Europe's plagues helped halt AIDS

[True_Blue]

LIFE was nasty, brutish and short when waves of plague swept across Europe right up to the 18th century.

Scientific research now suggests, however, that the terrible suffering of those generations means a significant proportion of modern Europeans are now resistant to AIDS.

A study by two British biologists published in the Journal of Medical Genetics suggests about 10per cent of Europeans have this protection as a direct result of the series of plagues that swept across the continent from the Middle Ages onwards.

Biologists have known for some time that people carrying a genetic mutation known as CCR5-delta32 remain free of the deadly disease. The mutation prevents the human immunodeficiency virus from entering the cells of the immune system.

more....
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12516173%255E23289,00.html

[DBoon]

1. What doesn't kill me...

... makes me resistant to AIDS!

[KoKo]

2. Did one of Bush's fake scientists plant this article?

:crazy:

[solinvictus]

5. No..

it's been studied for years. It appears some populations of Northern European extraction are resistant to HIV.

[jdj]

25. yes, I believe this.

I have a very good friend who was a sex addict in the eighties and had sex with thousands of men (2 or 3 a day), and had pretty much accepted the fact that he had AIDS and had a death sentence and tested negative much to his complete shock, and is in perfect health today when he has whole photo albums wherein most of the people in them are dead.

Now that they know what the immunity is, I am hoping they will be able to use this for a cure.

[loudsue]

3. Wow! It wasn't the bubonic plague after all... it was ebola-like

I didn't know that! DANGEROUS stuff!!

"Professor Duncan and Dr Scott, authors of The Return of the Black Death, published last year, insist these plagues were not bubonic, but epidemics of viral haemorrhagic fever that used the CCR5 receptor as the "entry port" into the immune system.

These lethal haemorrhagic fevers - whose modern version is Ebola fever - are believed to have occurred as far back as antiquity."



:kick:

[Sufi Marmot]

7. I'm not sure I buy this hypothesis just yet...

I haven't read the book yet, but what hemorrhagic fevers have symptoms that mimic those reported in the historical records that describe those plague outbreaks? And could the CCR5 receptor be linked to another gene which confered plague resistance, or could the CCR5D32 mutation have conferred plague survival in a manner other than preventing initial infection?

-SM, curious...

[Boomer]

12. It's a fascinating study

The connection between European plague immunity and AIDS was made from the case study of a gay man who never developed AIDS even though his entire cohort of gay friends died around him.

In trying to figure out why he survived (even he had assumed he would die like the others), researchers discovered that he possesed the same kind of genetic factor that had was now being uncovered in descendants of plague survivors. The gay man's ancestry was European, so there is a persuasive case to be made that this particular genetic makeup has served a similar protective purpose against two different diseases.

[jdj]

30. when you look at the percentage of new infections to heterosexuals

which is much lower than that of gay people it tends to make me believe that this gene is fending off infection amoung straight people.

I don't think it has been proven that gay people are likely to have gay offspring, but it has to be true that gay people are much less likely to reproduce than straight people so if the person in question that had the gene was gay, the likelihood of it being passed down through issue would be a lot less than if they were straight. If indeed there is a non-behavioral reason that the transmission is lower among heterosexuals than gays, this might be it, because as one who knows, there isn't a whole lot of difference in the actual acts..it's all sex after all. I mean, there is a conceit that there is, but really there isn't, with the exception of the structure of the vagina vs. the anus.

[Boomer]

34. Sigh. Shows how little you know.

>> it has to be true that gay people are much less likely to reproduce than straight people so if the person in question that had the gene was gay <<

You seem to have a rosy, contemporary view of marriage as the happy joining of two people in love. That is a VERY new twist -- less than a hundred years old -- on an old social contract. Such a recent change in behavior would have no effect on the genetic issues we're discussing.

Throughout history marriage was a financial and social arrangement. People married if they wanted to have a place as an adult in their society. And usually their parents made the choice, or at least had to approve it. Only the most extreme homosexual male, who was simply incapable of arousal and sexual intimacy with a woman, would have failed to have children. The majority of gay men are perfectly capable of performing the marital act if necessary for siring children, and women, of course, don't need to be enthusiastic at all. Their attraction to men, or lack thereof, was rarely an issue of importance to anyone other than the woman.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Interesting

I don't think it would be too difficult to explain how filoviruses from central Africa entered Europe via trade routes with the east, especially since the Muslim world had such vigorous trade with central Africa (Mali in particular).

