From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: aids conference in cuba
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 14:18:11 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <8101.20503@stratus.SWDC.Stratus.COM> lpb@florida.swdc.stratus.com writes:
>In article <11394@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>>Have I been tested?  Only as a consequence of donating blood.  Of
>>course, I do something terribly perverse: monogamy.  My wife shares
>>in this perversion. 

  And you admit this on the net?  Aren't you worried that a future
  employer will find out?


>> We have nothing to worry about, unless some AIDS-tainted blood slips
>> through the screening system, and we are suddenly in need of blood
>> for an unplanned operation. 
  
  This is not completely correct.  

  1.)  It can take anywhere from a few months to 4 years (in one study)
       to seroconvert and the blood tests are still antibody tests
       so the blood supply is NOT compeletely safe.

  2.)  A drug resistant form of TB which is 50% fatal with the best
       current treatment and costs $100K a year to treat, anyway, 
       is spreading rapidly, due to AIDS, and you CAN catch TB
       by casual contact.

  3.)  There is now evidence of a new form of HIV for which there is no
       test.

  4.)  HIV mutates 5 times as fast as influenze and there are 10's of
       millions of people in the world who already have it.  Simple 
       natural selection will always select for the most successful
       versions of a pathogen in terms of virulence and these are the
       perfect conditions to breed a "super" HIV, and inded this may
       already be occurring -- strains of HIV in Africa can already
       infect lung epithelial cells.  If a strain of some immunodeficiency
       virus that CAN be spread by casual contact develops then we're
       all in deep doo-doo.   Even if we just get one that's "only"
       as hard to catch as Hepatitis B (about 10 times easier to catch
       as HIV 1) we'll have a much bigger public health problem than
       we do now.   

  5.)  Some of us travel overseas where standards are not as high as
       they are here.  I already avoid certain parts of the world where
       I'd be afraid to be hospitalized because of the risk of exposure
       to HIV.      

  I think Mr. Cramer is living in a fool's paradise if he believes 
  that he has nothing to worry about from HIV.



>You know, I admire your persistence to stick to your guns in
>this BUT .... Clayton .... this *is* a human disease.  It was
>*not* brought about by the gay community. It *was* manufactured
>as a biological weapon.

  This is even nuttier.   There is a huge difference between saying 
  that is "*was*" manufactured as a weapon and suggesting that it
  could have been based on its "construction".   Its construction
  is similar to HTLV I and HTLV II, which are emdemic in Asia -- 
  Is lpb@florida.swdc.stratus.com suggesting that these were also 
  designed as weapons?   Does this have anything to do with UFO's
  and cattle mutilations?   HIV infections have been confirmed back to the 
  early 70's -- the technology to construct viruses didn't exist
  back then.     Besides, as a weapon, what good is a pathogen that 
  takes years to even make you sick, can only be spread with difficulty
  and for which there's no cure (so you can't protect your own people)?

  Truly nutty.                                                         


---peter