Brain Fertilizer

There may be good reasons for doubting the conventional etiology of AIDS, but I haven't seen any such presented on Dean's site. I'm open minded on this one, but I have to say that Dean is acting a little crazy.

Did you read the article I linked in the extended entry? That's the consice and cogent argument that I read first, which resulted in me being more open to that line of reasoning.

Duesberg's argument is that recreational drug use causes AIDS by decreasing the body's immune response, and that HIV has nothing to do with it. Read Duesberg's web page, it's enough to make a rational person run away screaming.

what's so strange about a new strain? new strains of viruses with different resistances and characteristics pop up all the time, that's why we have to get a flu shot every year.

There's nothing wrong with the idea that there is a different strain of HIV...
...except that there is no evidence of it. From what I understand, they only have bits and pieces and scrap proteins that they *assume* comes from a retrovirus.
But there is no evidence, no new protein chains or anything that points to a new strain of the virus, right? Just that suddenly a disease that has a latency of 20 years or forever at the longest suddenly kills in a matter of months...
...but only the presence of Crystal Meth. And this bright boy assumes that the greatest effect that can be attributed to the meth is that it lowered inhibitions.
Look, Caltechgirl, you are a scientist: if this new strain of HIV is caught because of reducted inhibitions, why aren't we seeing it appear among fraternities and sororities first?

I consider myself a rational person, able to think for myself and draw rational conclusions on the basis of the available evidence, regardless of the actual education level involved.
And this claim that the new strain of HIV has developed and spread because of the inhibition-reducing effects of crystal meth is absolutely ridiculous on the face of it.

Nice point, Caltechgirl, but misleading. Actually the flu virus genome is big and segmented, as taught in classical virology, and the shuffling of parts of its genome as it traverses the large pool of its reservoir seems to be involved in the appearance of new strains with a certain regularity. The discovery of the segmented structure of the flu virus was in fact made by Duesberg in the late '60s, and is just one of his numerous significant contributions. Bad comparison between HIV and influenza. The point Duesberg makes about AIDS is not so simple as you state it. He says that IF you consider that some drugs taken for long periods CAN cause immune suppression and several conditions commonly associated to AIDS but not necessarily related to immune dysfunction (dementia, wasting, etc.), and then you discount them from the stats (they are a majority of AIDS patients, to this day), then the rest of the 30 or so conditions actually fade into their normal background frequency, more or less. But, of course, you can always "run away screaming". That is what Dr. Robert Gallo does everytime the subject is mentioned to him.

Caltechgirl,
A bit of unsolicited advice: your main debate technique seems to be make sweeping statements that pre-emptively designate any arguments to the contrary to be automatically irrational, stupid, wrong, etc., i.e., "It's enough to make any rational person run away screaming."

It angered me a little bit, and I really struggled to keep my response civil. If you draw a circle around your belief, and call anyone who doesn't agree with the way you see things irrational, you aren't discussing, you are dismissing. If you call on your degree as an additional way to qualify your arguments and dismiss others, you are again stifling debate.
If you are only interested in bludgeoning people into orthodox thought, I won't try and stop you. But if you really want to convince people and change people's minds, be a little less condescending, provide a little more logic and evidence.

For instance, nothing in what you said gave any evidence whatsoever that Duesberg's theory of recreational drugs is wrong. In fact, you restate his very logical and as yet unproven theory about recreational drugs causing AIDS, and then without a shred of evidence of logic, declare it ridiculous enough that a "rational" person would run away screaming.

The irony is that you leave this comment on a post that points out scientists are absolutely ignoring the possibility that recreational drugs are causing this "new strain" of HIV.

You never once addressed the fact that if crystal meth only makes people lose their inhibitions, then why isn't alcohol use (or abuse) a risk factor for AIDS? If crystal meth is merely a common factor because many of the same populations that develop AIDS use crystal meth, then it indicates that AIDS is behavior related, isn't it?

And there's actually growing evidence that flu shots are useless. We still have flu season even with flu shots, and even though we had a flu shot shortage this year, from what I understand, the incidence of flu among the population remained pretty much the same.