[Sufi Marmot]

22. But do rodents or insects carry filoviruses?

It was my understanding that while Ebola and other filoviruses have a high lethality rate, unlike Yersinia pestis they are not known to be spread person-to-person by respiratory secretions (although they can be spread by inhaling secretions from animal carriers), or through insect vectors. So to me it seems counterintuitive that filoviruses could have spread so quickly or thoroughly through Europe without person-to-person resipiratory transmission or biting insects. :shrug: I guess I'll have to read the book to find out more...

-SM

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. Very true

And I hadn't considered that. There's also the problem of how quickly some of these filoviruses actually kill that would make human-to-human transmission over long distances in that time period unlikely. Thanks for the qualifier.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. There was a PBS program about this, either on Nova or

Secrets of the Dead.

It was about a medieval English village that voluntarily quarantined itself once a few of its residents came down with the plague, and to everyone's surprise, the majority of villagers survived. It turns out that the villagers and their descendants have a mutation that makes them resistant not only to plague but to AIDS. The mutation is not unique to the village, but it's found only in places that had the plague.

[NYC]

6. I read about that on the internet.

I wish I could remember where. It was very interesting.

[Maple]

8. The village of Eyam

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/

[NYC]

29. Thanks.

That isn't even the same article I read. So, there is more on the internet about this village. Very interesting.

[Tansy_Gold]

40. Yes, I saw this PBS show also

IIRC, individuals who had inherited the gene from only one parent fell sick but were able to recover; those who had inherited it from both parents displayed a seeming immunity.

This show was aired perhaps a year ago, or more.

[happyslug]

9. An attempt to avoid the issue that Aids may be NON-African in Origins

When the Spanish moved into the New War they brought with them Small pox which wiped out 90% of the Native American population. The reason for this is that Europeans have had been exposed the Small pox for Centuries and thus had developed some Resistance to it. Furthermore given this long term exposure people has also changed customs to minimized its spread (The movement from everyone living in one big house to people living in individual homes for example).

The Key was NOT prior exposure to any disease but people's exposure to SMALLPOX which made people some immunity to Smallpox. Small pox more than any other factor is what did in the American Indian.

In the 1970s the Russians finally had built airplanes and support for those airplanes to intervene in Africa. Which the former USSR did. A few years later AIDS is spreading all over Africa just like Small Pox in the New World in the 1500s. It looked like a new Diseases introduced into virgin population (this brought forth rumors of CIA planted AIDS to kill off black people, through I think the truth is closer to an accidental introduction from someone from the former USSR).

The AIDS in South East Asia is different from the one in Africa but o similar, and the former Soviet Union really started to send in its own troops to South East Asia only after American pulled out with fall on South Vietnam in 1975 (And the infection seems to start in areas where the Russians had bases in the area).

This is further complicated by the British doctor who had a Sailor in 1959 die on him after only one trip (and that was to Leningrad now St Petersburg Russia). The doctor for decades could not figure out what killed a healthy 20 year old sailor, when AIDS hit he remember the sailor and tested a sample of the sailor for AIDS and it came out positive. This the 1959 case is the oldest case of AIDS we know and it is tied in with Russia not Africa.

Starting in the 1600s Russia severely restricted movement of its peasants. Except for a brief time after 1918 when these restrictions were lifted, such restriction on movement was normal in Russia (Stalin reimposed them by the late 1920s).

We also know that people north of the Alps view anyone who has sex with a person of the same sex as a homosexual, in the Mediterranean and region south of the Mediterranean only the man who is penetrated is called a homosexual, his partner is NOT called a homosexual (and this is also true in US Prison but that is getting of the topic).

Thus AIDS can be explained as some sort of Eurasian disease contained in Russian for centuries by the Combination of the broad definition of homosexuality, the restriction on Movement in Russia and the partial immunity to the disease. All of these can be viewed as ways people came to handle the presence of AIDS (both through immunity and social change). The broad definition of Homosexuality meant that such sex was restricted more than in the Mediterranean Area, the restrictions as to movement restricted people who had the disease from spreading it and the partial immunity meant that even if AIDS got out of its control area, AIDS would not survive long before it ran into a war of Resistance.

