From: lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard)
Subject: Re: Cause of AIDS
Organization: The Turing Project, Charlottesville Virginia.
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 01:20:14 GMT

In article <92243.174004BROEKHVN@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <BROEKHVN@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.025231.3103@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, lfoard@Turing.ORG
>(Lawrence C. Foard) says:
>
>>
>>The only effective means [of disease control -knb] in the past
>>has been vacines.
>>
>
>This "fact" just ain't so.  Effective public health and hygiene practices
>and codes predate the development of vaccines and the germ theory of
>disease by several millennia.
>
>  o  control of communicable diseases like leprosy by quarantine
>     are recorded in the bible, and used extensively all throughout
>     European history.  Canada only dropped quarantine of TB+ immigrants
>     about two decades ago.

TB is highly contagious HIV is not (I don't know about leprosy).

>  o  Biblical prohibitions of sodomy were effectively a public health
>     code that blocked the transmission of disease.

Eliminating anal sex (sodomy is the act of gang raping guests not anal sex)
does not block transmission of disease unless vaginal sex is also
eliminated. 

>  o  Christian missionaries' tireless campaign to stamp out cannibalism
>     in  newly discovered territories was effectively a public health
>     measure that wiped out all kinds weirdo diseases previously unknown
>     to Europeans.  Particularly harmful it seems, was eating other
>     people's brains.

Somehow I doubt this was the reason why they worked to stamp out
cannibalism. There are some other obvious reasons like "thou shalt not
kill".

>   o Quarantine, and the practice of washing one's hands after going
>     to the wash-room are credited as the public health measures which
>     wiped out polio in the forties and fifties before vacines were
>     available.  Polio was wiped out so conclusively, that its
>     anti-bodies were undetectable in most of the population.

How is Polio spread?

>   o Americans declared a war on syphilis in the 30's and 40's which
>     was devastatingly effective.  Prime weapon?  Contact tracing.
>     No vaccine.

Wasn't there this drug called penicilin back then? 

>In short, effective public health and hygiene measures have been
>available and practised for millennia.  It is ironic that in the last
>decade of the twentieth century, when allegedly, most of the scientists
>who have ever lived, are alive, that public health authorities are
>running around like chickens with their heads cut off, saying there
>are no public health measures available to cope with this scourge.

AIDS is easily prevented, two things are required, education, and the
availability of condoms for people who choose to have penetrative sex.
Both of these measures are being fought tooth and nail because of religious
doctrine.

>Oddly, instead of taking common sense steps to combat HIV/ARC,
>(like contact tracing, or closing the infamous "bath houses"
>authorities have taken steps to further the spread of disease. 

Contrary to popular opinion bath houses are not a main stay of homosexuals.
Of the gay and bi people I know only a few have ever seen a bath house
and most of them are older people. I don't even know if they exist any
more.

>e.g.
>"anti-discrimination" laws which give the right of HIV+/ARC individuals
>the right to work anywhere, in any capacity, even in health-care, or
>with young children.

If someone is having sex with there patients or young children something
is already seriously wrong...

>While HIV may or may not cause AIDS, and may be
>difficult to transmit, unfortunates with ARC may be host to a large
>number of dangerous diseases which _are_ contagious.  e.g. hepatitis, TB,
>the myriad types of VD, 

If someone has one of these then there is a reason why they shouldn't
be working in some jobs. However HIV+ people are healthy for 5 to
10 years before they are at risk for these, why should they be restricted
in the mean time?

>"gay bowel syndrome" (a witch's brew of
>diseases of the lower bowel which should have been wiped out centuries
>ago with proper sewage facilities, and personal hygiene)

Strange that none of the 200 or more gay and bi men I talk to on the
net has it.... 

>,  and  MDT -- a VD
>which causes birth defects, and sterility in women.

Again if your fucking your patients you shouldn't be practicing period.

>Common sense would dictate that persons with AIDS should at least be isolated
>from women of child-bearing age, and children whose immune systems
>are not yet mature.

If someone has a contagious AIDS related illness yes, however I have no
reason to believe this is not currently the case.

>To say that there are no public health measures we can take until a vaccine
>is discovered, is categorically incorrect.

I didn't say that, I said the most effective is a vaccine, next most
effective is education, the measures you suggest are somewhere far down
on the list.
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