These predictions failed miserably of course. Fifteen years later and AIDS is still confined narrowly to the original risk groups, and over 80% of AIDS patients are men. Interestingly enough, around 80% of drug abusers are also men.
That worthless picture of HIV/AIDS 'cases' generated from the WHO-UNAIDS statistics isn't relevant to my point above, and isn't very relevant to the discussion at all - ie, the africa statistics are bullshit - for the reasons described below.
The mounting evidence has caused the official 'odds of infection' estimates to be revised lower, to the current levels where the transmission rate is estimated to be 1/1,000. This is such a low rate of transmission, and is so out of synch with the common man's view of HIV/AIDS (which after all, stems from the mass hysteria from a decade ago) - it requires reiterating. And those are the odds for the receptive partner. The odds of being infected when you aren't the partner being penetrated are statistically insignificant - nil.
Numbers for this and where did this come from?
Numerous studies:
Based on studies measuring heterosexual and homosexual transmission, it depends on an average of 1000 heterosexual contacts and 100-500 homosexual contacts with antibody-positive people (Rosenberg and Weiner, 1988; Lawrence et al., 1990; Blattner, 1991; Hearst and Hulley, 1988; Peterman et al., 1988). According to Rosenberg and Weiner, "HIV infection in non-drug using prostitutes tends to be low or absent, implying that sexual activity alone does not place them at high risk" (Rosenberg and Weiner, 1988).
These studies actually list 1000 heterosexual contacts for the average number of contacts until transmission, which is not exactly equivalent to a 1/1000 infectivity rate, but its not so far off given the error involved. The 1/1000 infectivity rate came from my memory of CDC statistics.
And girls would be a significant group within the risk population, anyway.
I don't know what you mean by this exactly. Girls
aren't a significant fraction of any of the main risk groups or the AIDS cases (keep in mind I'm specifically talking about western HIV/AIDS - Africa is a whole nother, muddy affair.)
Sexually transmitted epidemic? Where?
Africa? LOL
Do you know what they call AIDS in Africa? American Invented Discouragement of Sex.
Thanks for, once again, showing that education has a relevant part in preventing the desease.
And it also requires a suprising amount of education to infect the local governments, health care workers, population, etc, with the HIV->AIDS meme virus. In other words, education has played an important role in spreading the (real) disease.
If you look at the general health statisitics in Africa, there's been significant progress in most African countries all across the board in this last decade, even under the spell of the horrible so called 'AIDS epidemic'. Average life expectancies are up, infant mortality rates are down. Where are the tens of millions of HIV infected people who, according to the CDC, were infected more than a decade ago?
LMAO!! Angola lives worse than thirty years ago. The same with many countries.
Where is the huge increase in mortality? The statistics simply don't add up.
Look at above provided map.
That map shoes the hype generated from the WHO's brilliant statistical methods. It doesn't show any historical increase in death rates, and most importantly, you haven't shown a correspondence between the HIV infection rate estimates (the hype), and subsequent expected increases in mortality due to AIDS cases.
Ideally, here's what we would be looking for:
1.) Accurate HIV infection rate statistics that show HIV spreading through the population over a time period (late 80's to early 90's, or whatever).
2.) Accurate AIDS diagnosis statistics, that show AIDS cases (with consistent diagnosis standards like those used in the west) over the time interval.
From 1.) and 2.) we would expect to see a large increase in AIDS following after the increase in HIV, showing a high temporal correlation with HIV to AIDS in Africa. Even these wonderful statistics wouldn't prove that HIV causes AIDS, but they would help any arguement, and in fact, they would be entirely necessary if you accept that HIV does exist in Africa and HIV does cause AIDS. (you are claiming both)
The big problem is nobody has accurate statistics for 1.) and 2.). There is no methodology to generate such statistics accurately -
and this is essential that we reach some middle ground on this point to make any further dicussion warranted. First off, HIV is extremely hard to find. All the common tests are entirely indirect. The antibody tests (western blot, ELISA, etc) simply look for antibody reactions to proteins that are
believed to be directly related to HIV . There is a long, long list of cross reactions and false positives. It has been shown that numerous illnesses, from the flu, to leprosy, to malaria, can reliably generate false positive antibody tests. But even ignoring that issue, an antibody test can't ever show that you actually have an active infection - in fact, it typically shows that you *had* the infection and fought it off.
It was originally believed that HIV led to AIDS in virtually all cases, but this is now known not to be the case - there are simply too many documented long term non-progressors - people who were found to have HIV more than ten years ago and still appear healthy and normal.
So just because someone has a positive 'HIV antibody' test, what does that mean and how do you know if they really have a dormant HIV infection? In the west, in the modern era, a doctor would do many tests - often four or more - different antibody tests, and eliminate as many possibilites for false positives as possible. In africa, this is simply too expensive, and many clinics use a single antibody test. This greatly inflates HIV infection statisitics.
