the AIDS thread

Last week I threw a couple coins into one of those AIDS research buckets as I do every now and again. On the bucket it said something like "Every 5 minutes someone contracts HIV". For some reason I just thought about it now and I begun to wonder who are these people? I don't know or have heard of anyone I've met contracting AIDS. And its not like all the people I know are people who have a healthy paranioa about this kind of thing. I can't think of many more horrible ways to die then getting aids. Getting told "you have aids" would be such a head fuck.

This is such a weird topic. I don't even know why I'm thinking about this stuff. Mabye its because there was lots of talk (went to school in a junky inhabitted area, played in the local park at lunch time) of junky syringes in my youth and I now have a phobia. Meh ... Anyway discuss ..

I had to take a saliva test for my life insurance, i didnt think anything of it until i got an envelope opened it and the first line said, THIS IS THE RESULT OF YOUR HIV TEST (something along those lines), i freaked out sincei didnt know that's what the exam was for, but i read all nervous like and im clean niggas!!, so yea, everyone should take an hiv test. Even if it's only been a few people youve slept with, better safe then sorry.

I've met plenty of poeple who have HIV...

If you dont drink, smoke and take drugs you can hold AIDS off for a long time... Its not as bad as its made out to be...There are plenty of STd's which are worse yet are not nearly as notorious

The bad thing is that once someone gets Diagnosed then they WILL drink alot, smoke and generally fuck around and be unhealthy which is inviting AIDS to kick in..

Oh, if you go to Africa don't fuck whores on trucking routes, bad buissness that...

No offence to any Africans on the board. But that place seems like the most dirty, dilapidated, hostile and generally fucked up country ever. One of my friends mother went to S.A on a film making expedition. Got pricked by some random thorn Bush and couldnt walk properly for a month. I've been to a couple run down countries. But for some reason that story just makes africa seem really hectic to me. Probably because I get scratched up all the time.

Anyway back to the topic.

So what are those people you've met like ? I'm aware generalising isn't really something you can do with this kind of topic. But like I said it just suprises me that I've never met anyone considering its meant to be so rampant. Where the stereo types true ? Were they homosexuals or uber smackies ? ..

I have a few clients who have hiv...all of them are homosexual. I guess that's where the stereotype comes from.

Originally posted by SilentBob

No offence to any Africans on the board. But that place seems like the most dirty, dilapidated, hostile and generally fucked up country ever.

Did you actually mean country ?

As for the fact a person contracts aids evey 5 mins, the huge majority of this is in africa. I'm not sure of the percentage but the portion of the very large african population that has contracted aids is just enormous, although one should be critical of these figures as it's nearly impossible to get a precise census of african population. Nevertheless, that would explain why "you haven't met anyone with aids" although that's a weird way to put it. Anyway, i couldn't find figures about aids in Africa but if someone could drop them here it would be interesting to see.

aids has also picked up the pace in places in asia, like the phillepines,

where teenage prostitution is abundant.

i personally dont think i know anyone with aids, but who knows?

I'm sure many people prefer to be discreet about such a thing unless they really need to tell.

After all, people with aids and other stds are treated as social lepers.

Russia is pretty badly infected too. Saw a documentary - pretty nasty

The woman i met has got a good life.She went of a serious depression/ drud binge for a while but pulled it together has c uple of kids who are clean and Her fucking hubby fucks her without condom. He reckons "if he gets it, he gets it, Hes not too concerned"

i was pretty shocked when i heard that

Originally posted by CinchedWaist

aids has also picked up the pace in places in asia, like the phillepines,

where teenage prostitution is abundant.

i personally dont think i know anyone with aids, but who knows?

I'm sure many people prefer to be discreet about such a thing unless they really need to tell.

After all, people with aids and other stds are treated as social lepers.

Yes. I also read that India could be hit in the next decades by a huge AIDS epidemic. Makes you shudder.

thank reagan for ignoring it in the 80's

Originally posted by SilentBob

No offence to any Africans on the board. But that place seems like the most dirty, dilapidated, hostile and generally fucked up country ever.

well thanks to mighty whitie africa is fucked. And now it continues to be fucked cause 90% of african leaders are out for self and in the last 50 years each of those said leaders fleece their country and retire/exile to a friendly nation where they live like the kings they were in africa; while their countrymen, starve, fight and make backwards progress.

When i was in wesrt africa last i saw signs, aprroved by the church saying, "CONDOMS CAUSE AIDS". WTF is that.

Nigerias most popular singer, died of aids, but went to his death bed say aids was a false hood made up by america to make africans weak. he had a huge following of young men who now believe the lie and where no protection at all.

