LAT: AIDS Experts Awaken to a False Alarm (NYC "super-strain")

[DeepModem Mom]

AIDS Experts Awaken to a False Alarm
A warning of a virulent new strain in New York didn't pan out, and the messengers feel the heat.

By Charles Piller, Times Staff Writer


The announcement from New York health officials in early February was chilling: A single patient had progressed from HIV infection to AIDS in months rather than years, and his strain of the HIV virus seemed impervious to normally effective medicines.

The patient, a gay man in his 40s, had unprotected anal intercourse with scores of partners. Headlines of a potential new killer spread around the world.

"This case is a wake-up call," Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City's health commissioner, said at a news conference where he issued a warning for physicians to prepare for a possible new phase in the epidemic.

Yet several AIDS experts immediately questioned the importance of the case and the strategy of publicizing it so widely.

Months later, those doubts seem to have been confirmed....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-aids5jun05,0,431529.story?coll=la-home-nation

[Liberal Veteran]

1. It's still a good cautionary tale.

We don't know what the virus is capable of mutating into, but we do that multi-drug resistant virus can be (and is) spread.

Redoubling our education efforts can't do anything but help prevent a tragedy.

[msanthrope]

2. Wait!!! No Super-Duper AIDS Bug passed at Meth Orgies!???!

You mean it was all an urban legend? And the MSM, who devoted hundreds of articles and hysteria to this case, got it wrong? I can't believe it!

(Sarcasm)

Too bad we'll be hearing this urban legend from the fundie whackos for the next twenty years, but that's okay.......

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Lipoic acid, reduced glutathione, coenzyme q10,

beta 1.3 glucan, arabingalactan, aloe vera derivatives, and other items that support normal cellular structure/function and immune system activation have been quite useful for persons living with HIV. What the NIH needs to do below... is take a look at what (perhaps) dietary supplements (some) of these people (may) be using to support a strong and robust immune response. It is well known that the basic immune response of the human race has been going downhill for a few decades now most likely due to chemical toxicity.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/gui/show/NCT00069485?order=33
Resistance to HIV Infection

This study is currently recruiting patients.

Sponsored by: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Information provided by: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)


Purpose

The immune systems of some individuals may be capable of resisting HIV infection. These individuals do not appear to be infected with HIV despite multiple sexual encounters with HIV infected partners. This study will examine the immune systems of these individuals to determine what factors are responsible for their ability to resist HIV infection.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Nice to know that as a person with AIDS...

...that I can count on the people in the democratic party to take it seriously.

:eyes:

[Behind the Aegis]

6. just FYI

He and a few other posters, believe AIDS and HIV are a myth.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. I wish it were....

I think I could handle being mentally ill a lot better than having HIV.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. Mentally illness is tough too (I know).

What I find so heinous is that people think this disease is a myth! That just makes living with the disease harder and for those of us who have lost loved ones, it makes us MAD AS HELL!

Don't stress over it though...there are quite a few of us that know what is what and you have our support! :hug:

[Liberal Veteran]

9. HIV denialists are my arch-foes...

It's a toss up between them and republicans as to who I find more heinous.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[JoFerret]

12. Whatever the ultimate truth

...there is something very offensive about the tone of your headline, the attitude it expresses, and the assumptions it makes.

[Liberal Veteran]

13. If you knew my story, you wouldn't even bother asking.

I wasn't on drugs until I had a t-cell count of 22, had pneumonia, esophageal candiasis, weighed 110 pounds.

That's was after 15 years of living as healthy a lifesyle as you could imagine. Eating right, getting lots of exercise, and not even drinking alcohol.

Feel free to believe what you choose, but my immune system didn't just collapse on its own.

It was the evil pharmaceuticals that denialists call poison that have kept me alive for the last 5 years (unlike my dead ex-boyfriend who didn't live long enough to see effective antiviral therapy).

And if you want to talk ancedotal, let's talk about some of the more famous denialists.

Hu Christie. Dead. From "NOT-AIDS". Apparently from overwork to hear the denialist spin. There were a couple of denialists that even hinted that he was a druggie and that's what killed him.


Michael Callen....dead.
Peter Mobaka...dead.
Ronnie Burk....dead.
David Pasquarelli...dead.

Those last two are really interesting considering how they worked so hard together in San Francisco disrupting meetings and preaching the gospel on AIDS being a myth. Shouting "AIDS IS OVER!" at every opportunity.

Such a tragic loss for the denialists within a year. Poor Ronnie. Health declined terribly in the last year. Lost a lot of weight, was eventually bedridden due to "stress". Official cause of death: Stroke. At the ripe old age of 47. And David? Poor David. His official cause of death was CMV, which oddly tends to kills people with suppressed immune systems. He died at the ripe old age of 36.

I've been watching the denialist movement since Celia Farber published her articles in SPIN magazine in the late 80's.

You aren't proposing anything I haven't heard a million times before and found sorely wanting.

I see the denialists have yet to find someone willing to inject themselves with HIV and prove their point. There was of course that 66 year old man who did it in the 90's. Sadly he died a year later of a heart attack, so that didn't really help the "cause".

[truthisfreedom]

10. i take issue with this "less than scientific" description of crystal meth:

"The patient was a user of crystal methamphetamine, an illegal drug that loosens inhibitions and might suppress immune response."

"loosens inhibitions"? since when does crystal meth "loosen inhibitions"?

if anything, it makes people more uptight, paranoid, and just plain strange. i have no idea how anyone can maintain any kind of sexual arousal when on crystal meth. it seems like it would be a mutually exclusive kind of thing... being wired on speed doesn't seem like a sexy thing at all. where do these weirdos come from?

somebody should do a television series on the crisis of crystal meth in this country, complete with close-ups of people's rotting, decaying teeth and interviews with those whose lives it has destroyed. there's nothing uplifting or happy about this drug... it's nothing like the momentary high of crack or cocaine, stimulating pleasure centers in the brain, which might explain why some people destroy their lives with those drugs. it's just the weirdest phenomenon on the planet... why do people do it? just to stay awake and go in circles like caged animals? so they can work 3 jobs? why???

to me, being able to fall asleep is one of the greatest joys on the planet. i wake up with a new perspective, i'm energized... but being wired all the time and unable to escape sounds like total living hell to me. i had a friend who was a glass-blower who fell into the trap of crystal meth... at first i couldn't figure out how he could drink a case of beer while blowing glass all night. the next day he'd have a pile of goods, enough to raise a month's worth of money, but his mounting medical problems and his decaying relationships made his life very bleak. after an incident where his behavior became violent and unpredictable, almost psychotic, i distanced myself from him... he was killed by a roommate a few years after we lost touch.

a young filmmaker should capture the behavior and lifestyle of a some meth addicts for a few weeks. the resulting documentary might save thousands of young people from a very very hopeless, glamourless and destructive drug.