The other serious issue for any AIDS statistics is how exactly one diagnoses AIDS. Typically, in the west, a diagnosis is based on a combination of factors: sustained low T4 cell counts, high rate of general sickness in recent history, specific rare indicator diseases (such as kaposi's sarcoma), and of course, a positive HIV antibody test.
The last part is naturally a huge problem when trying to determine the cause of AIDS - the assumed cause (HIV) is incorporated into the definition. So of course any 'AIDS' statistics based on this diagnosis will perfectly support the theory - 100% correlation! But its meaningless.
Its necessary then to ignore the concept of AIDS as a specific, diagnosable disease (because truly its more similar to a mental illness in these respects - there's no hard, simple methods of diagnosis). Instead, one must look at the individual opportunity infections and specific diseases that are being diagnosed in association with AIDS.
You can divide the main associated illnesses up as follows: kaposi's sarcoma, opportunisitic infections, pneumonia, tuberculosis. Obviously pneumonia and tuberculosis are some of the more common illnesses in the general population, and more importantly are also associated (and have historically been associated) with the specific risk groups.
Kaposi's sarcoma is a very rare form of cancer, and it was the original outbreak of a large number of cases of kaposi's sarcoma in the gay population of san francisco that alerted the CDC and started the entire affair. (first it was called GRIDS - Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, then AIDS). Kaposi's sarcoma was often accompanied by opportunistic infections - any number of bacterial or fungal infections rare in those with uncompromised immune systems.
Any theory of AIDS has to explain the following:
1. A) KS (Kaposi's Sarcoma) essentially appears *only* in gay AIDS patients.
B.) KS cases took off like crazy in the early 80's, peaked out over the decade and then declined back down in the 90's to a level just a little higher than they were in the 70's. (many mainstream AIDS researches now agree that HIV can't be the main cause of KS .....) What did cause it then? Hint: There is a very high correlation with drug use (specifically nitrates), passive anal sex, and KS.
2.) IV drug users mainly get TB and wasting, which are historicaly common amongst heavy IV drug users. IV drug use (street drugs commonly have many nasty contaminants, including benzene, if the drug itself isn't bad enough) is known to be immunosuppressive in and of itself.
3.) Hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients get pneumonia and opportunistic infections. Transfusion recipients and hemophiliacs both have several known immunosuppressive factors at work. Foreign blood proteins are known to be immunosupressive. Transfusion recipients are typically critically ill, and have a life expectancy of just a year or two after recieving a tranfusion.
So the big question is how do you build the case for HIV/AIDS from this data? How do you show that IV drug users are getting considerably *more* TB and wasting than they would otherwise? How do you differentiate immunosupression caused from blood factor in hemophiliacs or transfusions from HIV? How much of a role can be demonstrated for HIV *over and above* the other known immunosuppressive factors for these risk groups.
And of course, why are the characteristic diseases so *different* in each risk group .. why did all those gay men get KS and not anyone else. If the HIV theory isn't helping to predict what illnesses people are getting in comparison to other known (or in the case of KS especially - suspected ) factors, what good is it?
And why hasn't it spread into the general population yet? More importantly, why are non drug using prostitutes (even those not practising reliable safe sex), not dying of AIDS?
Or better yet, why are non-drug users in general not dying of AIDS?
But there's some very good reasons for that. Where do the HIV/AIDS statistics come from anyway? How do you actually count the number of people who have HIV? Do you know how expensive the antibody tests are (western blot, ELISA, etc - and they all have well known low specificity). Most african clinics simply can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars per patient to get the multiple antibody tests, T4 cell count tests, so called 'viral load' tests - which especially are bullshit - but thats another story.
Bullshit. There are many foreign help clinics who provide tests.
What exactly is bullshit? Don't think the antibody tests are expensive? (at 50 bucks a pop or so, I'd say thats very expensive for widescale, accurate testing esp in africa) There are certainly foreign help clinics sponsored by WHO that provide tests, but they take short cuts (one antibody test! instead of the 4 or more required in the west), and even then they still can't test everyone, its just not feasible.
Also, why does the fact that many are indeed untested proves there are no AIDS?
If we are going to have any reasonable discussion about the cause of AIDS, is important to cleanly seperate HIV and AIDS cases and statistics.
First off, do you agree with the common western diagnosis of AIDS that I outlined above? If you do, then the simple answer is, there are very little actual AIDS cases in Africa according to that 'definition'. Whats most significant is that there is practically no sustained low T4 cell counts + KS and or rare opportunistic infections. If you agree with the western diagnosis of AIDS, then your first difficulty is the bengali definition of 'AIDS for Africa' adopted by the WHO and the CDC. This is a real loose definition of AIDS which can include general fatigue, diahrhea, etc, any one of a number of common ailments caused by a large variety of factors ranging from nutrition to malaria and other fun common african parasites.