On the flip side some of the women on those truck routes in east Africa, are now being studied. Its been descovered that some of the ladies have developed aids imunities. These imunities have been found NO where but africa. AFRICA STRONG STRONG; oibo weak.

the study leading to this discovery is kinda awesome let me see if i can find it.

oh. And africa is a continent not a country. there are 54 african nations.

http://www.africaguide.com/images/afrmap.gif'>

someone i know has hiv,he got it from shooting meth.its still hiv,not full blown aids though.

Not to sound like an ignorant brain-moron, but could someone please explain the difference between HIV and AIDS?

I must have been sick that day....

HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, is the virus that causes AIDS. AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is the name given for a variety of disease manifestations caused by HIV infection.

http://www.ivillagehealth.com/experts/infe...ba=adid=8360454

Originally posted by heavyLox

On the flip side some of the women on those truck routes in east Africa, are now being studied. Its been descovered that some of the ladies have developed aids imunities. These imunities have been found NO where but africa.

you know what, i've heard something similar.

There was this gay guy who was active in the bath houses in the 70's/80's...you know, like big orgy houses.

anyway, this guy was having sex pretty regularly with a whole bunch of guys. Soon enough, a bunch of his orgy friends were getting sick and dying. more and more and more of them died. By the time everyone found out about AIDS and all that, all of the guys he messed around with were dead.

Turned out he had a natural immunity, the same kind of immunity that those who survived the Black Plague had. Their doing all these tests on him to see if they can come up with some kind of cure.

crazy, huh?

Where did AIDS come from?

there is another strain [of HIV] on the rise as well

AIDS jumped the speices barrier due to poaching simians/monkeys and eating the bushmeat or getting the blood into humans' systems during processing of the animals.

the SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) is what jumped the species barrier to create the human version (the simian version does not harm simians/monkeys)

AIDS DID NOT COME FROM THE POLIO VACCINE (just in case anyone has heard or believed this bullshit)

this has been falsely reported in recent years and has been a grave detriment to health care work (on vaccines obviously) in africa.

very very sad.

Where did AIDS come from ?

(from Nature magazine, i am not putting the link because i think i get it [only] with a subscription)

ELEANOR LAWRENCE

The origin of the virus HIV-1, the main cause of the worldwide AIDS epidemic, has been a matter of debate ever since its discovery in 1983. Its origin in wild primates-the apes and monkeys-has long been accepted, but the question remained-which ones, and how could it have been transmitted? The first question is answered by a report in Nature: Beatrice H. Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA, and colleagues [from the USA, France and the UK] provide the most persuasive evidence yet that HIV-1 entered the human population from the chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, our nearest living relative.

From their analysis, it is now almost certain that HIV-1 entered the human population from chimpanzees of the subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which lives in equatorial west Africa, in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, where the HIV-1 virus is thought, on other evidence, to have emerged in humans.

Chimpanzees, like many other primates, harbour simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs). These closely resemble HIV but appear to co-exist far more successfully with their animal hosts, pointing to an ancient association between virus and host. These SIVs are the most likely candidates for the virus "ancestors" of human HIVs. A source for the less common human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-2, in SIVs fdrom the sooty mangabey monkey (Cercocebus atys) is already well established.

Of all primate SIVs, chimpanzee SIVs most closely resemble HIV-1, and they had always been a possible candidate for its source. But until now, only three chimpanzee SIV strains had ever been identified, in a mere handful of animals, and the question of origin could not be resolved. This was partly because of the very low prevalence of SIV in wild chimpanzees, the wide genetic divergence of one of the chimpanzee SIVs from the others, and the presence of SIV-infected chimpanzees in parts of Africa outside the presumed regions where AIDS originated.

One new clue was provided by Hahn and colleague's analysis of a completely new SIV strain, SIVcpz-US. DNA corresponding to this strain was isolated from the stored blood and lymph nodes of a wild-caught female chimpanzee who had been brought to a primate-breeding centre in the United States in the early 1960s and tested positive for SIVs in 1985, just before her death. This new strain clustered closely with the other HIV-1-like SIV strains, adding weight to the evidence for a chimpanzee origin of HIV-1.

But Hahn and colleagues took their analysis further, and this is what makes their conclusions so convincing. Molecular biologists had hitherto concentrated on the differences between the SIV viruses themselves - Hahn and colleages thought also to look at differences between their chimpanzee hosts. They decided to determine the distribution of the known SIV strains in the four subspecies of Pan troglodytes, by genetic typing the mitochondrial DNA from infected animals.

And the results proved immensely rewarding. There are four subspecies of chimpanzee in Africa, which have non-overlapping geographical ranges, but all known SIV-infected animals belong to just two of these subspecies. And, most tellingly, the three SIV strains that most closely resemble each other and HIV-1 all come from animals identified as the subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes, whose geographical range in equatorial west Africa is consistent with the region where AIDS is thought, on other grounds, to have emerged. The one anomalous SIVcpz, SIVcpzANT, proved to come from a different subspecies, Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, with a different distribution, further to the east, and has probably played no part in the making of HIV-1.

