Question concerning AIDs cure...

[Ganryu]

tcsenter, I will indulge you with another post. You're not frustrating me, you're actually amusing me at this point with your stupidy and ignorance. Watch me destroy each of your pitiful "facts."

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the gay community has since the very beginnings of AIDS problem conducted itself with reprehensible resistance to even the suggestion that they should modify their life-styles.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This may have been true initially, but you have to consider this was also at a time when the exact cause of AIDS was still being disputed. Once the cause was proven beyond a doubt, bathhouses were closed down by public health officials, etc. To make it more clear if I come up to you and stop telling you to do something without giving you a good reason why you should do it, you wouldn't stop either.

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They were the most ardent opponent of the Red Cross instituting a ban on homosexuals donating blood before there was an adequate test for HIV or screening measures, a stunt that is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people as HIV positive gay men flocked to donate HIV contaminated blood in an act of defiance and protest, blood which was transfused into God knows how many Americans.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again this was before there was an adequate test for HIV and was in response to a proposed ban on gay men donating to blood banks. Your statement that thousands of HIV+ men flocked to donate blood cannot possibily be true since there was no test for HIV at the time, unless you mean to imply that all gay men have HIV. It is not surprising that these men protested. Imagine the outrage of blood donations from blacks were banned because heptatitis and tuberculosis is more prevalant among their communities. On the other hand, given your view on blacks from your previous posts, you would probably agree with that.

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There has been and continues to be a BOOMING sub-culture among the homosexual community that calls itself or is known as the 'bareback' community. They refuse to wear condoms or avoid high risk sexual contact even in the most risky of gay meeting places and clubs such as gay bath houses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to most sources this "booming" sub-culture is actually a small minority.

Quote

"Your parting post was all one big ad hominem and personal attack that didn't even attempt to dispute anything I said which you apparently found offensive. "Racist..homophobic" et al. That's good. It means you're becoming frustrated by me.

Let me give you a tip: that wouldn't happen if you had a credible argument to begin with! Try it next time, it works wonders."

I have given you many credible arguments, yet rather than addressing them intelligently you've simply chosen to ignore them and continue to spout old data or myths. Now you seem to imply that I have some personal involvement in this

"Oooo! I seem to have really struck a sore nerve there. Perhaps you're not just a do-gooding advocate for AIDS victims, maybe your interest is a bit more deeply personal? I mean, why else would you find the following FACTS so offensive?"

I'm not sure what you are implying here.. I am neither homosexual nor do I have HIV/AIDS. I do however have sympathy for those who have a life threatening illness (which I would imagine you should have as well if you are in the "health profession") and as a scientist have an intense dislike for those who perpetrate myths as reality and who twist facts out of context. You have not yet given me a credible argument with real data (even though you claim to have done so). I acknowledge that HIV in the US started out as disease primarily among the gay community however, I will point out again that in the US 40% of HIV+ individuals are heterosexual (and that AIDS cases are steadily increasing among heterosexual women). Regardless of their social status (cretins as you describe them) you haven't told me what you hope to achieve by cutting AIDS funding. Let us ignore the ethics of that for a moment (since basic medical ethics are beyond your comprehension), what would you propose to do to contain and eliminate the problem?

 

[Ganryu]

Oh I missed a couple of points from your other post:

"Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But you should be aware that we do fund research in diseases that affect parts of the world that are tranmissible. I'm sure I don't have to explain why?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name one. We as a country do NOT decide US public policy matters based on an inversely proportional scale of benefit or interest to the US population. Do you understand the utter absurdity in what you're saying?"

Malaria and tuberculosis, both of which are resurging in the US, as well as numerous parasitic disorders that are traditionally only third world problems. You seem to think that diseases in other parts of the world don't affect us, but they do because we are not isolated.

Quote

"I have no interest in "curing" a disease to the tune of tens of billions of dollars that is ALREADY easily prevented! There are more pressing and important things to fund, things that aren't preventable as of yet and actually threaten more than .2% of our population."

Again I ask you to name them. This is the third time and you still haven't (or can't). Also HIV is NOT easily prevented. There is a difference between preventing something in THEORY and in PRACTICE. This is the same reason that teaching abstinence in schools doesn't work, while handing out condoms does, but that is a different argument. It is easy to tell people not to do something, but an entirely different beast to get them to stop. Notice how many people continue to smoke despite the warnings and conclusive evidence. You seem to have the misconception that AIDS only affects gays and hookers. And I've mentioned before, that is just not the case, and because that HIV can exist in a dormant case it is possible for people to be infected an not know it. You mentioned (I believe in another thread) that you shouldn't sleep with someone before you know their history and that it can take a long time to know their history. How long are you will to wait, 10 years? 15? What if they lie to you about their history, or if they slept with someone who lied to them. Still you mention that the probablities of transmission that way are low. However, if you choose not to deal with the problem, 20 years from now your chances won't be as low.

 

[SnapIT]

It's possible I could get struck by lightening, but I'm going to leave the house, anyway.

And if you do get struck you should recieve no treatment for your high risk behaviour? 😕

 

[skace]

I think tcsenter's point, which seems to have been overlooked somewhere in here, is that there are MANY OTHER drugs alongside AIDS where the victim did far less work to get an incurable disease. To prioritize one, where possibly, the majority of the victims got the drugs due to their own deviance (whether true or not, I'm not going to argue statistics) over one, where the majority did nothing out of the ordinary, seems silly. Or maybe this is just what I read out of this mess. I just want a working acne treatment 🙁.

hrm.. too lazy to edit soo.. Drugs = Diseases

 

[p0ntif]

Sheselectric, do you think you could explain to me how this deisgner virus cure works? From what I gather, this modified HIV virus is injected in patients who already are struggling with the virus, but failing. Then upon introduction of another form of HIV, somehow their immune systems cope with the other wild-type strains? Am I close? A lot of this was vague on the website, so I made some assumptions here. Are there longitudinal trials? Have you been able to produce a scientific paper on any of this?