The sympthoms are there, and people die. Please provide a better explanation, instead of nitpicking the current one.
What symptoms? Thats the whole problem ....
In summary, according to the western definition of AIDS, there is very little evidence for any significant AIDS in Africa. And there is
no evidence at all for anything like the epidemic of KS and opportunistic infections that struck the gay scene in America in the early 80's - and thats the defining symptoms that started the whole affair.
In brief, the current explanation is that people in Africa are dying of the same diseases and problems that have plagued them for ages: starvation, malnutrition, malaria, etc etc. If you want to bring in this new theory of HIV and AIDS, you need to find data that clearly shows a new disease and crys out for a better explanation. I propose that HIV/AIDS phenomena in africa is an interesting, but typical hysterical meme virus - an infectious idea of dubious validity.
So they tested a small portion of the population in a couple of areas, and then put this data into a computer model that makes a large number of assumptions ... the infectivity - transmission rates (which were grossly over-estimated a decade ago and are still not known to any high degree of accuracy), rates of sexual encounters, number of partners (africans in general of course are very promiscous, right?), and fit this data to well known models of virus growth within a population.
Appeal to ignorance. You do not understand how statistics are made. Look it uo. From that reasoning, all surveys are completely flawed.
I described specifically the mechanisms they used to estimate the HIV infection rate, and how they render the statistics dubious at best, and in all likelihood worthless. You can't simply justify these statistics by claiming (without proving) my ignorance. Argument ad hominem.
But irregardless, I could care less about the grossly inflated and innacurrate HIV statistics for Africa. If you want to use them for any significant arguement, I challenge you to prove that any such statistics are within 100% of the true number (for example, true number of people harboring actual 'infective virus') I challenged everything from the low level mechanics of the test itself (antibody reaction) to the assumptions and hidden variables used in the model.
But if anything, you should want statistics that show a much lower rate of HIV infection, because overinflated HIV infection estimates will hurt you when try to show an equal proportion of AIDS cases. The CDC has ran into this several times over the last two decades, and redefined AIDS several times - increasing the AIDS cases each time.
Similar models were used to estimate how HIV would spread through the US population, and the models consistently failed, the predictions were always off, and yet each year, the CDC would continue to tout the dangers of the 'growing epidemic'.
Maybe because of an agressive campaign that countered the spread of the Virus? Ever heard of needle replacements? Free distribution of condoms?
Thats an interesting idea, but if such a campaign was actually effective, then we would see a huge reduction in regular STD's - because as we already agreed HIV is one of the least (the least?) sexually transmittable STD's known. From memory, I believe STD's in general sank in the later 80's, but have risen back up some since then.
Also, AIDS cases as a % of IV drug users has remained relatively stable ... ...
And why ever do you think that Africa is dying of an AIDS epidemic?
Looka at map.
Saw map. Not only does it not show mortality statistics over time from specific illnesses, but what is claiming - HIV infection cases, is not what you seem to be claiming for it (actual AIDS cases or deaths), and furthermore, the statistics it *actually is* claiming - HIV infection cases - are gross estimates and are completely wrong and worthless, as discussed above.
You're going to have to dig alot deeper than the common media sources (whose data all comes from the official WHO/UNAIDS statistics for that year) into this issue to find out what (if anything) is going on in Africa that is HIV/AIDS like, let alone prove that Africa is in the grip of a 'terrible epidemic'.
Besides that, the climate of war and misery favours prostitution/rapes in an exponential way. That also increases the contamination rate.
Actually, contrary to popular belief, prostitutes are not dying of AIDS in large numbers,
irregardless of whether they use condoms reliably or not . The only subset of prostitutes acquiring AIDS in significant numbers are the IV drug using population.
Proof?
According to Rosenberg and Weiner, "HIV infection in non-drug using prostitutes tends to be low or absent, implying that sexual activity alone does not place them at high risk" (Rosenberg and Weiner, 1988).
The notion that HIV is a virus which "does not discriminate" is also markedly inconsistent with the data obtained from studies of female prostitutes. Even if, as it is widely accepted, by some unknown means a sexually transmitted infectious agent found its way into the promiscuous portion of the gay male population in certain large cities in the United States in the late 1970s, given the facts that prostitutes are frequented by bisexual men and, at the very earliest, "safe" sexual practices date from 1985, one would have expected HIV/AIDS to have spread rapidly through prostitutes and thence to the general community. However, the prevalence of "HIV" antibodies amongst prostitutes is almost entirely confined to those who are drug users. Virtually all other prostitutes have not been, and are not becoming, HIV positive.