While the above probably restricted AIDS into some geographical spot in Russia for centuries, once someone with AIDS traveled to Africa by Plane he just had to inflect one or two people to start the AIDS epidemic. Like Smallpox in the New World in the 1500, AIDS exposed to a society that has no natural immunity or social controls that would prevent its spread, just spread and spread.

Two things I believe keeps people from researching this, first I suspect Russia does not want this to be true and as such forbid any research into Russian as a source for AIDS (AIDS hit Russia later than the west, but when it did hit the Government lied about it). People do not like to be embarrass and right know Russia would view it as an embarrassment to be found to have accidentally spread the disease to Africa.

Second is the persistent attempts to keep AIDS not as a long term Human disease but as a recently introduced human disease. Some scientist believe this happens and see AIDS as a way to prove that point. A lot of research goes into this and no one wants to share it with some Russian Social Scientists who can only prove AIDS is a long term human disease.

Thus you get attempts to justify the high AIDS immunity among whites while ignoring the fact that immunity generally comes with exposure.

[depakid]

10. That was a very interesting epidemiological argument

My understanding is that the tissue samples from the 1959 "patient zero" (who died from symptoms suggesting a severely compromised immune system) are suspect, both because of the inability of other researchers to replicate the results and because the original sequencing didn't show the expected mutation rate.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/310/6985/957

The most compelling reason cited for a recent African origin is that HIV is very similar to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) found in several African monkey species and is nearly identical to the subtype SIVcpz found in chimps. Since the subtype is rare- there aren't that many chimps who have been exposed- that's not much of a reservoir, and it's certainly possible that the zoonosis (species jump) could have happened in reverse.

Still, I enjoyed your reasoning very much- good reading- many ponderables.

[tinanator]

14. Did the chimps share needles with the WHO?

Now were getting somewhere!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Hmm...

It was a fun read, until I hit this:


We also know that people north of the Alps view anyone who has sex with a person of the same sex as a homosexual, in the Mediterranean and region south of the Mediterranean only the man who is penetrated is called a homosexual, his partner is NOT called a homosexual (and this is also true in US Prison but that is getting of the topic).

AIDS seems to a damn fine job of spreading itself via heterosexual contact.

[tinanator]

13. garbage out

weak hypothesis to begin with. If it is true that there were requests for "ethnocentric immunologically based biological weapons" research funding passed through Congress in the Nixon administration era, all the elaborate explanations in the world are only so much monkey business. Drawing curved lines around the likeliest suspects is just another magic bullet. There really isnt a sustainable natural explanation for AIDS, evolution simply couldnt go along with that sort of thing. But on with the explanations. Back and to the left, because he heard the echo of the gunshot reflected from the grassy knoll and asked Jackie, "What was that?"
RIP Bill

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. Pardon?

>There really isnt a sustainable natural explanation for AIDS, evolution
> simply couldnt go along with that sort of thing.

Honestly, I see no scientific basis for that statement.

[tinanator]

17. more intuitive than empirical

You tell me how and why AIDS as it is described would exist through natural selection. was it Monkey fucking? Piss poor food preparation by people with inferior intelligence? If you want to consider openly stated intentions of biological warfare as natural means, I guess thats an option, but disregarding the 200-Ton (US CIA/South African Apartheid govt policies and programs) Elephant in the room while looking for suspects is madness. Looks like the lowest common denominated explanations usually rely on some inferior biological traits being ascribed to gays and/or blacks. And that should be a red flag if only that the gubmint never rebuts the popular myths that are snaked into the media mind control machinery. Im afraid I cannot rely on government sanctioned explanations and government purchased news releases. Nobody loves a sickness as much as the Pharmaceuticals, but they would never play games to make a buck, and they have no friends in WDC anyway.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

19. Ok, I'm done here.

There are enough straw men in that post to furnish a large stable for the better part of a year.

[tinanator]

37. just for the record

My reply to your previous post was in response to the post you replied to. Just in case you were upset at my ambiguous response as a personal attack. It werent. Then again, Im not real keen on folks who cop out with the Straw Man non-response.

[NickB79]

31. Simple

An African hunter kills a monkey, and then cuts his hand while skinning and gutting it. Blood mixes, virus transmitted. I myself have cut my hand several times while gutting deer. No "monkey fucking" required.

For an example of this, read this story from less than 3 weeks ago: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7036310/

"WASHINGTON - Two new retroviruses never before seen in humans have turned up among people who regularly hunt monkeys in Cameroon, researchers reported on Friday."