 

[ElFenix]

i think tcsenter's posts can be summed up rather succinctly
1) theres a small segment of the population in the USA at high risk of contracting HIV, generally due to lifestyle (multiple sexual partners, intravenous drug users)

2) many of these people see HIV inhibitors as an excuse to continue with a high risk lifestyle, seeing as how the drugs have prolonged many people's lives (though i've heard the drugs have made magic lose touch with reality)

3) given the contraints we have on budget (research funding isn't unlimited) there may be other diseases that aren't preventable (genetic diseases i suppose) which deserve a larger piece of the funding, to the detriment of HIV, as people afflicted by them have no control over their risk factors. as he used in his example, when theres 1 ambulance and theres the gunman and the person the gunman shot lying there bleeding, you pick the victim.

so then we get to statistics (from the NIH fact sheet)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 850,000 to 950,000 U.S. residents are living with HIV infection, one-quarter of whom are unaware of their infection.

about 1/3 of 1%.

Approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year in the United States, about 70 percent among men and 30 percent among women.

seems to hit males far more than females.

Of new infections among men in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 60 percent of men were infected through homosexual sex, 25 percent through injection drug use, and 15 percent through heterosexual sex.

85% homosexual males and IV drug users

The estimated number of new adult/adolescent AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States was 49,407 in 1997, 42,508 in 1998, 40,671 in 1999, and 40,106 in 2000.

so they've dropped, but they're leveling off. the drop can be explained by people at high risk either already having contracted it or changed their lifestyles, the rest is mostly people starting a high-risk lifestyle, which is why "Of these newly infected people, half are younger than 25 years of age."

The estimated number of new pediatric AIDS cases (cases among individuals younger than age 13) in the United States fell from 949 in 1992 to 105 in 2000

either theres not a high risk of passing HIV on from mother to fetus, or HIV+ women aren't having children. this is the only statistic provided where the victim had no control over infection.

Of newly infected men, approximately 50 percent are black, 30 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups... Of newly infected women, approximately 64 percent are black, 18 percent are white, 18 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.

like many other social ills, AIDS appears to be a primarily black and hispanic phenomenon. like many other problems it is most likely a poverty/education problem, the roots of which are really beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[tcsenter]

This may have been true initially, but you have to consider this was also at a time when the exact cause of AIDS was still being disputed.

Errr, that is irrelevant. At the time, there was ample evidence that gays were the ONLY identifiable group being affected by this disease and it was thought to be a virus almost from the start. I don't know about you, but if I were told I may be carrying a potentially infectious disease, and I was asked not to give blood until more research could be done, I'd only be too happy to comply on the chance my arrogance and defiance might kill someone.

Once the cause was proven beyond a doubt, bathhouses were closed down by public health officials, etc.

Yep, until political pressure from the gay community got them all opened back up again within TWELVE MONTHS.

To make it more clear if I come up to you and stop telling you to do something without giving you a good reason why you should do it, you wouldn't stop either.

See above.

Again this was before there was an adequate test for HIV and was in response to a proposed ban on gay men donating to blood banks.

Yeah, I already stated that. By this time, the cause of AIDS had already been identified as viral. The Red Cross proposed the ban PRECISELY BECAUSE they knew it was an infectious virus that almost exclusively affected the gay population and they had no test to screen blood. The gay community, fully aware of this, balked at the proposal and the powerful homo-lobby forced the Red Cross to back away from its proposal, missing an opportunity to prevent the ONLY identifiable group carrying this virus from donating blood and passing the virus to blood recipients long before adequate screening measures were implemented.

Your statement that thousands of HIV+ men flocked to donate blood cannot possibily be true since there was no test for HIV at the time, unless you mean to imply that all gay men have HIV.

No, I mean that the most resistant, obstinant, obnoxious, and defiant representatives of the gay community were - SURPRISE - also those whose life-styles were most suspect and at risk for contracting HIV. You know the saying...thou doth protest too much?

It is known that HIV positive blood was donated by gay men who flocked to the blood banks to donate blood as a form of protest and defiance. This blood was used in transfusions. Ergo, homo-politics are responsible for the death of those people who contracted HIV.

It is not surprising that these men protested. Imagine the outrage of blood donations from blacks were banned because heptatitis and tuberculosis is more prevalant among their communities.

Hepatitis and tuberculosis are and have been well-understood for decades. Now, let us suppose that blacks were NEWLY FOUND to be the suffering from a NEWLY FOUND blood-borne and infectious virus that - BY ALL ACCOUNTS - only blacks were susceptible to and suffering from. It is believed though not proven the susceptibility is facilitated by a dispositional gene predominantly found within the black community, which parallels what we knew about AIDS in 1981, a whole lot better than your analogy.

In that case, no, blacks shouldn't be allowed to donate blood until more is understood about this NEWLY DISCOVERED virus and a reliable test is developed to screen blood. But hey, the risk of hurting the gay community's "feelings" CLEARLY outweighed the risk of killing thousands of people.

According to most sources this "booming" sub-culture is actually a small minority.

Sure, the pro-homo 'sources' who would like to pretend such a sub-culture doesn't exist at all and would do ANYTHING, even willfully killing people by allowing infectious blood to reach transfusion recipients and by their refusal to modify their life-styles because that would be an implicit statement that HIV was a 'gay' disease, they will go to ANY length of depraved indifference to prevent the perception that gays were and still are primarily afflicted by HIV. However, non-political sources say this subculture is as sizable as it was before the AIDS scare, and recent trends showing a turn-around in the decreasing number of new HIV transmissions among gay males bare this out. They have a 'cure', no need to take precautions, anymore.

I have given you many credible arguments, yet rather than addressing them intelligently you've simply chosen to ignore them and continue to spout old data or myths.

Never have I claimed AIDS was a "gay" disease. What I've said repeatedly is, that unless you are a homosexual (or bisexual), an IV drug user, a prostitute, any combination of the above, or any person whose pursuit of deviant, criminal, or otherwise high risk life-styles make it highly likely that they would have frequent and WITTING sexual relations with any of these high risk groups, the risks of contracting HIV are insignificant.

You cannot show that "heterosexual women are the fastest growing risk group" for HIV transmission UNLESS your sample of "heterosexual women" are PROSTITUTES.

You cannot show that "heterosexual women are the fastest growing risk group" for HIV transmission UNLESS your sample of "heterosexual women" have sexual relations with bisexual or IV drug using male partners WITTINGLY (prostitutes).

