false positives?

[Mik]

Well, from my crappy memory the problem with the virus was it was constantly changing (using the Key/lock analogy) it's 'key' that antibodies need to get at it and fuck it up.


I think breakthrough is a bit of a misnomer until a practial and actual use comes out.

[Melana]

Can i have the link to the new med your talking about Matt?
I knew there was an Abzyme treatment that was being postulated but I don't think that killing a patients B cells as well as the virus is a good move.
It's been a while since i bothered looking in on AIDS, my personal fascination was with bacteria not virus's.... virus=boring.

But the thing is guys, once a cure/vaccine becomes available, will WHO have enough power and cloat to ensure that the world is eradicated of the disease. They did it with smallpox's but the world is a different place. Pharmaceutical companies are bastards and alot of people only care about money.

Vaccines aren't viable atm because of the high variation of antigens on the virus and their recombination, but that said influenza goes through simaler shifts.

But johnny, make him take his fucking meds.

[Matt]

I wish I had a link. I'll have a look later, but I can't promise I'll find the same article again.

[EchoPark]

u destory one virus and another one appears

i think i got that off star trek movies lol

[runawaygurl]

Ok my biggest problem with the whole situation is that the birth rate and aids rate in countries where women are uneducated are astronomically higher than the countries where women are educated. The most popular form of birth control (if used at all because of lack of a good economy/heath care system/knowledge) is the pill. And oh wait, that's right the pill doesn't protect against any diseases whatsoever. It's lucky to protect from freakin' pregnancy. And I agree with johnny in a sense that most likely there are many diseases that are running rampid on the content of Africa and every other impoverished third world country you can think of. Because if you have ever seen their health care, it's usually right up there with medieval medicine. India is starting to improve but is pretty much in the same spot, just less publicised. Bangledesh is twice as bad, but they keep getting 1/3 of their population wiped out by Monsoons and Cyclones. But anyway...

I guess my main point is, if you have better education and give them all a decent health care system the "Aids epidemic" would probably decline. If not dissapear.

And I have to say I don't have very good faith in our own health care considering a friend of mine was diagnosed and treated for aids for 10 years, switched doctors and was told he had cancer, not aids. He's now filing suit against his old doctor. I think it all depends on the person and the place.

Oh and most aids paitents death certificates list "pneumonia" as cause of death.

[Mik]

Hey now, some of medieval medicine was badass, surgery and stuff like that was shite but the plants they used for 'cures' and stuff actually works.

[Chewi]

My friend went a little overboard as usual but it's interesting stuff.

Firstly, thanks for including me on this thread and I'm glad to contribtue.
I've worked in the HIV field for about 6 years, mainly focusing on young
people, awareness, advocacy and prevention. I co-founded the Global Youth
Coalition on HIV/AIDS - http://www.youthaidscoalition.org and encourage folks here
who are interested in learning more about HIV, etc to check this page out
and join Because of my experience in this topic, passsion and interest
for it, my response is a bit long, trying to cover many points that were
raised, in an attempt to answer and clarify some confusion and offer some
useful sources people can look into to learn more. So maybe grab something
to drink before you settle down to read. Kaos or anyone else, feel free to
email me directly with queries - just ask James for my email.

*1) False positives:* Your friend should consider reading a book I'm
currently reading. It's new, just came out. It's called 'Wisdom of Whores":
http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/
by Elisabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who worked for WHO, UNAIDS and has a
wealth of experience conducting national surveillance for HIV for different
countries (when you see how many people live with HIV). it's true that false
positives do happen and they are dangerous, particularly for countries where
the epidemic is rare, where false positives will distort final results more
than false negatives.

This book is an excellent read for anyone interested in HIV - it's written
very well, easy to understand and super educational. The writer has done a
lot of work interviewing sex workers, drug addicts, men who use
prostitutes...people who are at highest risk of HIV in many countries
(though lots of her wokr was done in Indonesia and Kenya).

Whoever makes any references to black people and aids is an ignorant idiot
and should be put straight. It's a terrible notion to spread around.

I'd like to know the source of your friend's list regarding the list of
things that could trigger a false positive. I find that quite surprising.
for people on the thread, I think it's really important to distinguish
between HIV and AIDS. Many people see HIV/AIDS as the same thing. Not that
HIV is a virus and AIDS is a syndrome. AIDS is the last stage of HIV which
occurs many many years from infection (anywhere between 10-20 depending on
the person) and happens because the person acquires a co-infection which
weakens the immune system. In developing countries, this is often TB or
malaria. These two diseases break the immune system without meds and as it
weakens, AIDS takes over and then people die. This is why it's not actually
technically correct to say someone dies from AIDS. They do..but it's
triggered by pneumonia or TB or something else. I hope this makes sense.Here
is a good source to learn more: http://www.gmhc.org/health/basics.html

