Highly Contagious AIDS-Like Disease Spreading in China

[TalkingDog]

Captain Trips?

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/highly-contagious-aids-like-disease-spreading-in-china-53864.html

In a small hotel across from the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a reporter from New Express Daily, dressed in an isolation suit, interviewed a dozen “unusual” patients from different areas of China. Their symptoms are painful and debilitating, and AIDS-like, but repeated tests for HIV have come up negative.

snip

However, the disease seems to be highly contagious and can spread by contact via any bodily fluid—through kissing, shared utensils, sweat, and even protected sex. Once infected, the immune system appears to be attacked, which results in a decrease of white blood cells and the body’s ability to defend against infectious disease and foreign materials.

In the past, official health agencies have only conducted HIV tests on these patients and have not checked for other, similarly pathological viruses. With HIV results coming up negative, many patients then stopped taking protective measures with their relatives. Subsequently, all their relatives and friends were infected, many have said.

[BlueIris]

1. Captain Trips. That would be clever if it weren't so damn horrifying. nt

[Mojeoux]

2. OOOOOOH!

EM! GEEE!!!!

[Arctic Dave]

3. Whaaaaat?

[Canuckistanian]

4. Oh, great

Another "20th Century disease".

And medical science has NO CLUE how to deal with it.

[kestrel91316]

7. I'm sure the free market can handle it just fine.

:sarcasm:

[CountAllVotes]

5. how scary

It is like 1979 all over again. :scared:

:kick: & recommend.

[CountAllVotes]

6. same story - more details here re: this

New AIDS-Like Disease Appears in China
State dismisses the disease as phobia, but patients are dying

Lin Feng of Shanghai, 49, suddenly felt ill in May 2008, saying he suddenly felt his muscles twitching and had severe pain in his internal organs. His ears rang and his joints made a cracking sound. He also suffered from muscae volitantes (where one sees spots), and found that his thymus gland, a vital element of the immune system, had disappeared.

Lin checked himself into a hospital for examination and was diagnosed with liver failure, hepatitis B, and herpetic gastritis (inflammation of the stomach caused by the herpes virus). He vomited after each meal. In six months, his weight dropped from 181 to 115 pounds.

After 18 months, Lin said that his internal organs have hardened and he has difficulty walking as his joints crack in pain, his skin feels like fiber, he has lymphatic pain, and the muscles and fat tissues under his skin cause him pain. Even though he takes numerous showers, he said his skin feels sticky and oily no matter what.

“I feel I am dying,” he said. He said he has fallen into the depths of despair.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china/aids-like-disease-hiv-china-hiv-phobia-37509.html

[Beacool]

8. Oh, boy.............

Just what the world needs, another deadly disease.

:-(

[Hugabear]

9. We are truly fucked - it's only a matter of when, not if

Sooner or later (and I'm betting on sooner), one of these diseases is really going to catch hold and wipe out a large chunk of the population. It seems that lately we've seen an increasing number of "killer" viruses like avian flu, SARS, and now this. Not to mention the fact that we're seeing an increase in the number of drug-resistant bacteria.

[Hawkowl]

16. It is nature's preferred method

It has happened time and time again. We are well overdue for a huge winnowing down of the human population. The Black Plague killed between 40-60% of Europe's population in a few years and European diseases such as syphilis and measles killed off between 90-97% of all Native Americans!!!

So yes, Virginia, there is a grim reaper and he is very, very, hungry.

[Lorien]

18. Exactly. If we don't choose to limit our breeding

nature will find a way to balance itself, and it won't be pretty. :-(

[canetoad]

10. Big pinch of salt required

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/37509/99999999/1/1/

Further on in the article it becomes increasingly bizarre.

A person who wishes to remain anonymous revealed that between 2008 to 2009, an Internet group called “Harbor,” consisting of more than 240 AIDS-phobia patients, formed a tourist group to donate blood in big cities between Shenzhen and Shanghai. They attempted to spread the virus and increase the number of infected people so that the state would start to pay attention to the disease.