You cannot show that ANY group or person is at risk for contracting HIV if you eliminate any of the high risk factors I've mentioned above from your sample.

The idea that Mary Jane gets HIV from her non-drug using/non-bisexual boyfriend, who got it from a previous non-drug using/non-bisexual girlfriend, who got it from a previous non-drug using/non-bisexual boyfriend, etc., etc., is a COMPLETE MYTH. It doesn't happen.

The vast majority of all HIV transmissions are NO MORE THAN ONE TRANSMISSION REMOVED from one of the high risk groups: homosexual/bisexual, IV drug user, or both.

Which means, it is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that Mary Jane contracted HIV from a boyfriend who contracted HIV from a prior heterosexual contact.

It is EXTREMELY likely that Mary Jane got HIV from her boyfriend because he is/was/has at some point, engaged in homosexual relations, used IV drugs, or both.

70% of all "new" HIV infections are either homosexual, drug users, or both, but 93% of all male cases of HIV/AIDS reported to the CDC through 1998 are risk categorized as homosexual, IV drug use, or both.

That leaves 30% of all "new" HIV infections categorized as "heterosexual transmission". Heterosexual transmission is a 'sanitized' classification which does not account for the true nature of the sexual behavior that lead to transmission (i.e. a lot of these "heterosexual transmissions" are prostitutes).

Those are the undisputed facts, like it or not.

You have not yet given me a credible argument with real data (even though you claim to have done so). I acknowledge that HIV in the US started out as disease primarily among the gay community however,

It started as a disease EXCLUSIVELY among the gay community, not 'primarily'.

I will point out again that in the US 40% of HIV+ individuals are heterosexual (and that AIDS cases are steadily increasing among heterosexual women).

Umm...wrong. Remember the NIH statistics?

40,000 new cases of HIV every year:

4,200 <-- Men in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.

8,000 <-- Women in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.

12200 new cases of HIV contracted through heterosexual sex each year. That is 30.5% of new HIV transmissions. Guess how many of them are prostitutes?

You cannot show that AIDS cases are "steadily increasing among heterosexual women" unless your sample of "heterosexual women" are PROSTITUTES.

You cannot show there is ANY significant risk of contracting HIV if you eliminate the high risk factors. That is why AIDS has not become epidemic in the US and is extremely unlikely to. Most people, the VAST MAJORITY, aren't homosexual, bisexual, IV drug users, prostitutes, nor do they have sexual relations with any of these people, let alone associate with many of them. Did you think it was just some miraculous coinicidence that AIDS has never remotely approached epidemic proportions in the US? There is a REASON the vast majority of the population has not and will never contract HIV and it's certainly not because of 'dumb luck'.

Regardless of their social status (cretins as you describe them) you haven't told me what you hope to achieve by cutting AIDS funding. Let us ignore the ethics of that for a moment (since basic medical ethics are beyond your comprehension), what would you propose to do to contain and eliminate the problem?

The only thing I seek to accomplish is to restore a scale of proportionality to the funding for AIDS research based on the TRUE RISKS, not the misleading risks that "anyone can get AIDS" advanced by the pro-homo lobby.

Sure, "anyone" can get HIV, just like "anyone" can be killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Guess what? If you don't put a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger, what do you think your chances are of being killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head?

Similarly, what do you think your chances are of contracting HIV if you're not a homosexual (or bisexual), an IV drug user, both, or avoid having sexual relations with a member of these groups?

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Freejack2
Drug companies will never allow a cure to be found. The golden rule is if it's more profitable to treat the symptoms then there will be no cure.
I still wonder how many times a company has found a possible cure for something but supressed it because it was more profitable to keep treating the symptoms. Unless Aids progresses to a point were people drop dead nearly overnight there will never be a cure for it.

xzeroII - I take it back. You are a genius compared to this guy...

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Wow, I would have expected someone to at least discredit me by proving my points wrong, but you have just gone overboard. Ok, since you seem to know so much about this process, why didn't you put the "real" way it's done in there? Because you are an 8 year old! Did you know that there are cures for certain types of Cancer that are available in other countries but are not allowed in the US because it killed maybe 3 people during testing (of thousands). I saw this on Fox News, so it's not the most reliable, but it's not the Tabloids either.

Okay - here we go:

What will most likely happen is that it will sit in testing for about 5-6 years.

Drugs do not "sit" in testing. A drug company performs trials in order to prove to the FDA that it is safe and effective. This takes several trials, several years, and potentially several hundred million dollars. The drug companies have an incentive to make this happen quickly: they can't sell it until it is safe and effective

After that time, if no more than 2 people die (doesn't even have to be from the vaccine) then it will be distributed quietly to the wealthy and people who will pay tons of money for it.

HaHa - that makes me laugh.

1. that is NOT a way to make money
2. the FDA would not allow it
3. the public wouldn't stand for it

After they have been milked, there will be a big announcement and they will announce that supplies are limited and it will cost a lot of money.

The big announcement will come about 5 seconds after FDA approval. Even if the drug company decided not to play it up in the media for this so-called milking of the wealthy, the fact that FDA approvals are public domain would pretty much mean that the news media would take care of it.

After a few years, the price will come down slowly.

True - after the immense cost of drug development has been recouped, the price drops. BTW, take a class in economics - that is how it works in pretty much every industry ever... but you weren't trying to spin it as some sort of conspiracy or anything...

Of course the cure will not be one shot or anything, it will take years and many injections and return visits to the hospitals before you are 'cured'.

Really? you have some insight here? Are you sure that the miracle cure that is an unlikely scenario as they come will be for injection only? rightttttttt.......

About 10 - 15 years after the cure is discovered, some politician will announce that his/her goal is to erradicate it and then the poor will get some.

Where do you get this stuff, the National Enquirer?

Sadly, this is the only way it works.

Sadly you believe this

Of course, this all depends on there being no side effects whatsoever to the vaccine because if there are any, the gov't won't allow it to be distributed. They seem to do that quite often when it comes to good medicine.

Start with the examples right now or STFU!