I'd like to pretend ignorance of flu shots and let you make some more ridiculous statements in support of them, but I won't toy with you:
Simply put, researchers look at what flu strains were most common the year before, then make a vaccine for the most common 5-7 strains. That means that the other 70 strains or so (or is it hundreds of strains?) are not included in the vaccine. How effective is that, then? And what if the people making the decision guess wrong? I'm forced to get the shot every year, and we are always warned: "Getting the flu shot doesn't mean you won't get the flu."
...talk about making a rational person run away screaming!
Maybe flu shots are good for the "at risk" people, I don't know. I haven't seen numbers on any reduced death rate or anything since the flu vaccine was developed, nor did I see any increase in deaths with the shortage this year.
But the only possible reason to give mass vaccines of the flu shot is if preventing the 6-7 top flu strains each year could eventually reduce the prevalence of flu overall over time...
I see no evidence of that happening.
And since I've heard trained medical personnel question some of the ingredients of the flu vaccine (like mercury!), I wouldn't take it if I didn't have to.
A temporary discomfort is no reason to inject crap into your body. The body is darn good at dealing with viruses, overall. The more we mess with the body's natural systems, the more we risk disasters like AIDS.
I'm all for medicine for things your body can't handle by itself, but if death or permanent injury isn't a risk, there's no reason to take drugs. Period.

As HIV emerged as a global epidemic/pandemic during the 1980s, the promiscuous sexual behaviour of certain Gay males figured prominently in the early transmission vectors of the deadly virus as it jumped from Africa to Europe/Asia then the Americas.

After further study during the 1990s, HIV/AIDS was never just a "Gay Disease", even though those early vectors combined with public opinion (homophobia) to create the lingering perception that Gay men spread the disease almost singlehandedly. Often, the public suffered those bigoted pronouncements from the likes of conservative religious fanatics who pontificated (incorrectly and unfairly) that Gay men "deserved to die" from AIDS because it was God's way to punish them for engaging in unnatural sexual activities with other men.

Like it or not, this perception still permeates our society ... albeit quietly. It probably always shall, to some degree or another.

To this very day, despite the broad cross-section of global humanity who actually live with (and die of) AIDS, it's difficult to wade through Media reporting of anything regarding HIV/AIDS without some reference to Gay males floating upon the surface in headlines and swimming within bodies of text. Therefore, despite the best efforts of thinking persons to continually (and correctly) realign the facts and deflate public demagoguery surrounding this increasingly complex global health crisis, old perceptions die hard.

The daily human death toll should have killed off these misguided views long ago, yet this mounting factual compost heap is too numbing for the public to comprehend. It's much easier to remember a few early (incorrect/ignorant) guesses rather than allow so much Real Death to ruin our collective breakfast every morning.

Now we read some "New Perceptions" in news reports for us to recall someday when they become "Old". "Crystal Methamphetamine" alongside "New Strain of HIV" grouped with "Epidemic of meth use in Gay Community".

OK, Let's go back to the Media Archives of the early '80s to dredge up something to match with "Meth" ... remember "Cocaine"? Oh, YEAH!!! Gay guys were doing lots of blow while they ... ummm ... but that was back when powdered Coke was the Real Thing amongst the entire Leisure Suit League vamping at passé discos across America -- gay, straight, bi, yuppie scum -- that was an epidemic of sorts because Nancy Reagan made us "Just Say NO!" while we hid out in toilet stalls to snort up (and maybe sneak a few sexual favors in for good measure before flushing and frizzing at the mirror). Inhibitions lowered? Ya think? With all that booze to swill the entire time?

Me thinks yes.

Remember when? Some of us weren't born yet, so how could we? That's RIGHT!!! History class was for snoozing. Reading anything more complicated than product labels was/is for pencil necks. So, I can understand why all this talk about "Meth" being the alarming catalyst for naked genital sex becomes suddenly Brand New News for some of us.

