From: goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com (Alex Goykhman)
Subject: Re: AIDS: What the Gov't Isn't Telling You
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 21:14:34 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Jul30.190029.21435@cs.ucla.edu> eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK) writes:
>In article <25043@dog.ee.lbl.gov> etjue@lbl.gov (Eric T. Jue) writes:
>:I heard an interesting talk show on 7/27/92 concerning a new book titled
>:"What the Government Isn't Telling You About AIDS."  The author of the
>:book, Dr. Lorraine Day of UC San Francisco, offered her findings on the
>:air and fielded questions from listeners.  According to her, research has
>:shown that the AIDS virus is not a fragile virus and that it may survive
>:up to 7 days in a dry environment and up to 14 days in a moist one.  It
>:follows from this that AIDS may be transmitted through all types of
>:bodily fluids, including sweat, and not just through blood.  She mentions
>:other interesting findings on AIDS which she says the government is
>:intentionally hiding from the public.  Her findings are all based on
>:clinincal research documentation done around the world.  Her book may be
>:ordered by phone at (800) 537-2437.  I hope people who have heard
>:anything about Dr. Day or her book will post their thoughts to this
>:newsgroup.  Thank you very much.

    I heard Dr.Day being interviewed by a local talk show host (Janine
    Graf/WRKO) a couple of weeks ago.  
>
>I'd like to know what documentation she does have. On the other hand,
>I'd like to know what Dr. Day means quantitatively with regards to how
>much virus is present in sweat. I don't remember the probability of
>exposure to HIV being high from contact with HIV in sweat.

    Dr. Day did not claim there was a high risk of contracting AIDS
    from bodily fluids other than blood.  She did say the virus is
    capable of surviving for 1-2 weeks outside of a human body,
    in a protein rich environment (i.e blood, saliva, urine, sweat, etc.).

    I do not think anybody disputes that the virus can survive in blood
    samples for a period longer than 1-2 weeks.  If not, we would be able
    to guarantee the safety of our blood supply simply by imposing a
    mandatory "cooling off" period, and welcome HIV-positive blood donors
    too.

    She also claimed that the virus can survive up to 48 hours
    in a mosquito.

    According to Dr. Day, much of the information about the virus that
    she has was obtained from the Center For Disease Control under
    the Freedom of Information Act.

    One of her claims was that ~%5 of all AIDS cases could not be traced
    to gay men, IV drug users, blood transfusion, etc.  If she is right,
    there may be other ways of getting infected with AIDS that we know 
    nothing about.  BTW, the interview took place before the AIDS 
    conference in Amsterdam(?).

>	Besides if it's "The Government" why haven't we heard this from
>the French or British governments? How about the World Health
>Organization? Even the AIDS Conferences? I don't think it's responsible
>to just pin one government if the entire world is equally negligent. In
>other words, this is a great way to raise a ruckus and perhaps
>unneccessary fear about AIDS and HIV: blame the government for
>withholding information from the public and for the deaths that may
>result.

    Dr. Day claimed that the politicians are not telling the public
    the whole story about AIDS because this is bad news and they do 
    not want to spread panic in the populace.  Interestingly enough,
    the story about an AIDS-like disease that is not accompanied
    by either HIV-1 or HIV-2 was first broken at the AIDS conference.
    Don't you think that with all the money we spend on AIDS research
    we should have gotten this information earlier from the CDC?

    Another factor, according to Dr.Day, is that the AIDS issue
    is most heavily politicized, and that much of the AIDS research
    is controlled by AIDS activists, many of whom are HIV-positive
    and whose agenda is to promote acceptability of people with
    AIDS within our society.

    I listened to the show for about 30-40 minutes, and during that 
    time two medical professionals called in and claimed that they 
    were shut up by AIDS activists for expressing politically incorrect
    views on the mechanism of AIDS transmission.  One of them, an
    epidemiologist, while publicly speaking on a subject that had 
    little to do with AIDS casually mentioned that the virus could
    survive for as much as 36 hours inside a mosquito.  Shortly
    thereafter, he started receiving phone calls from people
    threatening to infect his children with AIDS (using infected
    needles) if he continued to promote the "mosquito theory".



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Disclaimer: all opinions are mine.
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