Just to throw out some drugs with side effects recently approved:

Plavix
Side effects reported in clinical trials include (but are not limited to) the following:

Pruritus (localized or generalized itching)
Purpura (purple discoloring of the skin)
Diarrhea
Rash
Severe neutropenia (decrease in white blood cells)

Protonix
Adverse events associated with the use of Protonix (pantoprazole) may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Diarrhea
Rash
Abdominal pain
Flatulence
Nausea
Vomiting

Sustiva
Adverse events associated with the use of Sustiva may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Skin rash (more common in children)
Dizziness
Depression
Anxiety
Nausea
Fatigue
Impaired concentration
Abnormal dreaming

Vioxx
Side effects reported with Vioxx have included (but are not limited to) the following:

Upper respiratory infection
Headache
Dizziness
Diarrhea
Nausea
Heartburn
Hypertension
Back pain
Tiredness
Urinary tract infection
Additionally, rare but serious side effects have been reported in patients receiving Vioxx and/or related medications. These include stomach problems, such as stomach and intestinal bleeding, heart attacks, allergic reactions and skin reactions.

And to address your 8-year old comment - I didn't feel the need to discredit your post comment by comment because it was self-evident that your post was either the hyperbole of a herbal medication nut or the rantings of the truly misinformed. And Fox News is barely a step above tabloid....

 

[Ganryu]

tcsenter, again you have tried to counter my points with incorrect arguments.

Quote:

"Errr, that is irrelevant. At the time, there was ample evidence that gays were the ONLY identifiable group being affected by this disease and it was thought to be a virus almost from the start. "

This is not true, there were many cases (both in the US and abroad) that occured in heterosexual men and women who had never been drug users or had contact with homosexuals. You do realize that HIV probably did not originate in homosexual men but in heterosexuals in Africa, correct?

Quote

"I don't know about you, but if I were told I may be carrying a potentially infectious disease, and I was asked not to give blood until more research could be done, I'd only be too happy to comply on the chance my arrogance and defiance might kill someone."

Your arrogance and defiance about the WORLDWIDE effects of HIV (i.e. people in dunghill countries don't matter, etc) would kill many if others had the same view, so you can see why I would not believe you when you say you would comply with such an order.

Quote

"Yep, until political pressure from the gay community got them all opened back up again within TWELVE MONTHS."

You do realize that at this point in time the gay community had virtually no political clout outside of one county in San Francisco.

Quote

"Yeah, I already stated that. By this time, the cause of AIDS had already been identified as viral. The Red Cross proposed the ban PRECISELY BECAUSE they knew it was an infectious virus that almost exclusively affected the gay population and they had no test to screen blood. The gay community, fully aware of this, balked at the proposal and the powerful homo-lobby forced the Red Cross to back away from its proposal, missing an opportunity to prevent the ONLY identifiable group carrying this virus from donating blood and passing the virus to blood recipients long before adequate screening measures were implemented."

The cause of AIDS had been identified as being viral but no test was available. Your rhetoric defies common logic. Even if all cases of HIV (which they were not) occurred only in gays, not all gays had HIV. Can you comprehend that logic? Again, if you had HIV you were probably gay but if you were gay, you did not necessarily have HIV. It goes against basic civil rights to discriminate that way. I assume, maybe incorrectly, that you care about people's civil rights?

Quote

"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will point out again that in the US 40% of HIV+ individuals are heterosexual (and that AIDS cases are steadily increasing among heterosexual women).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Umm...wrong. Remember the NIH statistics?

40,000 new cases of HIV every year:

4,200 <-- Men in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.

8,000 <-- Women in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.

12200 new cases of HIV contracted through heterosexual sex each year. That is 30.5% of new HIV transmissions."

You have to add in cases acquired through IV drug use as well.. you can't assume all drug users are also homosexual. So this number is definitely greater than 30.5% Also, of new cases, 30% are in women, again you can't assume that the 70% men are 100% homosexual.

Quote"

Guess how many of them are prostitutes?"

I don't know... tell me.. you don't always include numbers.. just blind statements like this.

Quote

"The idea that Mary Jane gets HIV from her non-drug using/non-bisexual boyfriend, who got it from a previous non-drug using/non-bisexual girlfriend, who got it from a previous non-drug using/non-bisexual boyfriend, etc., etc., is a COMPLETE MYTH. It doesn't happen."

WRONG it does happen.. I acknowledge that it is not frequent.

I would like to point this out. AIDS is now the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among people aged 25 to 44, and is the leading cause of death for black men in this age group. This is from national statistics.. this is not just prostitues and gays that were polled but is a reflection of the entire population.

You still have not proposed an solution to the problem of containment of the disease and existing HIV infected patients (fourth time I've asked you), which is occuring both in the US (I agree it is not yet at epidemic proportions in the US, but if you bury your head in the dirt, it has the potential to be in about 20 years) and definitely worldwide. It is also not sufficient for you to say that you don't care about the problem worldwide since it doesn't affect you (it does affect you, but apparently you are only able to see things in the short term).

 

[p0ntif]

Originally posted by: sheselectric
I agree that in the beginning a cure will be so expensive that only the very wealthy will be able to afford it. I have no doubt that one day, though, AIDS will be eradicated.

My father discovered the cure for AIDS. The viral count in patients who already have full-blown AIDS dramatically decreases when they use my dad's cure. However, he still has not received FDA approval in the U.S., so he has been marketing it overseas for the past 7 or so years. I think that's not necessarily a bad thing, considering most of the AIDS cases are in Sub-Saharan Africa/India/Southeast Asia.

just thouight this was funny . . . had to quote it in my sig 😉

 

[Orsorum]

Just thought I would admit to my carelessness in my thread title...

By "cure", I am referring to two separate things - first, a treatment/supplement that acts as an inhibitor to the AIDS virus for those that already have the virus. Second, a vaccine that prevents against parasitic infection in the first place.

Although I think everyone's gotten the jist of it now. 🙂

 

[ElFenix]

hmmm... even when provided statistics in the thread i see they are ignored.

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
hmmm... even when provided statistics in the thread i see they are ignored.

Statistics are provided, but I think the difficulty lies in how they're being interpreted. If I have a good half-hour to sit down tomorrow, I'll sit down and look at the different ones that have been provided and how the studies were conducted, etc.

