Africa like it is? Am I seeing misleading numbers on PBS? Is it possible that the virus can be transmitted in an atypical fashion by mosquitos that has not yet been identified?
Thanks again for your imput.
Knows a little more now Chrisisall
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Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Thanks so much for chiming in w/the scientific angle (I just knew my trap would catch some learned info).
Then why IS Aids ripping through parts of Africa like it is? Am I seeing misleading numbers on PBS? Is it possible that the virus can be transmitted in an atypical fashion by mosquitos that has not yet been identified?
Knows a little more now Chrisisall
Chrisisall,
The numbers are not misleading; instead they are terrifying, but they reflect mostly heterosexual transmission as an STD. Plenty of people in Africa use drugs, but not often of the IV kind - they couldn't begin to afford them, not to mention needles and syringes. In fact, the costs of the latter are so important that an important secondary route of HIV transmission comes via the re-use of needles and syringes in clinics and hospitals in poverty-stricken rural areas (I've seen travel advisories that recommend taking your own needles and syringes if you travel in rural areas). But it's not nearly so common as sexual transmission.
Why are the rates so high? There isn't a single reason, there are lots of them, running from the lack of availability and affordability of condoms, to men's refusal to use condoms, to much higher rates of use of prostitutes than had been assumed (including legacies of apartheid in South Africa where large numbers of men were housed together, a long way from their families, and many, many men used the same prostitutes without protection). Maintenance of long-term polygamous relationships by men has also been shown to increase transmission rates. Use of vaginal astringents to increase friction during intercourse (a common practice in East Africa) also maximizes transmission. Finally, a lack of affordable anti-retrovirals also contributes - people using those drugs have much lower HIV loads in their bodies than those not using them, and therefore have a lower chance of passing HIV along.
In southern Africa, being HIV+ carries a very strong social stigma of being promiscuous, so people don't get tested when they can, and don't tell partners if they come up positive. Even using condoms can be stigmatizing in this context.
In Africa, AIDS is a disease of impoverished black people with little education and little access to health care. Not a demographic that's highly attractive to drug companies and biomedical research. It's going to be a tough nut to crack........
perfessergee
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Another highly informed addition.
Thanks, perfesser.
Brain overloaded Chrisisall
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