HIV/AIDS hypothesis wrong? / HIV-testing

[madgame]

I had never really done any sort of "research" on HIV or AIDS and only found out that HIV was the virus and AIDS the disease that it (alledgedly?) caused.

Now, almost everytime I read something about it I kinda run into those HIV/AIDS dissidents who says HIV doesnt cause AIDS. At first I thought..yeah right thats just another one of those conspiracy theories... Anyways I had also wondered before why Magic Johnson hadn't died yet or didnt really have any symptomes of AIDS..like 10 years after he was found to be HIV positive.

Anyways it seems that a lot of scientists who actually won nobel prizes and even the guy who invented the testing method that's used for HIV screening and also the guy who first discovered the (alledged) virus causing it is now doubting this whole HIV causes AIDS theory.

I mean I'm not gonna say "ok HIV is harmless maybe doesnt even exist so Im gonna go out there and give up safer sex". First off there are still other diseases, plus Im way too paranoid ;-).

But anyways, it seems to be clear that HIV has never actually been proven to exist. Besides after AIDS was first 'detected' in the 80's scientists were expecting that somebody with HIV would get AIDS only a few weeks or months after being infected with HIV and thus a huge epidemic would break out etc. However 20 years afterwards the number of ppl infected with HIV or those with AIDS hasnt really changed (though it was expected to blow up assuming it was an infectious disease) and all of a sudden they're saying AIDS can often take decades before it breaks out.
(one of the aids dissidents who had gotten a nobel prize before too, compared that to somebody playing tennis and raising the net all of a sudden because he's losing).

I mean I really dunno much about biology etc. but it seems to me that the hypothesis that HIV is something really bad (as in causing) AIDs is highly questionable. (again: Im not gonna abolish safer sex because of these doubts).

This isnt really a problem for me..however I thought that if I did get a serious girlfriend I'd want her (and also myself) to take a STD test. However I had worried before, that the actual chance of myself having a wrong positive testing result (due to human error or testing error or whatever) might be bigger (even if still slim) than actually having HIV if I had always practiced safer sex (as a lot of ppl say condoms are 'only' around 90% effective at preventing HIV)..

and now I read this:

http://www.sumeria.net/aids/false.html

Does anybody know more about this subject than me? How many are those AIDS dissidents compared to other scientists in that area that believe in the HIV/AIDS-hypothesis?

Plus, does anybody know if your blood is usually screened for HIV/AIDS if a regular blood sample is taken or does that only happen when you do an HIV test on purpose?

 

[diablo]

Originally posted by madgame
But anyways, it seems to be clear that HIV has never actually been proven to exist.

One word: Darwinism.

Plus, does anybody know if your blood is usually screened for HIV/AIDS if a regular blood sample is taken or does that only happen when you do an HIV test on purpose? [/B]

Depends on what purpose the blood is being drawn for.

H&F...

 

[LowPlainsDrifter]

Greetings:

I would think there's too frequent a correlation between people with AIDS symptoms and their having the antibodies for HIV as well as having an actual "viral load" - DNA from the virus itself - to dismiss the idea that the virus causes AIDS.

AIDS is a complex of symptomologies - frequent, severe opportunistic infections, purple lesions (Kaposi's Sarcoma), lymphoma, even dementia as the illness attacks the brain itself.

Besides, AIDS represents such a dramatic breakdown of basic immune function - with all of the tools available to medical science, something like that would remain cryptogenic?

Testing is important - but if you suspect exposure, a follow up test after a negative is critical, because the tests detect antibodies which can develop a few weeks to nearly a year after initial infection.

Stay safe...

 

[LowPlainsDrifter]

PS - if your blood is being drawn as a general "workup" then HIV is NOT tested for - you have to ask for it, and have a separate vial drawn for it.

 

[DinoCassanova]

It's illegal for anyone to test your blood for HIV/AIDS w/out your knowledge. It's only screened for it (besides when you request it to be of course) when / if you ever donate blood (obviously) , and if the donor is found to be positive I do believe they have a system whereby he/she is notified and is then offered counseling and then recommendations or referrals for doctors (if he/she doesn't already have one).