Suffice it to say, numbers don't always indicate a clear correlation.

 

[p0ntif]

Originally posted by: Zakath15
Just thought I would admit to my carelessness in my thread title...

By "cure", I am referring to two separate things - first, a treatment/supplement that acts as an inhibitor to the AIDS virus for those that already have the virus. Second, a vaccine that prevents against parasitic infection in the first place.

Although I think everyone's gotten the jist of it now. 🙂

Well then that's all been done already 😉 There have been numerous treatments/supplements that reduce viral load. Secondly, parasitic infection is usually caused due to the dwindling state of the immune system. Anti-biotics are relatively commonplace last I checked . . .

So yeah, it makes more sense if when you say 'Cure' you actually mean 'cure'.

 

[tcsenter]

This is not true, there were many cases (both in the US and abroad) that occured in heterosexual men and women who had never been drug users or had contact with homosexuals.

Sure, but they had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion or receiving blood products (hemophiliacs). The first reported "heterosexually transmitted" cases of AIDS would not come until early 1983 and even they were mainly spouses or partners of hemophiliacs or blood transfusion recipients. Until late 1982 at the very latest, there were NO heterosexuals dying of AIDs who had NOT contracted HIV through IV drug use, a blood transfusion, or receiving blood products.

More than 90% of those who had died or were dying of AIDS in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco hospitals through 1983 were in fact homosexual men, the other 10% were IV drug users or hemophiliacs. You seem to be the only idiot who does not know that AIDS EXCLUSIVELY afflicted homosexuals for some time, then appeared in IV drug users, hemophiliacs and a Haitian immigrant cohort (likely IV drug users), before there was EVER a case of heterosexually transmitted AIDS.

You do realize that HIV probably did not originate in homosexual men but in heterosexuals in Africa, correct

If you believe that a white homosexual endemic in San Francisco, New York City (Manhattan), and Los Angeles, originated from a black heterosexual endemic in Central Africa, both of which appeared suddenly in the late 1970's and almost simultaneously several thousand miles apart, buddy I've got several bridges to sell you!

Your arrogance and defiance about the WORLDWIDE effects of HIV (i.e. people in dunghill countries don't matter, etc) would kill many if others had the same view, so you can see why I would not believe you when you say you would comply with such an order.

Ever heard of this thing called "cause and effect"? My position is neither arrogant nor defiant by any objective sense of the word, but even if it were, I wouldn't be killing any one. HIV is killing them, not me.

However, I would be DIRECTLY responsible for the death of anyone who received an infectious disease from my blood AFTER I was informed I may be at risk for having a potentially infectious disease and should not donate blood, but donated anyway. That's "cause and effect".

You do realize that at this point in time the gay community had virtually no political clout outside of one county in San Francisco.

The homos had no political clout in the Bay Area until recently? lol! Now you're just being ridiculous! Homo politics have been a force in the Bay Area since the 1970's. Linda Marsha, a health columnist who parrots the same 'gay-denial' revisionist history of the AIDS you do, wrote in a Los Angeles Times article entitled "A Legacy of Change":

"It was a sheer accident that AIDS first struck a relatively cohesive group: young homosexuals in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, many of whom had honed their organizational and political skills during the gay rights movements of the 1970s."

BTW, here is a chronology of the HIV-infested homo bath situation in San Francisco during 1984 which sheds some light on this "virtually no political clout" you speak of:

-March-

A gay activist proposes a ballot initiative to shut down bath houses, citing evidence that hundreds of homosexual men have contracted HIV in bath houses and are dying or dead. He is chided and shunned by an outraged gay community.

-April-

San Francisco health officials prohibit 'unsafe' sex in bathhouses instead of closing them.

Mayor Feinstein issues formal statement that Silverman should close baths. Under pressure from the homo lobby, Silverman responds that he will recommend "guidelines" for safe sex in baths instead of closing.

-May-

Board of Supervisor's president Wendy Nelder chides Silverman for delays in proposing sex guidelines for baths. Silverman replies that he is waiting for board to transfer authority to regulate baths from police to health department.

Silverman orders bathhouse surveillance for unsafe sex.

Board of Supervisors delays action on giving health department authority to regulate baths until after Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Maybe gay bath houses were a major attraction for Democratic National Convention attendees?

-August-

After gay lobbying, Board of Supervisors kills move to give Silverman regulatory power over baths before even getting out of committee.

-September-

60 physicians at Pacific Medical Center sign petition asking baths to be closed.

-October-

Silverman closes baths and private sex clubs as "menace" to public health. Baths and private sex clubs reopen hours later under pressure from gay lobby. I was wrong about it being "months" later, it was hours later.

-November-

Activist Superior Court Judge Roy Wonder, sympathetic to the homo lobby, rules baths can remain open if monitored for safe sex practices every 10 minutes.

-December-

Silverman resigns as director of SFDPH due to constant scrutiny and controversy.

The cause of AIDS had been identified as being viral but no test was available. Your rhetoric defies common logic.

By mid-1982, there was near unanimity among epidimiologists and other investigators researching this immuno-deficiency illness that its etiology was an infectious agent, the most likely candidate believed to a virus, due to Gallo's pioneering work in lymphotrophic retrovirology in the 1970's.

HTLV-III (Gallo) and LAV (Montagnier) were isolated in 1983 and believed to be the underlying infectious viral agent which causes AIDS. This was the first scientific evidence pointing to a particularized infectious viral agent. In April of 1984, it was publicly announced that the cause of AIDS had been conclusively found to be HTLV-III/LAV, later redesignated HIV. The first commercial test to screen blood donors (ELISA) would not become available until March of 1985. The more accurate Western Blot would not become available until 1987.

So...which part of that chronology don't you understand? I'll be happy to explain it all again if you like.

Even if all cases of HIV (which they were not) occurred only in gays, not all gays had HIV. Can you comprehend that logic? Again, if you had HIV you were probably gay but if you were gay, you did not necessarily have HIV.

You're deliberately mincing words here. If you had AIDS, it was not just 'probable' that you were gay, it was EXTREMELY probable that you were gay, until recently. I never stated all gays or even most had AIDS.

It goes against basic civil rights to discriminate that way. I assume, maybe incorrectly, that you care about people's civil rights?