Three types of HIV-1 are found in humans, the strains M (the most common), O and N (which is known from just two patients in Cameroon). It is likely that each of these represents an independent transmission from chimpanzees to humans.

Commenting on the work in an accompanying article in Nature, virologist Robin Weiss from the Windeyer Institute, University College London, and anthropologist Richard Wrangham from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, point out its implications for chimpanzee conservation and welfare. The greatest threat to the wild chimpanzee population in Africa is habitat destruction and hunting for food-bushmeat to feed logging camps and supply city restaurants. It is estimated that thousands of chimpanzees are killed each year, out of a population that can number at most a few hundred thousand. If the killing continues at the present rate, the chimpanzee is certainly doomed to extinction.

Confirmation of the chimpanzee as a source of precursor HIV viruses could provide conservationists with a powerful weapon to stop the killing. Virus transmission from an infected carcass during its butchery and preparation is an entirely plausible route of transfer of the virus into humans. But conservationists are in a dilemma. Would a campaign publicizing the dangers of killing apes for food prove the chimpanzees' salvation, or might it backfire into wholesale slaughter?

^^ I recall hearing something about the hookers somewhere in south east Asia (probably Thailand) that had something similar going on as well.

*edit* directed at Cinched's post.*

Maybe there are different strains that are not as strong as others, thereby spurring the body into making antibodies for HIV?

AIDS antibodies are so tough because the virus mutates according to its host.

that's partly why drug cocktails are needed to fight it, the thing just alters itself to become immune to drugs that fight it.

but AIDS comes from the monkeys that don't get sick from it.

and yeah, there's people who are living with it too

(magic's been infected for like 15 years)

it's a tough one

and likely not going away.

more strains will emerge.

we ain't seen NOTHIN yet.

yeah, magic's been living with it for so long but he has enough money for the meds.

Anyone have any clue how expensive the medication is?

ridiculous....if your not rich, your not going to be able to afford it.

Originally posted by !@#$%

AIDS antibodies are so tough because the virus mutates according to its host.

So what you're saying is that an AIDS vaccine would have to be custom tailored to the individual?

http://www.kak.ru/images/archive/13-14/zagmeister/02.jpg'>

just got tested, im clean. im glad.

effyoooooo...

not neccesarily.

i meant that while some people may have a natural immunity, others get AIDS from HIV really quick, others not so quick...

the differences in affliction are not fully understood, why it hits some people so hard, others not as hard...

it clearly is a virus that has a remarkable ability to sense the host, and adapt accordingly

(it was able to jump the species barrier for example and be very destructive)

it's really adaptive.

and i was just getting at that adaptation ability.

in the sense that, if the host is on meds, it might sense it, and change it's makeup.

im aids freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee in the 2004ola.

got tested about 3-4 months ago.

scariest shit everola.

its a nasty lil bugger.

I can't even imagine whats going to happen in the future when AIDS's ability to mutate outpaces our ability to develop drugs.

Its true, !@#$%, we ain't seen nothing yet.

werd.

far beyond AIDS, its emerging shit like Ebola and SARS and now a really shitty one: West Nile Virus.

what if a deadly ass disease was transmitted by mosquito?

um, like malaria?

this shit could fuck us all one day.

i saw a special on a very new one called 'nefa' or some shit.

... within a week, over 70% of people who have contracted it are dead.

SARS mortality rate was only like 10%

oh well not as rosey as i thought:

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/.../a/ai/aids.html

In some parts of Africa, HIV infects more than one in every four people.

Prior reports of resistance in humans have proven disappointing in the end: For example, among populations of African prostitutes who were regularly exposed to the virus through unsafe sex practices, some apparently immune individuals were described during the early 1990s and made the subjects of intensive research into mechanisms of natural resistance. However, eventually, each woman in the study became infected with HIV, and no useful data was produced to help with a vaccine.

Similarly, a handful of babies born to HIV+ mothers were described at birth as being HIV+ and later tested negative. Subsequent studies have shown that the testing method was at fault, and these babies never were infected with HIV. The earlier studies checked for antibodies against HIV, not the virus itself, and -- like all other kinds of antibodies in breast-fed babies -- these infants tested positive on the basis of their mothers' antibodies, which had been transmitted to them during feeding.

AIDS is fucking nuts... what fucking virus lives inside the white blood cells where RNA is supposed to go? That's fucked. That's why they can't treat that shit.

When those 100 or so marines came back from Liberia with ebola they came through the Bethesda Medical Center here and a friend of mine said he got sick just from using the same shower as them. Ebola is fucking disgusting.

West Nile... I hope to god I don't have that shit. I've been bit by a million mosquitos. I HATE THOSE FUCKING BEADY EYED, SYRINGE NOSED, BLOOD SUCKING BASTARDS!

I think the sciam article on SARS is spooky. Maybe I'll show you what I mean if I find the time.