However all that talk about AIDS not really existing, is just that. Talk. It's nonsense. AIDS is very very, disturbingly, real. When you've seen it in person ( I did community service work in Chicago taking meals and necessities to housebound AIDS patients when I was younger) you see that it is very disturbingly real. Trust me. Looking at an AIDS patient in the later stages of the disease is like looking the grim reaper in the eye. Try the sight of a guy, my age now, say, 30 , or so. He's 5'10, and his weight is down to about 105, 100 pounds. He looks like a recently liberated Dachau or Auschwitz survivor, only worse. His skin is ashen gray and is covered with raised up dark purplish KS lesions. He's dying , miserably, and much of the time he's either alone or surrounded by just a close friend or two, possibly a few close family members. If he's bedridden already, which he probably is by that stage, he may be either blind from CMV (Cytomegalovirus) and/or babbling incoherent nonsense (when he's awake at all that is) , talking to the long-dead, etc., etc., because it's gotten into his brain and dementia has set in. When they're in hospitals, many of them die of pneumocystic carinii pneumonia, which has been described as a cruel and slow boa constrictor around the lungs.

HIV and AIDS are both very real. Never subscribe to those crackpot/ "conspiracy" theories that it's not real , or that it's either curable (the "look at Magic Johnson" theory) or a "chronic manageable illness" and not a TERMINAL illness, or that it's not as bad as "they" all make it sound, etc., etc. If you were to contract HIV in your early 20's, you could probably expect to live (if you were really lucky , and healthy, to begin with, and had great medical care) into your very early 40's, nowadays. That's hardly a good long life is it ? Much depends on things like viral load / degree of exposure , and even the "strain" of the virus you pick up. In the late 70's , and very early 80's, men in certain sub-sets of the homosexual community in NYC and SanFrancisco who were among the first to contract it died relatively shortly afterward in many cases. Some of the very first cases were dead in '81 or '82, which indicates they had contracted it in or around perhaps 1976 through '78 when it is believed to have first "arrived" in North America. But they died much quicker than Magic Johnson is dying due to several facts. He probably only had one or two "exposures" to the virus, and in a much less "concentrated" form, and possibly got even a much less virulent strain of it. Many of those men I mentioned before were literally getting shot full of it , or swallowing it, every weekend or sometimes even more often than that, and plus their immune systems were already compromised by previous STD bouts which they had had all throughout the '70's, and furthermore there were not the treatments / "****tails" of drugs that there are today. Indeed at the time it first appeared and for years afterward it was barely understood at all.

For a very challenging-to-watch, but probably ultimately rewarding I would say, DVD documentary about living, and dying, with AIDS, test your mettle and face the awful reality of this plague (if you think you have it in you) by seeing a film called "Silverlake Life: A View From Here". It's available on Amazon. If you're going to play , play SAFE, and get STD/HIV checks regularly !!! ~Dino

 

[madgame]

First off: I dont really know anything about it. I can just say what i read (which doesnt mean everything is true).

Of course nobody says AIDS isn't real or that it isn't a horrible disease, but why would these guys (scientists who got nobel prizes) say all that, if there weren't any justified doubts?

The only thing I'm really horrified is, is that these persons also claim that the screening method for antibodies gives a lot of wrong positive results because it reacts to some other diseases too.., and thus shouldnt be used plus that HIV has never been proved and cannot be proved to be the cause of AIDS, but that AIDS alledgedly is the consequence of the abuse of certain recreational drugs AND the use of drugs that are supposed to suppress the HIV causing brutal sideeffects...

I mean I dunno whos right or whateva so I wont say no to condoms or anything, but the thought of taking an HIV test and getting a wrong positive is really getting to me. I mean what am I to do if I get into a serious relationship and want to have sex without condoms sooner or later. How am I gonna put myself at a greater risk? By sleeping with a girl who I hope doesnt have HIV or by taking a test myself and maybe getting a wrong positive
result, though nothing is wrong with me really...? The problem is I cant really say the one side is right or the other is, but I cant just ignore when so many scientists (who had gotten nobelprizes and even the guy who first detected HIV etc.) say HIV has never been proven to be the cause of AIDS and that its irresponsible to use those testing methods because a)ppl do get wrong positive results b)HIV contrary to AIDS is harmless and doesnt cause AIDS, but the drugs with the horrible side-effects do.

I have to say all that really scares me..because that just makes me feel like never taking an HIV test (and thus never having my girlfriend take one either).

 

[DinoCassanova]

b)HIV contrary to AIDS is harmless and doesnt cause AIDS, but the drugs with the horrible side-effects do.

I have to say all that really scares me..because that just makes me feel like never taking an HIV test (and thus never having my girlfriend take one either).