As these AIDS-phobia patients do not test positive for AIDS or any known infectious virus, they passed the blood test. Later, blood containing the unknown AIDS-phobia virus entered the blood supply. Lin Feng’s mother, who received infected blood in a blood transfusion at a hospital in Shanghai, spread the virus to her whole family, suggesting the Harbor movement has already had an impact.

Members of Harbor also wander around on busy streets. They spread the virus to all the prostitutes they meet. By 2009, many prostitutes in night clubs and on streets had become infected.

A woman in Shenzhen with Internet moniker “The End” said her whole family had died after being infected with the disease. Afterwards, she said, she had sex with men to infect them.

[DURHAM D]

13. Can you explain what this means - "AIDS-phobia virus"

[freeplessinseattle]

20. from post #6

New AIDS-Like Disease Appears in China
State dismisses the disease as phobia, but patients are dying

[thelordofhell]

15. And yet, the members of "Harbor" are still alive?

After killing all these people with their infection? I think that is highly unlikely.

[TheWraith]

11. Source warning: "The Epoch Times" is the media arm of Falun Gong.

As such, they've developed a reputation of basically being 100% Chinese government bashing, 100% of the time. They also have a long history of completely unsubstantiated reporting about anything and everything that reflects badly on the Chinese government: claims of murders for organ harvesting, accusations that Chinese-American political candidates are fronts for a Chinese conspiracy to subvert the US government, etcetera. They've been repeatedly criticized for this sort of thing by more respected Chinese dissidents and dissident groups, basically saying that The Epoch Times is a propaganda organ, not a journalistic outfit.

This is the paper for whom a reporter at a White House event started shouting at Hu Jintao about alleged organ harvesting from Falun Gong members during a joint press conference with Bush.

There is certainly the possibility that this article is true, but there's also the very real possibility that it's being made up or greatly exaggerated in order to make the Chinese government look bad. I'm not exactly a fan of China, but bullshit is still bullshit, no matter where it comes from or who it's directed at.

[skypilot]

23. Thank you.

I was scanning this thread to see if there would be a post like yours. I don't know anything about the Epoch Times but the article sounded very fishy to me. There was a link to another article about leather tanning chemicals being added to milk that struck me as similarly fishy. Thanks for the heads-up.

[TalkingDog]

24. Thanks. I will be aware next time I run across that source.

[Maine_Nurse]

12. Wow, the transmission by sweat worries me...

between the salinity and the lysozyme present, sweat is generally not a bodily fluid capable of harboring diseases.

[drm604]

14. Considering the source fo this story (Falun Gong)

and the weirdness of some of the reports, I'm taking this with a large grain of salt.

[Duppers]

17. indeed

Expect for the reports of dying, it could be CFIDS?

[frustrated_lefty]

19. Interesting stuff...

Looked around for info regarding this not linked to the epochtimes. com.

http://sites.google.com/site/newhivaidslikeviruschina/

"The incubation period for this virus appears to be around 2 to 3 days (this is the time it takes for the first symptoms of this disease to appear after the initial exposure to the virus). Around 7 to 14 days after the initial exposure to the virus, many of the disease symptoms will have manifested. Often the symptoms in male patients are more severe than those in females patients. One year after the initial exposure, the majority of patients' symptoms will improve to a degree, and become relatively mild.

Reports from China about this mystery HIV-like disease are often uncorroborated and anecdotal. It is almost certain is that this virus is not a new HIV strain, and is very unlikely to be a new retrovirus. This is because human retroviruses do not generally transmit by saliva."

May post more if I can find anything in peer reviewed scientific literature.

[mistertrickster]

21. This sounds like total BS. Sorry, until I see it in the Guardian or the NY Times,

it sounds like about 100 other possible diseases.

Not only that, when I lived in China, you couldn't even drink water from the tap. Dysentery was normal.

I'm not buying this "new disease" theory . . .

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8505998.stm