More people living with HIV then ever before

[Throckmorton]

I'm more comfortable with AIDS-infected people living longer, with the risk of further transmission, than with AIDS-infected people dying off faster so that the risk of transmission decreases.

I'm hoping in the near future AIDS will be no worse than baldness (or any other common affliction).

Every few months they find a "cure" that never materializes

 

[zsdersw]

Why are you trying to twist my words?

There are people that reject modern medicine, and there people that accept modern medicine.

What is the issue?

The issue isn't that prevention isn't being provided to people in Africa, it's that what is provided isn't used enough to make a dent in the infection rate.

 

[Howard]

Every few months they find a "cure" that never materializes

It's easy to publicize something with a positive outlook, but you can't actually market it until it's proven to work.

 

[Capt Caveman]

People with HIV/AIDS/Super-AIDS need to be put on an island. That disease kills too slowly, making it easier to spread. No good can come from people "living" with AIDS or HIV.

Yet, there are people with HIV/AIDs/Super-AIDS that will contribute more to society than you ever will.

 

[bfdd]

Aren't the rates of infection much lower now a days as well though? So we have more people alive and a lower infection rate. Sounds like we're kicking the shit out of HIV/AIDs to me. Give it another 15-20 years and we'll probably have it on the ropes.

 

[crashtestdummy]

From the above link



Besides lifestyle factors, there might be genetic factors in those numbers.

People of European decent (though the numbers are low) who have the ccr5 gene mutation show to have limited resistance to HIV. This might explain why HIV is not as wide spread in the US and Europe as it is in Africa.

Besides a lifestyle disease, I am starting to wonder if HIV is also a genetic disease. People without certain genetic traits are being killed off.

What we have been seeing since the 1980s is a slower replay of what happened in the middle ages. Historians noted that the plague would kill one family, skip a family, and then kill the next family. The people back then did not understand why certain families were not killed by the plague.

Today, and with the help of genetics, we understand that certain races are resistant (not immune) to certain diseases.



Not as evidence, but as a comparison.

What the black death did in a couple of years, HIV is taking decades to do.

Wow. Just wow. This is what I mean when I rant to people that a lack of understanding of the distinction between correlation and causal relationships is the single biggest threat to this country. Just because people of certain races have the disease more often does not mean that they are genetically more susceptible to HIV. Far more likely is that the increase in poverty and drug use as well as lower education levels have more to do with the higher HIV prevalence.

Now PLEASE don't try to argue that poverty is also a genetic trait, lest this conversation descend from 1981 back to 1947.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Aren't the rates of infection much lower now a days as well though? So we have more people alive and a lower infection rate. Sounds like we're kicking the shit out of HIV/AIDs to me. Give it another 15-20 years and we'll probably have it on the ropes.

They are, as well as the annual number of deaths. The biggest thing has been a shift in attitudes about unprotected sex. People with multiple sexual partners are now much more likely to use protection than in the 70's and 80's.

My feeling we will not completely rid ourselves of the disease unless a vaccine is developed. The virus mutates too quickly for drugs to work perfectly, and it is too hard to detect by sight or symptoms for quarantine approaches to work. That said, there are very encouraging signs that the spread is being successfully contained in the developed world, and some hope of the same in Africa.

 

[Throckmorton]

Aren't the rates of infection much lower now a days as well though? So we have more people alive and a lower infection rate. Sounds like we're kicking the shit out of HIV/AIDs to me. Give it another 15-20 years and we'll probably have it on the ropes.

The worldwide infection rate is down 20% from 1997 according to a UNAID report that just came out.

But in America, the infection rate is increasing among gay men. They account for half of all cases, though they're only 5% of the population at most. It's a serious epidemic, and it's not going to stay isolated to that group, because of things like blood tranfusions, injection drug use, and gay men having sex with straight women.

 

[Texashiker]

Just because people of certain races have the disease more often does not mean that they are genetically more susceptible to HIV.

History and scientific studies show otherwise.

When Europeans landed in Cuba, the new diseases killed off the native populations. Due to the lack of workers to harvest the sugar cane, blacks were brought over from Africa. The blacks seemed to be more resistant to European diseases then the native Americans.

Then there is the CCR5 mutation that shows promise as a treatment for HIV.

The worldwide infection rate is down 20% from 1997 according to a UNAID report that just came out.

But in America, the infection rate is increasing among gay men.