For the rest of us "old guys and gals", we aren't nipping at that baithook. The truth IS, unfortunately, that methamphetamine in its "crystal", "anhydrous" and "mexican" varieties DOES ERASE INHIBITIONS. Speed always did back in the Stone Age; so did LSD; MDA ... come to think of it, why haven't today's "alarming news" about drug-fueled appearances of New HIV strains included mentions of -- OH YEAH!!! --- Ecstasy (X), and Rohypnol (Date Rape Rx)? *pat my forehead*

Ooops. Yeah, I guess ... OOOOPS!

Now we have NEW old perceptions to deal with: a NEW HIV strain, a NEW resurgence of Gay Males doing exactly what Gay Males have always done (sorry, guys, but ... those toilet stalls are for defecating and excreting urine. They always have been.) Still, aren't we seeing a NEW pattern emerging ... same as it ever was?

AIDS. GAYS. DRUGS.

Run for the hills, suburbia! Those gentrified Gay guys are at it again!!! So easy to fear, too impossible to eradicate.

Getting somewhat back to my earlier (more academic?) discourse of this posting, I'll close with what I know. Today's meth of any stripe causes the human mind to strip away surrounding social behaviours we (hopefully) gathered in our formative years ... exposing our Basic Nature.

If we are predisposed to be criminalistic, we'll be slinging dope and shoplifting (or even worse). If we are predisposed to pick at our faces and fret about all those crawly things in our skin, we'll become tweaked-out scabbies mistaken for walking cases of necrotizing faceitis. If we are predisposed to engage in risky thrill sex with absolute strangers, absolutely anywhere, absolutely unsafely-sexed, we'll be keeping our MDs hopping with STDs ... at the very worst, we'll be dying of AIDS and Hepatitis ABCDE.

The new meth (ice, crystal, anhydrous, P2P) and X are often quite strong and insidious, so ... YES, if Gay Males (who DO have an historically documented record for being the most promiscuous group of Human Beings to an unparalleled extreme) snort and smoke and bang meth before heading to "the bars" ... without a doubt:

Those toilet stalls WILL be busy. Those parked cars and chilly alleys WILL be haunted with groaning reckless abandon. Those who know they have HIV/AIDS (and those who don't, or don't want to admit it) WILL transmit the disease in whatever form it mutates into. Same as it ever was, since HIV was vectored by that infamous gay steward back when AIDS first broke the scene beyond African coastlines.

BUT, Gay males will still represent only a fraction of total HIV/AIDS cases contracted.

What is my point? I made many. But, my motivation for writing this stems from personal knowledge, recollections, reflections and a fair amount of ironic resignation. If the Media is going to start snippeting reports, connecting dots between "Meth Epidemic" and "Gay Male Sex Epidemic" and "New HIV/AIDS Epidemic", and call it NEWS:

SHAME on them!!! And ... shame on US for sitting there after reading it (hearing it, watching it on TV) only to sigh and turn the (page, station, channel) to find something more "FUN" with which to entertain ourselves.

SHAME on me for expecting anything BUT the above shamefulness to go on when we really need a wake-up-call. Oh! We already have that, to no avail. Libraries and universities silently accumulate this strong coffee in case we might want to smell it. It's scary stuff.

It's more than scary ... it's despairingly bereft of hope:

If AIDS-related deaths continue on their current course, the entire continent of Africa will be empty a lot sooner than anyone wants to believe. Then, the emptiness of our other continents soon will follow. Fact? Fiction? Scare Tactic? Neurotic Delusion?

Fact.

100 million, in Africa alone ... and counting. Fact.

Find the charts, follow the trend lines, do the frickin' math. If we still can, that is. Didn't we doze off in Math Class, too? No matter. Empty continents will be good for wildlife, without humans running around shooting them and eating them.

Same as it ever used to be, before humanity emerged on two feet, discovering arrogance before EVERYthing else we should have been discovering, FIRST. It'll be a quiet world, and we might notice it just before we die. If we want to.

Probably not. Dying isn't FUN. Doing dope and having uninhibited sex is FUN. Right?

Dichotomy ... conundrum ... enigma.

Us.