In September 1985, 56 non-intravenous drug using (IVDU) prostitutes were tested "In the rue Saint-Denis, the most notorious street in Paris for prostitution. More than a thousand prostitutes work in this area…These women, aged 18-60, have sexual intercourse 15-25 times daily and do not routinely use protection". None were positive.(109)
In Copenhagen, 101 non-IVDU prostitutes, a quarter of whom "suspected that up to one fifth of their clients were homosexual or bisexual", were tested during August/October 1985. The median numbers of sexual encounters per week was 20. None were positive.(110)
In 1985, 132 prostitutes (and 55 non-prostitutes) who attended a Sydney STD clinic were tested for HIV antibodies. The average numbers of sexual partners (clients and lovers) in the previous month was 24.5. When an estimate was made to separate clients and lovers, the median number of sexual contacts per year rose from 175 to 450. The partners of only 14 (11%) of prostitutes used condoms at all and 49% of their partners used condoms in fewer than 20% of encounters. No women were positive.(111)
The same Australian Clinic repeatedly tested an additional 491 prostitutes who attended between 1986 and 1988. Of 231 out of the 491 prostitutes surveyed, 19% "had bisexual non-paying partners and 21% had partners who injected drugs. Sixty-nine percent always used condoms for vaginal intercourse with paying clients, but they were rarely used with non-paying partners. Condoms were rarely used by those clients and/or partners for the 18% of prostitutes practising anal intercourse". No women were positive.
At the time of this report, a decade into the AIDS era, the authors also commented, "there has been no documented case of a female prostitute in Australia becoming infected with HIV through sexual intercourse" (italics ours). Yet, these investigators from the Sydney Sexual Health Centre concluded "there are still many women working as prostitutes in Sydney who remain seriously at risk of HIV infection".(112) In Spain, of 519 non-IVDU prostitutes tested between May 1989 and December 1990, only 12 (2.3 per cent) had positive test, which was "only slightly higher than that reported 5 years ago in similar surveys". Some prostitutes had as many as 600 partners a month and the development of a positive antibody test was directly related to the practice of anal intercourse. The authors also noted, "a more striking and disappointing finding was the low proportion of prostitutes who used condoms at all times, despite the several mass-media AIDS prevention campaigns that have been carried out in Spain".(113)
Similar data from two Scottish studies,(114) the 1993 "European working group on HIV infection in female prostitutes study",(115) and a 1994 report of 53,903 Filipino prostitutes tested between 1985 to 1992, confirm that non-IVDU prostitutes remain virtually devoid of HIV infection. For example, in the latter study, only 72 (0.01%) women were found to be HIV positive.
And get it through your thick skull: Aids is also transmited by blood transfusals/ needle sharing. Here in Portugal we had a major incident with diabetics, in the early 80's. About a hundred of them received infected plasma. Most of them have now died of AIDS. EXPLAIN IT, moron.
How many of them started agressive chemotherapy? (ie, AZT)
Not that again. Read the arguments against that reasoning I and others posted before.
I didn't see the arguements about AZT in the previous posts. If you really want to discuss it we can, but there is already alot on the table. But of course I do think there is tremendous evidence that AZT and other forms of "HART" chemotherapy can cause "AIDS".
But without more information about the "Portugal Incidident" I don't think it needs further discussion. Also I'm not aware that diabetics were in need of, or typically are, or ever were, given blood plasma injections. I think he means hemophiliacs ....
If you really are interested in the history of AIDS, and the HIV theory, the studies I mentioned involving prostitutes, etc, read this:
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/vtyinyang.htm
Its a good starting introduction to the dissenter viewpoint(s) (ie, the viewpoints of any scientists who differ from the orthodox HIV theory)
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When they are only one or two "scientists", that is ridiculous. There are "scientists" who defend creationism. I don't have to read their work to make judgement values about they being wrong.
Dr. Valendar Turner is a professor of emergency medicine at the university of western australia. Do we need to establish some sort of qualifications metric before we can quote anyone or use their statistics?
When there are only one or two "scientisits" - that is ridiculous
Interesting .... do we need 3 "scientists" then for it to be serious?
There are "scientists" who defend creationism.
There are also "scientists" who defend the HIV theory of AIDS, even without sufficient proof that the virus is infective, or that it can kill T-cells in sufficient quanitities, or that it exists in sufficient quantities in AIDS patients, or in fact, that it exists as an independent exogenous virus at all.
So whats your point?
I don't have to read their work to make judgement values about they being wrong
Thats right - just stick your head back in the sand, and don't listen to anyone that disagrees with you. Because hey, if they don't accept Jesus as their Lord (or HIV as the sole cause of AIDS), then the are just plain Wrong ... right?
"In Science the authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of reason on one man" - Galileo
HIV isn't the only STD floating around. 