>>> I know. The "b" reason that you mentioned above is one of those theories that I've heard alot now. At least on the 'Net. And I understand your concern over false positives, etc. All I can think of to respond to that would be to suggest getting a standard STD/HIV test once (you can usually get them for free at a free clinic in your area) , just to establish a clean "baseline" you know? And have your g/f get the same test(s) you get , you guys could even go together. Odds are hugely in your favor. I'm sure you are not positive OR going to receive a false positive (as I've heard those are relatively rare). And then what you do is go back 6 months later for the same test(s) or at least the blood test part, and you should be negative again. Then you know for sure you're HIV free. But even in the remote chance that you GOT a false positive the first time, that would surely be caught the second time around. Furthermore in the event of a positive result you could always request a retest and/or a second opinion; I HIGHLY doubt you'll get two false positives in a row, and then be put on anti-AIDS drugs. As for the drugs "causing AIDS" I just don't believe in that theory myself, although I will say that from what I have heard/read they can and do have some nasty side-effects. But I would say , and I would bet your doctor would tell you the same thing, the odds of you getting a false positive are slim and none, and slim is on the next train out of town.

~Dino~

 

[Legend]

wouldnt the normal blood tests show something was up though? When you have Aids your T cells are below 200.

 

[LowPlainsDrifter]

Legend,

I think that by the time an HIV infection has affected other counts found in a "standard" workup, other symptoms should have manifested.
A standard set of panels is, I think, just a starting point for a physician - it helps point the way toward knowing what the patient has complained about.
I suspect many people think that blood is centrifuged, and after the components are separated and analyzed, some machine spits out a piece of paper that says, "patient so-and-so has such and such a disease."
Diagnosing a disease is based heavily on matching up mankind's empirical medical knowledge with a patient's current status - blood work is just a part of it.
I suppose that if every factor, particularly with regard to the immune system is within reference/normal range, one should feel some relief that nothing is going catastrophically wrong *for the moment.*
If you want to rule out HIV, don't dance around it - get tested specifically for it. Then, after six months of either celibacy or presumed safe sex, get tested again. (PS - I don't mean stop having safe sex when you feel you're "in the clear.")
If you show positive, they will re-test to make sure it wasn't a false positive. Believe me - no physician wants to set their patient on a difficult and expensive course of anti-retroviral ****tail treatments.
If a positive is confirmed, but you still feel OK, take some comfort in knowing that your job is now to maintain that healthy status through good nutrition, exercise, stress management, and of course, the treatments themselves.
There was a time when we thought that AIDS was an invincible disease - while there is certainly no cure, state of the art treatments can keep the virus down to undetectable levels. And every day, researchers use gene decoders and electron microscopes to reveal more of the secrets of viral attacks and cellular defenses.
It's a scary disease, but you're actually better off having AIDS than many cancers, and certainly many viral infections (Ebola, for example).

 

[DinoCassanova]

Legend, if a person has "full-blown AIDS" already, which technically means you are suffering from or have already suffered from one of the "opportunistic" infections which normal healthy people don't get but those w/severely compromised immune systems do (e.g, Kaposi's sarcoma, pneumocystic pneumonia, cytomegalovirus, and/or a host of other nasty things), it means your T-cell count is now below 200. Therefore, any regular blood test should/would show that, yes.

BUT .... if you've been that sick already, which anyone with full-blown AIDS has to have been, chances are by that time they already know what they have and they were tested positive a long time ago. In other words, I think it's virtually impossible for any person with a T-cell count of under 200 to be walking around feeling basically healthy and then suddenly go in for a standard blood test for something else and just suddenly discover he has full-blown AIDS. He would already have been sick as a dog from one or more of the opportunistic diseases which actually indicate that the HIV has turned into the condition we call AIDS. It WOULD be possible however for someone who only has HIV (not to say "only", but you know what I mean) , to be feeling basically healthy and then go in for a standard blood test for something completely unrelated to STD's/ HIV. But the thing is , they are not supposed to screen anyone's blood for STD's or HIV unless the person requests it. It's illegal. So, technically, even if a doctor got a look at someone's blood work-up for something completely unrelated to HIV, and discovered the presence of HIV antibodies, I am not 100% sure but I don't believe he can just go and tell that person that he has HIV. If anything, he would have to suggest that the person be HIV-tested asap, because his blood indicated certain "abnormalities" or something like that, but he couldn't actually say to him, well your blood work-up looked fine in general, except you seem to test positive for HIV.