The Gay Men's Health crisis is one of the first NGOs in NYC to address
hiv/aids back when it was thought to be a gay mea's disease. They've been
around for decades doing amazing work on advocacy and treatment access for
people living with HIV.
this might also explain why some people have pneumonia written on their
death certificates but it's a sensitive issue. In a place like rural South
Africa, people don't want to admit that AIDS is a problem or that someone in
the family was affected. It's so stigmatized that people don't want to come
forward about it. Political will is crucial to getting over this problem so
decriminalizing people living with HIV, people who are gay, sex workers etc
is an important step towards making people comfortable, open and
transparent. Look at Brazil as an example of this where President da Silva
is very open and honest about the AIDS epidemic and who is affected how.
People living with HIV have free access to medication and it has one of the
biggest (the first or second) generic medicine manufacturers in the world,
particularly of essential meds like ARVs. Brazil is a really interesting
story. Check this out for  more:
http://www.avert.org/aids-brazil.htm

*2) Peter Duesborg* - this guy was on a panel that south african president
Thabo Mbeki invited back in the late 90s to disprove that HIV causes AIDS
and that AIDS is a made-up problem. South Africa has a 20% prevalence rate,
one of the highest in the world. It's also a country in Africa with one of
the most stable and booming economies. So for those of you who think that
HIV affects the poor the most, think again and do some reading .Botswana,
also in southern africa, has a prevalence rate in the late 23.9%, second
after swaziland (26.1%) (see UNAIDS World Report on AIDS 2008:
http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentr ... t_2008.asp
. Botswana is very solid politically and economically. It has one of the
highest GDP/capita in Africa with about 25 billion GDP in total. It's
definitely not poor!!! it has a huge industry focusing on minerals as well
as diamonds.
Back to Peter - um, if you do some reading, you'll find that he's not taken
very seriously by the majority of researchers..he wrote his theories in
1995. Note there has been A LOT of progress since then and note that his
theory was SUPER politicized back in the day. Mbeki was a huge denialist
about a very booming HIV epidemic in South Africa, largely due to the main
highway linking South Afrian cities up to Capetown. The mining industries
outsides some of S. Africa's main cities were booming in the 1980s and 90s
with men leaving families at home (in other countries) and coming to places
like S. Africa and Botswana and Angola for work with the truck drivers
particularly vulnerable. Firstly, around these mining towns, you get what
they call townships and settlements - nesting ground for prostitution. So
just imagine..you get lots of men coming to the South for work, they stay
away from their families for months.. they are in rural areas with towns
rising up and prostitutes offering their services (usually young women in
need of money). In addition, truck drivers have long hauls and on the route
from cairo to capetown, there are many stops with sex workers along the way
offering 'quickies' and the like...this is just a snapshot of how and why
the HIV epidemic managed to spread so quickly in southern africa, why
southern africa is actually not the poorest region on the continent and how
complex the epidemic is in terms of being politicized (i.e. Mbeki) and
economized ( in terms of urbanization, work opportunities, etc). It's
largely complicated by apartheid, the lack of proper healthcare
infrustructure, etc etc. If you're really interested in this, the best (and
awesome) book is The Moral Economy of HIV/AIDS in South Africa by Nicoli
Nattrass. You can do some googling tooo...http://www.avert.org/ is one of my
favorite sources for HIV info in general and has country specific info too.

*3) Regarding the people who take AZT and die.* Basically, like I said, once
a  person living with HIV gets some kind of co-infection like a flu,
pneumonia, etc, their immune system breaks down and their CD4 cell count
goes down (CD4 cells are the cells that try to fight off viruses and protect
you). Once the count gets below 200, that is technially diagnosed as AIDS.
Meds like AZT are meant to help keep the CD4 count as high as possible
(people without HIV have betwen 600 - 1200 cells/mm squared (thought it
varies). In this way, people can live longer while being HIV positive. This
is another thing - a lot of HIV positive people can live absolutely normal
lives. Because of the stigma surrounding the issue, they are considered sick
or abnormal...but in fact, a healthy lifestyle and access to meds can really
change people's lives in terms of their confidence, ability to work, be
caretakers, etc etc...that said, once the immune system breaks down, AZT can
only help so much and it does become a matter of time once someone has < 200
CD4 cell count and has AIDS. I'm very sorry about your cousin, Kaos. Your
brother, on the other hand, should be fine WITHOUTh the meds for a while. I
dont know how old he is, but especially if he's young...a lot of young
people can live without even knowing they have HIV for years and years. In
fact, from my experience with young people living with HIV, it's definitely
better to hold off takings meds. Meds can have terrible side effects...and
there are different kinds and they are specific in terms of how they work
with what bodies/individuals. I'ts quite complex...but so if your brother is
healthy and ok, he jus tneeds to keep safe (i.e. use condems for example
during sex), have regular check-ups and continue living life normally.
Contact me directly if you need any advice, resources, etc. Oh and so yes,
if your brother doesn't get AIDS in 7 years, yea i mean i dont know what you
mean by him being safe..but he can lead a relatively normal life. A friend
of mine - his brother has been living with HIV for a long time, has a
family, and just completed a bike ride from Toronto (where the last
International AIDS Conference took plac ein 2006) to Mexico City (where it's
happening right now . Note - the guy is from India and bought his bike on
the equivalent of gumtree in the states.. So i mean, if he can do it, it's
an example that people living with HIV are definitely capable of living
normal lives just like everyone else.