That is because HIV is easier to transmit through anal sex, then vaginal sex.

http://www.aidsmap.com/HIV-transmis...-higher-than-during-vaginal-sex/page/1446187/

My feeling we will not completely rid ourselves of the disease unless a vaccine is developed.

Even then, the world would need something like what happened with the small pox vaccine campaign.

I do not think HIV will be gone until we have a cure.

Its just a matter of time before we have a type of anti-biotic for viral infections.

 

[Throckmorton]

BTW crashtestdummy, white people are slightly more immune to HIV infection. I think it's something like a 5% difference though, not huge.

 

[crashtestdummy]

History and scientific studies show otherwise.

When Europeans landed in Cuba, the new diseases killed off the native populations. Due to the lack of workers to harvest the sugar cane, blacks were brought over from Africa. The blacks seemed to be more resistant to European diseases then the native Americans.

This was due to historical exposure to smallpox and related diseases. The Europeans and Africans had long been exposed to farm animals, which brought with them diseases such as smallpox. As a result of their populations being repeatedly exposed to the disease, the only Europeans and African left were ones more likely to survive the disease. When the Europeans brought smallpox. the Native Americans had no such previous exposure to the disease, and thus were biologically unprepared.

This kind of disparity is NOT present with HIV. Nobody had been exposed to it before 40 years ago, so no particular subpopulation is likely to be more resistant.

 

[busydude]

Its just a matter of time before we have a type of anti-biotic for viral infections.

/facepalm.. sigh!

 

[JSt0rm]

As cruel as it sounds, is this a good thing? Its not like the people can not spread the disease. As long as they are alive, they can spread the infection to others.

 

[JSt0rm]

/facepalm.. sigh!

you like that eh? 8th grade science class here we come.

 

[Texashiker]

This was due to historical exposure to smallpox and related diseases.

I am going to rebuke your post by saying the people that were sold into slavery came from isolated tribes that had never come into contact with European diseases.

Without scientific proof, we are guessing.

/facepalm.. sigh!

Are you saying we will "never" have a cure for a viral infection?

 

[busydude]

Texashiker.. I guess you must be into eugenics.

I could definitely picture you working for Nazi Germany.

 

[JSt0rm]

Are you saying we will "never" have a cure for a viral infection?

he's saying something you can't even comprehend.

 

[busydude]

Are you saying we will "never" have a cure for a viral infection?

We already have cures for a some viral diseases.

Your question seems odd. Define "a viral infection?"

 

[Texashiker]

Texashiker.. I guess you must be into eugenics.

I could definitely picture you working for Nazi Germany.

Its called natural selection.

There is a reason why Homo Erectus, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals are no longer around.

In 400 or 500 hundred years, history classes will be teaching kids about the great HIV plague of the 20th and 21st centuries. They will feel sorry for us because we lacked the technology to develop a cure for the diseases we have today.

 

[busydude]

In 400 or 500 hundred years, history classes will be teaching kids about the great HIV plague of the 20th and 21st centuries. They will feel sorry for us because we lacked the technology to develop a cure for the diseases we have today.

LOl WTF!

You are exaggerating the effects of HIV on mankind.

 

[bfdd]

BTW crashtestdummy, white people are slightly more immune to HIV infection. I think it's something like a 5% difference though, not huge.

I'm actually thinking of getting my genes tested because my mothers family comes from a part of Lithuania where like 15% of the people carry those HIV-immunity genes.

 

[NeoV]

wow this thread brought out some of the idiots...

 

[sportage]

Source: Fox News.
Really!?
What... have they given up on believing Romney, Cain or Perry can get elected?
And so soon...

 

[hal2kilo]

I am going to rebuke your post by saying the people that were sold into slavery came from isolated tribes that had never come into contact with European diseases.

Without scientific proof, we are guessing.




Are you saying we will "never" have a cure for a viral infection?

Not an anti-BIOTIC.

 

[woolfe9999]

From Dari's own wiki link on "super AIDS":

Typically, the "wild" type of HIV (the strain of HIV found in individuals not treated with Antiretroviral drugs) is much more effective at attacking the human immune system than the types that evolve in the presence of antiretroviral drugs. Thus, by changing the selection pressure (from being infection driven to being drug-avoidance driven) retroviral drug treatment causes HIV to evolve to a more innocuous form, less efficient at infecting T-cells.

In other words, those strains of the virus that are evolving to resist antiretroviral drugs are becoming progressively less deadly. Doesn't sound like our efforts to treat the disease are perpetuating it much.

- wolf