 

[DinoCassanova]

Legend,

I think that by the time an HIV infection has affected other counts found in a "standard" workup, other symptoms should have manifested.


>>> Exactly.......... That's what I was basically getting at when I was talking about "opportunistic infections". Alot of people don't understand that HIV and AIDS are actually separate but related conditions. HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus which leads to the condition we call AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Magic Johnson for instance has HIV, but he does not (yet) have AIDS. People with HIV are all around us and many or most usually appear totally healthy. Nowadays people who have good healthcare, were basically healthy to begin with, and have a great outlook, can live 20, 25 years with HIV. That's huge progress over what it was like back in the early to mid 80's when this plague was first beginning. That's also a part of what makes unsafe sex so potentially disastrous nowadays. Oftentimes people with HIV don't even know they have it. People with AIDS, however, are noticeably very very ill, or recently have been, and there is virtually no way they or whatever doctors have treated them could reasonably not know what condition they have.

 

[Legend]

Its very scarying stuff we are dealing with.

HIV is so hard to find a cure for because its always changing in your body. Say it infects one of your cells, the body builds up antibodies to kill off that infected cell. By the time your body has made up those antibodies to kill that cell, other cells are infected by a slightly different virus. This is whats making it so hard to cure.

Also since HIV is killing many cells rather than causing a tumor fomation like cancer; this is gradually leading to suppression of the immune system. The reverse transcriptase of HIV is even more error prone than other known transcriptases. This will lead to higher mutations rates like described above.

Studies with the anticancer drug known as AZT are being done to inihibit the binding of HIV to T cells. HIV has a high affinity for the AZT. Also studies are being done to try and inactivate the HIV proteases.

Either way you are screwed if you get it. I would much rather get cancer than get HIV/Aids. I read someone in here said that its better to get Aids instead of cancer. I think that is def. wrong. Stop talking about MAgic....he is a very wealthy man, the average person will not get the treatment he is getting. Money talks.

A lot of times with cancer it can be isolated and hopefully prevented from spreading. Also you wont be treated like a leopard. When you have AIDs no one wants to even breathe the same air as you.

I doubt we will see a cure in our lifetime.

-John

 

[LowPlainsDrifter]

Legend,

What you've said about AZT surprised me - as far as I know, it's one of the first HIV treatments, and considered outdated.

I don't share your pessimism - viruses are changing all the time, but at their core, they are still just living things that can be figured out and their activities halted.

Scientists all over the world are working on this disease.

China alone makes me hopeful - they're cranking out record numbers of scientists in all fields.

Stay safe, and keep the faith that nature's secrets are finite and will inevitably yield to our systematic inquiries.

 

[TurboOverCubicInches]

I don't know too much about it, but I was talking to my brother in law, who is an oncologist, and was telling me nowadays, HIV is quite manageable with the proper treatment and most of its patients can live a relatively normal life way past there 40's if the treatment is timely and well administered. I will ask him tonite again, he is coming for dinner and I will post what I can learn from him. I think there was some misinformation on this thread BUT then again I could be wrong.

 

[Legend]

LowPlainsDrifter

Its a drug that was made as a anticancer drug. It was found to be useful against AIDS.

AZT is from approx. 1985. Im just talking about the science behind the one particular medicine used to once treat HIV. Im just giving the background of the type of research thats going on. AZT was an example of the methods in fighting against HIV.

Also it is toxic to the bone marrow cells which will lead to severve anemia. Bad news

the problem with HIV is that they are altering the surface proteins to which the immune system binds too. So the host is facing new antigens and needs time to mount an immune response to each. During that time to response cells are dieing. When the immune system responds to one a new different one is created. You can see the domino affect with the virus.

Anything that affects HIVs proteaes and reverse transcriptase shouldnt be considered outdated. Anything that inibhits HIV from getting ahold of your cells should be considered. So do you still think its outdated?

 

[penkitten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:AIDS_conspiracy_theories/Archive1

 

[RaWBLooD]

wether it exists or not is simple, it does, why/how it actually got here, I'll always believe it was the government.

 

[Vibe]

Originally posted by RaWBLooD
wether it exists or not is simple, it does, why/how it actually got here, I'll always believe it was the government.

The question is not whether Aids exists or not - it is whether it is caused by HIV or it is even a virus. Here's a relatively new theory that holds a lot of water.

http://tperkins.com/linked_docs/aids/Aids-Does_Virus_Exist.html