
“In Africa, numbers are becoming astronomical, and it is obvious that the sex trade, immigration and sexual infidelity in married couples is spreading the virus. In these instances, very little testing is available.”
Perhaps the most shocking part of this quote is that, apparently, “in Africa, numbers are becoming astronomical” despite the fact that “very little testing is available”. How then can we reliably say anything at all about African numbers? I have mentioned in a previous piece that criteria for a positive HIV test in Africa are in fact much more lenient than they are anywhere else in the world, so it is a useless activity to make comparisons of any kind based upon numbers out of Africa, or worse, what we assume those numbers to be.
As to the “sex trade” spreading the virus, it seems to me that Africa is not the only place that prostitution is occurring, and furthermore, it has been shown time and again that prostitutes are not at risk for AIDS (or even HIV) unless they are also drug users.
I’m not exactly sure how “immigration” is spreading anything, particularly more so in Africa than in the rest of the world, where immigration is also occurring. However, the assumption that sexual infidelity among married couples is a worse problem in Africa than anywhere else appears to be based upon negative stereotypes rather than actual fact. Infidelity is, unfortunately, a fact of life no matter where one goes, and the idea that it is somehow worse in Africa smacks of the same sort of racism that has allowed people to so readily embrace the concept of men on the “down low” – a term that refers to black men (but not white ones!) who secretly cheat on their wives and girlfriends with other men.
“I am concerned that your analysis does not take into account HIV/AIDS around the world… In countries like the Ukraine, 70% of their intravenous drug users have HIV.”
Could it be because testing positive to HIV is, depending on your viewpoint, either the result of being infected by a virus that is extremely difficult to transmit or, in most if not all cases, has nothing to do with an exogenous infection at all, but is the result of having elevated levels of "non-specific" antibodies that react on these tests?
In fact, the data support the
idea that “HIV-positive” is not always the result of an infection. Much has been made of the Padian study, which cemented the
conclusion that HIV positivity is extremely difficult to transmit sexually,
but one study I find almost more damning is the Bruneau study,
which showed that drug users who participated consistently in needle
exchange programs had a rate of HIV infection that was at least three
times higher than that of drug users who did not participate in
clean needle programs – and that figure was determined after adjusting
for possible confounding variables. It is also worth noting that
in this study, clean needle use was associated with significantly
decreased hepatitis B infection, which ought to call into question
what exactly is being measured by 'HIV antibody' tests.
“Almost no drug [sic] are available, and people are developing full-blown AIDS and dying within a few years of contracting the Virus [sic].”
It seems curious that AIDS
would occur so soon after a positive test. No actual number is given
for what “a few years” really means, but the orthodox estimates
predict progression to AIDS in an average of ten years worldwide, so
if it is really the case that people are developing AIDS so quickly,
this person must be implicitly acknowledging the role of cofactors.
Also, on a purely psychoanalytical note, it’s interesting the way the word “Virus” is capitalized – kind of like “God”.
“I am concerned that the
kind of information you are putting out, whether it is true all together
or not, may encourage people to think that HIV is not related to AIDS
and that a person with HIV can live a healthy life.”
I never claimed HIV is not related to AIDS. Of course it is – as an artifact of the definition! Also, it just makes sense that individuals suffering the immune suppression associated with AIDS – which includes a shift from predominantly cell-mediated to humoral immunity, therefore enabling an increased production of antibodies – would be more likely to test positive on a nonspecific antibody test. Even if the tests always detect an actual virus (and it is clear that they do not), it still makes sense that individuals in risk groups would have higher levels of viruses in general, and of rare viruses in particular, than would the average healthy non-risk group member.
It also seems very odd that
this person believes that I should not be putting out any of this information,
even if it is true. First of all, if it isn’t true, I still have
the right to put out what information I please, as we live in a society
that is blessedly opposed to censorship (at least officially). But if
it is true, why on earth would someone not want people to know it? Is
it because people are better off taking potent, often toxic drugs than
they are actually trusting their body’s inherent ability to heal?
Or is it because for HIV-positives, hope should simply not be allowed?
“I agree that _how_ HIV/AIDS works is not clear, and perhaps even the scientists are still trying to figure it out, but the reality is that in most of the world when someone gets HIV, they die very quickly.”
This is possibly the most telling
statement of all. The difference, it seems, between those who religiously subscribe to the AIDS church doctrine and those of us who question it is our interpretation of
what it means that “how HIV/AIDS works is not clear”.
After $20 billion over 25 years
(from the US alone), that we still have no real understanding of how
HIV might work, or of how AIDS develops, or of why different risk groups
are predisposed to different and distinct AIDS-defining diseases can no longer be dismissed as consequences of the difficult scientific problem HIV/AIDS presents, and must now be considered problems of the HIV virologists, not for their post-modern virology.
***
Rebecca V. Culshaw worked on mathematical models of HIV infection for almost ten
years. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics (with a specialization in
mathematical biology) from Dalhousie University in Canada in 2002 and
is currently an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Tyler. She is a celebrated internet author as a result of her writings on Lew Rockwell, and "Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?", a book based on those essays is due this December. [The miniature at the top left is Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415), famous as the first woman known to have made a substantial contribution to the development of mathematics.]
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