*4) AIDS Vaccine* - not been developed unfortunately.  Check out the
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative -http://www.iavi.org/
which ismaking some strides on that front, using public private partnerships
(i.e. combining the powers of researchers, scientists, governments, pharma)
to get moving on that front!
What AZT and ARVs do is a) help people regain their strength, increase CD4
cell count and live longer
B) AZT prevents transmission of HIV from mother to child. A huge break
through and SUPER important for treatment access (mbeki, the south african
president, finally succummed to accepting a national roll out of AZT among
antenatal clinics in South Africa. So free drugs for mothers who are HIV
positive..it's taking ages to roll out for a variety of reasons. Not least
because the health minister - Tshabalala Msimang is a crazy crazy lady who
has for years refused to believe how big of a problem HIV has bee ni nSouth
Africa and triggered the controversy South Africa had with denying HIV back
i nthe late 90s, 2000s... read up on avert.org about all this.

*5) More education leads to less HIV?* Not necessarily so, in response to
runawaygurl.
In Bangladesh, for example, sure yes there are lots of natural disasters
that cause poverty, but while there is high poverty and relatively high
gender inequality, there are very low HIV rates. Note that South africa and
botswana have the highest female literacy and per capita incomes in Africa,
have some of the highest rates of HIV. While countries with lower literacy,
such as Guinea, Mali,Sierra Leone, have negligible epidemics in comparison.
sure, you can challenge that some of these countries (for instance, Sierra
Leone) have had recent civil wars and bad surveillance, data collection to
make next to impossible accurate HIV results...but I guess the point is, and
this is the last thing I'll say:

*Bottom line: *you really have to question a lot of what you hear, read up
on it, look at some sources ( a variety of sources not just one that seems
to fit with what you think intuitively!) and get yourself educated. HIV is
super complicated. There are so many facets of HIV (which is what makes it
interesting for me to study and work in) but it's never as simple as it
looks...it's not just a health issue but it's very much intertwined with
health care systems, financing, economics, politics (especially
politics!!!!!). Think about how the virus transmits...bodily fluids (semen,
blood)..so sex is the # 1 way it transmits worldwide. It's a SUPEr sensitive
issue. Sex is so tabooed, not talked about..just that alone helps us
understand why it's such a taboo and stigmatized issue! sex is something
economists struggle with... rational behavior doesn't explain why, how, when
people have sex...but that's getting into a whole other topic í'll avoid for
now Read Wisdom of Whores though...awesome awesome book!!!!

Hope this was helpful and not more of the same you've known or read about
HIV...email me if you have questions or want to discuss more.

best,
Mila
mila.gorokhovich AT gmail DOT com

[runawaygurl]

I never realized how much of the problem was in South Africa, but I guess that makes sense because one of my favorite artists is William Kentridge who is from Johannesburg and does these really awesome animated films about the race and class problems of South Africa. I guess with as good as their economy is you don't think of them first.

And my point was more to bring out that anyone who belives it's just africa or even africans having problems with healthcare or disease is delirious. I guess I didn't make that very clear. :huh:


Oh and Mik, you've got a point with the herbal side of things, but leechings and bleedings?? Get serious, that's not helping anyone...lol

[Mik]

Actually for blood poisioning, leeches are a very effective method. Maggots in the wound to eat the bad tissue (see Gladiator ) still works.


South Africa has alot of problems you don't see on a tourists trip, Im reading a book about gangs, seems like alot of nice places have insane gang problems.

[Chewi]

My great aunt lives out there. She had these huge guard dogs. While she was away, they got eaten by other dogs.

[kaos]

They have the gangs with the crazy awesome speed knife attack method right?
Africa seems like such a fun place.

[Chewi]

(23:44:24) Mila: did he respond?
(23:45:18) James: not to your post, I'm afraid. I feel like kicking them all in the ass. "hey someone made like the biggest post ever in the history of Aura, respond to it dammit!"

[kaos]

hey someone made like the biggest post ever in the history of Aura

felt like the damn 'end all'
what more could anyone else actually say?

[Chewi]

That's a fair point actually. Maybe... thanks?

[kaos]

well yeah, aside from thanks.

thanks.