Umm...hello! Since 1985, the Red Cross has prohibited homosexuals from donating blood. It WOULD have been Red Cross policy since 1982, saving countless lives, but the homo lobby proved that it cared more about its "feelings" than killing innocent blood product recipients.

IV drug users and prostitutes are also prohibited from donating blood. Are you trying to say that we are violating the "civil rights" of IV drug users and prostitutes? There are also bans on people who have had sex with IV drug users and prostitutes within the previous 12 months. Are we violating their civil rights?

There is NO civil rights question here. When there is justification to prohibit any identifiable group from donating blood because they undeniably pose an intolerable risk to the blood pool, they can and should be prohibited from donating blood...unless of course you have a noisey and obnoxious lobby who would rather see innocent blood recipients pay a fatal price for your own deviant and high risk life-style choices than to accept ANY restriction on your "liberties" no matter how minor, insignificant, prudent, justified, or necessary for the safety of others.

I'll get to the rest of your comments later...

 

[tcsenter]

You have to add in cases acquired through IV drug use as well.. you can't assume all drug users are also homosexual. So this number is definitely greater than 30.5% Also, of new cases, 30% are in women, again you can't assume that the 70% men are 100% homosexual.

There are 40,000 NEW HIV infections annually, according to the NIH which is citing the CDC. Remember the neat chart that Legendary was so kind to provide us, which you apparently didn't look at?

Men:
40,000 x .7 = 28,000 <-- Men in the US who get AIDS in one year.
28,000 x .6 = 16,800 <-- Men in the US who gets AIDS from homosexual sex.
28,000 x .25 = 7,000 <-- Men in the US who gets AIDS from injection drug use.
28,000 x .15 = 4,200 <-- Men in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.

Women:
40,000 x .3 = 12,000 <-- Women in the US who gets AIDS in one year.
12,000 x .75 = 8,000 <-- Women in the US who gets AIDS from heterosexual sex.
12,000 x .25 = 4,000 <-- Women in the US who gets AIDS from injection drug use.

He even broke it down all nice and stuff into each risk category for both men and women. Don't you think its rather rude of you to show your appreciation to him for all this hard work by failing to even look at it?

85% of all new male HIV infections are homosexual or IV drug related. 15% are classified in the "sanitized" heterosexual sex category, which includes having sex with IV drug users, or prostitutes.

75% of all new female HIV infections are classified in the "sanitized" heterosexual sex category, which includes BEING a prostitute, having sex with IV drug users, having sex with bisexual men, etc.

WRONG it does happen.. I acknowledge that it is not frequent.

Infrequent? lol! You're right, I shouldn't have stated it "doesn't happen". After all, people DO get attacked by sharks...in fresh water! Infrequent = rare, unlikely, insignificant risk.

I would like to point this out. AIDS is now the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among people aged 25 to 44, and is the leading cause of death for black men in this age group. This is from national statistics..

Well, sort of...

AIDS is NOT the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among just ANY PEOPLE aged 25 to 44. Remember, statistics don't lie, liars use statistics?

One could also say because there are approximately 17,000 suicides by firearm in the US annually, the odds of committing suicide by firearm are approximately 1 in 16,000. Neat, eh? Except there's one problem. If you don't put a gun to your head and pull the trigger, the odds of committing suicide by firearm fall rather drastically...like ZERO!

Similarly, if one is not a homosexual, bisexual, IV drug user, prostitute, any combination of the above, and does not have sexual relations with any member of these groups, the risks of contracting HIV are slim to slimmer. I won't say "none" because, after all, people do get attacked by sharks in fresh water.

BTW, suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among young people 15 to 24 years of age, following unintentional injuries and homicide. There were twice as many deaths in the US due to suicide than deaths due to HIV/AIDS in 1999. So you must be fully supportive of massive publicly funded suicide prevention programs costing AT LEAST as much as we spend on AIDS research...yes?

this is not just prostitues and gays that were polled but is a reflection of the entire population.

You're right, it's NOT just prostitutes and gays. Its prostitutes, IV drug users, gays, all of the above, and people who have sexual intercourse with prostitutes, IV drug users, gays, or all of the above, and, to an extreme lesser extent, a few others who do not fit any of the above.

And no it is NOT a reflection of the "entire population", no more than the 'world HIV statistics' are representative of 'the world'. Have you forgotten our 'liars use statistics' lesson? You seem to be having great difficulty with that.

You still have not proposed an solution to the problem of containment of the disease and existing HIV infected patients (fourth time I've asked you),

As I've said, I have no interest in spending tens of billions annually to prevent or cure a disease which is already easily preventable if people desire to prevent it and does NOT threaten more than a distinctly small and easily identifiable subset of the population who willfully choose to engage in high risk, deviant, and often criminal life style choices.

There are more deserving causes, such as any number of diseases that a much larger percentage of the population are at risk for, are not easily prevented even if people were willing to go to extreme lengths to do so, diseases which are visited upon people through no fault of their own.

It is also not sufficient for you to say that you don't care about the problem worldwide since it doesn't affect you (it does affect you, but apparently you are only able to see things in the short term).

How on earth does AIDS affect me other than my contributions as a tax payer? I'm not a homosexual, IV drug user, I don't have sex with any members of these groups nor do I patron prostitutes.

 

[GasX]

tcsenter - I love watching you work. You are so right but people don't "get it" and keep arguing with you.

To all you blockheads who don't get it:

Keep your dick in your pants and you wont' get HIV.
If you do take it out, make sure you have sex with a woman
who is NOT a prostitute...
who is NOT an IV drug user
who is NOT having sex with IV drug user

If you can follow these rules you can stop worrying about HIV and focus on syphillis, herpes and chlamydia instead...

AND WRAP THAT RASCAL!!!

 

[Ganryu]

Quote:

"If you believe that a white homosexual endemic in San Francisco, New York City (Manhattan), and Los Angeles, originated from a black heterosexual endemic in Central Africa, both of which appeared suddenly in the late 1970's and almost simultaneously several thousand miles apart, buddy I've got several bridges to sell you!"

If you believe that two extremely genetically similar strains of virus appeared simultaneously in two different parts of the world independently of each other, I have even more bridges to sell you.

Quote

"Ever heard of this thing called "cause and effect"? My position is neither arrogant nor defiant by any objective sense of the word, but even if it were, I wouldn't be killing any one. HIV is killing them, not me.

However, I would be DIRECTLY responsible for the death of anyone who received an infectious disease from my blood AFTER I was informed I may be at risk for having a potentially infectious disease and should not donate blood, but donated anyway. That's "cause and effect."

I don't think you understood what I was saying. I said if other people share your views on HIV (I mean your views on HIV worldwide) and decided to bury their heads in the dirt, then we would have a big problem. Cause and effect? If your child cuts himself badly on a sharp object and you choose to sit there and watch him bleed to death of course you didn't cause him to die, the sharp object did.

Quote:

"health columnist who parrots the same 'gay-denial' revisionist history of the AIDS you do"

I did not deny that HIV was primarily affecting gay people back in the early 80s. I do have a problem with you trying to apply 80s statistics in 2002 and I have a problem with you accusing me of revisionist history when all I am saying is that it is incorrect to call it a "gay disease" if there are others other than gays who have it. It was not all homosexuals, there were some heterosexuals who were drug users and those who were hemophiliacs. The hemophiliacs were not necessarily all children, and presumably they infected their partners as well.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cause of AIDS had been identified as being viral but no test was available. Your rhetoric defies common logic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By mid-1982, there was near unanimity among epidimiologists and other investigators researching this immuno-deficiency illness that its etiology was an infectious agent, the most likely candidate believed to a virus, due to Gallo's pioneering work in lymphotrophic retrovirology in the 1970's.

HTLV-III (Gallo) and LAV (Montagnier) were isolated in 1983 and believed to be the underlying infectious viral agent which causes AIDS. This was the first scientific evidence pointing to a particularized infectious viral agent. In April of 1984, it was publicly announced that the cause of AIDS had been conclusively found to be HTLV-III/LAV, later redesignated HIV. The first commercial test to screen blood donors (ELISA) would not become available until March of 1985. The more accurate Western Blot would not become available until 1987.

So...which part of that chronology don't you understand? I'll be happy to explain it all again if you like."

Yes, please explain it to me again. You just stated in your own paragraph that in 1982 epidemiologists determined that it was probably a viral agent. But it was not until 1985 that the first tests were available (and keep in mind these were not totally accurate, I believe they were only 87% accurate) and 1987 when the more accurate test became available. So you wanted to ban all gays in that interim time?


Quote:

"IV drug users and prostitutes are also prohibited from donating blood. Are you trying to say that we are violating the "civil rights" of IV drug users and prostitutes? There are also bans on people who have had sex with IV drug users and prostitutes within the previous 12 months. Are we violating their civil rights?"

It is NOT a violation of civil rights to bar IV drug users. It IS a violation of civil rights to bar all blacks saying that a large percentage of them are IV drug users. Do you understand the difference?

Quote:

"Well, sort of...

AIDS is NOT the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among just ANY PEOPLE aged 25 to 44. Remember, statistics don't lie, liars use statistics?"

Um.. yes it was at least in 1999, it might be higher now.. my statistic was from "Deaths: Final Data for 1999," prepared by the CDC?s National Center for Health Statistics, a comprehensive report on mortality patterns in the United States, based on ALL death records in the United States for 1999.

Quote:

"BTW, suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among young people 15 to 24 years of age, following unintentional injuries and homicide. There were twice as many deaths in the US due to suicide than deaths due to HIV/AIDS in 1999. So you must be fully supportive of massive publicly funded suicide prevention programs costing AT LEAST as much as we spend on AIDS research...yes?"

Not necessarily on suicide prevention programs, but the NIMH and NIH and other organizations provide a very large amount of funding for neurological and psychiatric diseases which contribute to suicide.

Quote:

"As I've said, I have no interest in spending tens of billions annually to prevent or cure a disease which is already easily preventable if people desire to prevent it and does NOT threaten more than a distinctly small and easily identifiable subset of the population who willfully choose to engage in high risk, deviant, and often criminal life style choices"

And I've said before as well, it just does not work this way.. If you look back through my posts, I do agree that the chance you will get HIV is extremely low if you do not live a high risk life style, however, you cannot just cure the disease (or even contain it) by acknowledging that since most people will not comply. You haven't yet offered a solution (your "final solution" perhaps?) as to the containment the HIV spread and the maintanance of those who have it now.

Also it is apparent from your posts, but I would like to hear it from your mouth, that you do not seem to value all human lives the same way. According to your posts those you got a disease through no fault of their own (such as through a hereditary defect) are more deserving of health care, or research funding, than those who got it through risky behaviors such as unprotected homosexual sex or drug use? In addition, you do not care about the fact that worldwide HIV is reaching epidemic proportions (even you can't deny that) and you choose not to worry about it since they live in "dunghill countries" with their 40 children. You do understand that that is not very ethical or consistent with the ideals of health care (please do not respond by stating again that ethics don't matter or this isn't an ethical issue since ethics is a component of medical care and public health policy, unless you happened to skip those lectures at whatever medical institution you attended)?

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: p0ntif

Originally posted by: Zakath15
Just thought I would admit to my carelessness in my thread title...

By "cure", I am referring to two separate things - first, a treatment/supplement that acts as an inhibitor to the AIDS virus for those that already have the virus. Second, a vaccine that prevents against parasitic infection in the first place.

Although I think everyone's gotten the jist of it now. 🙂

Well then that's all been done already 😉 There have been numerous treatments/supplements that reduce viral load. Secondly, parasitic infection is usually caused due to the dwindling state of the immune system. Anti-biotics are relatively commonplace last I checked . . .

So yeah, it makes more sense if when you say 'Cure' you actually mean 'cure'.

Parasitic as in viral. God, I wish I'd watch my semantics. I generally take the two as interchangeable, although they are obviously quite different.

 

[Orsorum]

I'm not disputing tscenter's basic premise. For the actual volume of people affected by the AIDS virus every year, our tax dollars could be more proportionally distributed among research for disease that might have a definitive cure.

I think what most people are taking offense at is his lack of sympathy or consideration for those who do contract the virus... I had a friend in elementary school whose parents both died from AIDS, contracted through blood infusions. They had done nothing wrong, asides from needing a blood transfusion. And, yet, they fell victim. Am I saying that the majority of cases are contracted this way? No. But I am saying it does happen, and drastically reducing funding for AIDS research could harm those who had no part in contracting AIDS.

Likewise, and this sounds very wishy-washy... "What about the children in Africa?" To say that our social responsibility extends not to them, IMO, is fairly shortsighted. Should we devote all of our available resources to solving the problems of the African continent? Of course not. However, to ignore it, or to say that it's their problem alone, is, again, very shortsighted.

A concept I find frightening is the idea that the AIDS virus may mutate into something that is more easily transmittable (i.e. airborne, through saliva, etc). It is my understanding that the AIDS virus is a incredibly hardy virus (like most), constantly mutating and growing more resistant to current treatments. In that light, I would be willing to spend a considerable amount now to prevent an epidemic or pandemic in the future.

Again, I am not disputing your basic premise; however, I urge you to keep the "big picture" in mind.

<--- *sits back and waits for his points to be lamblasted*

 

[Ganryu]

Zakath, just a quick point.. HIV is hardy in the sense that it undergoes mutations that render it resistant to treatment or can lay dormant even in the presence of treatment.. its not hardy in the sense that outside of the body it dies very very quickly (unlike the flu for instance, which is one of the reasons its not transmissible through the air).

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: Ganryu
Zakath, just a quick point.. HIV is hardy in the sense that it undergoes mutations that render it resistant to treatment or can lay dormant even in the presence of treatment.. its not hardy in the sense that outside of the body it dies very very quickly (unlike the flu for instance, which is one of the reasons its not transmissible through the air).

I realize that it dies quickly when outside of the body, again, one of the reasons why I find the concept of it developing a mechanism that could enable it to survive outside of the body very scary. Or, even less than that, transmission through saliva, etc. What if it did mutate to a form where it had some sort of protection against the elements that cause it to perish outside of the body. (is it exposure to oxygen that kills the virus, or something else?)

Just my speculation... again, I'm not a molecular biologist, just an economics undergrad who's read too much in his lifetime, 😉.

 

[Orsorum]

Your attempt at Ivory Tower is kinda pathetic.

What is Ivory Tower?

 

[tcsenter]

A concept I find frightening is the idea that the AIDS virus may mutate into something that is more easily transmittable (i.e. airborne, through saliva, etc). It is my understanding that the AIDS virus is a incredibly hardy virus (like most), constantly mutating and growing more resistant to current treatments. In that light, I would be willing to spend a considerable amount now to prevent an epidemic or pandemic in the future.

The premise of your fear is not unfounded, though it is extremely unlikely that HIV will ever become airborne.

It was no 'coinicidence' that HIV made its debut in the US and virtually every other western country in the world exclusively among a particularized high-risk subculture of extremely promiscuous homosexual men whose immune systems were destroyed by hundreds if not thousands of interactions involving sexual practices any sane person would find disturbing and repulsive, of which the late Michael Callen is perfectly representative. In his book "Surviving AIDS", Callen gave us a level of candor that is not found among the radical homosexuals who will argue it was only an 'accident' or 'coincidence' that the port-of-entry (pun intended) for AIDS into every Western society in the world was the notoriously promiscuous homosexual:

"I calculated that since becoming sexually active in 1973, I had racked up more than three thousand different sexual partners in bathhouses, back rooms, meat racks, and tearooms. As a consequence I also had the following sexually transmitted diseases, many more than once: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, non-A/non-B hepatitis; herpes simplex Types I and II; venereal warts; giardia lamblia and entamoeba histolytica; shigella flexneri and salmonella; syphilis; gonorrhea; nonspecific urethritis; chlamydia; cytomegalovirus (CMV), and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) mononucleosis; and eventually cryptosporidiosis."

Gay radicals like Edmund White who inserted themselves at the fore-front of the 'gay liberation' movement, preached to young gay audiences that they should "wear their sexually transmitted diseases like red badges of courage in a war against a sex-negative society." Callen and other young gays looking for ways to relieve the emotional and social consequences of having sex with men in a heterosexual world, became intoxicated by the Radical Gay movement and began to believe: "Every time I get the clap I'm striking a blow for the sexual revoluation."

Callen wrote: "Some of us believed we could change the world through sexual liberation and that we were taking part in a noble experiment. Unfortunately...this level of sexual activity resulted in concurrent epidemics of syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis, amoebiasis, venereal warts and, we discovered too late, other pathogens. Unwittingly, and with the best of revolutionary intentions, a small subset of gay men managed to create disease settings equivalent to those of poor Third World nations in one of the richest nations on earth."

Another small subset of the population with chronically damaged immune systems would be the next stage for the spread of HIV - IV drug users and hemophiliacs. It was through these populations that HIV likely mutated into more robust strains that would infect healthy individuals through low-risk sexual contact.

Now that we have a 'cure' of sorts, a complex therapy of protease inhibitors and other antivirals, which if not taken religiously like clock-work, every day for the rest of their life, will facilitate the mutation of drug-resistant strains of HIV against which all our best medications will be ineffective. Its already happening, especially among this very same sub-culture of notoriously promiscuous homosexuals who are returning to the bath houses because there is no need for precautions anymore - they have a pill.

It is well known that the more poor and ignorant a population is, the more non-compliant they will be to medical advice, especially complex medical therapies. In Africa, the mass-distribution or availability of these therapies to populations who don't even know how to tell time in order to take their medications precisely as they should, will only faciliate mass drug resistant mutations of HIV which undoubtedly will become more robust and infectious as well.

Presumptions that we will just find better medications are just that - one big [and potentially dangerous] presumption.

What is Ivory Tower?

Hmmm, did I write that? I don't know why I use words I don't want to use sometimes, they just pop into my head and I write them down.

I meant Moralistic Tower, by attempting to seize the moral high ground in an issue and portray your opponent as a 'dirty, rotten, uncaring, and all around bad' person because his opinions differ from yours. Its like calling someone a racist, or homophobe, an attempt to shut down the debate because you don't want to deal with their arguments.