[tinanator]

36. so some gay hunters went to Africa?

you may not have many freedoms left, but the freedom to believe whatever you want is certainly one of them. Unless of course you would like to be free to share your beliefs with people who dont have opinions fixed in cement. Why dont we skip the good honest explanations provided by the governments fascist media mouthpieces and go straight to "God's judgement against fags"?
Who here has lost someone to AIDS? Did you see any sign of relief or medical or social progress during their treatment? Or did you just see a bunch of pricey poisonous drugs pumped into them by a society/government who wouldn't even utter the word?
Now, if you have anything left to contribute, what do you suppose the government was working on in their research into "Ethnocentric immunoligically based biological weapons"?

[Baconfoot]

38. poisonous AIDS drugs? Is this Bill Maher? No really? Is it? n/t

[tinanator]

42. you ever see someone survive the treatment?

Im surely not the only one who thinks the (ineffective at best)treatment is what killed so many. My nurse friend certainly had that opinion. I assume they arent using the same stuff they pawned 12 years ago, but that shit wouldnt exactly save your life.

[Baconfoot]

48. There are plenty of people who think it's not even HIV that causes AIDS.

And these people are wrong.

I have even read suggestions that AZT and/or prednisone causes AIDS.

If you tell people that their HIV drugs will likely cause AIDS do you know what will happen if they believe you? They will stop taking their drugs, develop AIDS, develop an opportunistic infection and die.

The fact is, AIDS drugs extend life. We don't have to guess about this either. You just wait till the person dies and mark it on your tally sheet. You compare the average life expectancy after diagnosis of people taking the drugs to those not taking the drugs and we see that saying HIV drugs are poisonous is something NOBODY SHOULD BE GOING AROUND DOING BECAUSE IT CAN BE DEADLY.

I suggest you google:
+AIDS +therapy +"life expectancy" +2005

Get it straight sister.

[tinanator]

49. Im speaking of past practices/medicines

I have no idea what is going on these days compared to 12 years ago (other than much improved treatments obviously), but 12 years ago the meds being dispensed didnt do anybody much good.
That didnt stop them from being profitable. In fact, in todays church of profits, wellness isnt exactly in the shareholders interest, and workplace safety concern is a thing of the past.

[girl gone mad]

41. Good luck with that.

I find that people on DU are generally open minded, but when it comes to questioning HIV/AIDS dogma, you might as well be preaching tolerance at a klan convention.

[tinanator]

43. that applies to a lot of topics in these parts

whether its the squeeky wheels of professionals or the twinging discomfort of the disafflicted you cant say. Either way, too bad for them. Im shameless.

[happyslug]

47. Where you responding to my comment?/

While I mention the rumor of AIDS being a CIA plot, I dismissed it in the same paragraph for the ACCIDENTAL introduction of AIDS from Russia is by far a better explanation. People have proposed this since the Civil War (And when a disease was found to hit an people more than another people, even ancient people seems to have used that observation).

My point is given how close most people are genetically such a genetic based disease would being nearly impossible to do even today let alone the 1960s. Furthermore given the fact the US is a nation of immigrants any such disease would hit the US hard, maybe not as hard as "Target" country but hard. Thus the risk of such a disease backfiring is to great.

[tinanator]

50. Anything predicated on homosexuality as a factor is questionable to me

I simply see a bunch of white supremacists with serious concerns about their hegemony in Africa feeling awfully lucky that a devestating disease goes like wildfire through the indigenous populations right when they are involved in all manner of biological attacks and research. Pretending that South Africa didnt have ambitions that AIDS in Africa helps to further, while the US withholds cost effective assistance in a country everyone loves to exploit, all taking place at a time when the people in power were technologically able to, and philosophically willing to do such a terrible thing. A little green monkey? Thats not fair.

[amazona]

18. doesn't seem to be the case to me

Quote: AIDS seems to a damn fine job of spreading itself via heterosexual contact.


Actually if you think back to the 80s we in the U.S. were all supposed to be dead by now, remember? Heterosexuals do not use condoms, not really. Married men play around as much (or more) in the internet era than ever...and married partners do not use condoms. Yet we can find damn few cases of HIV spread here from married men to their innocent wives. Indeed, I can think of only one case, and that woman spent a lot of time traveling about, giving Congressional testimony, etc. It wasn't like there was a victimized wife in every town or city that could be tapped to give the sad testimony. It can spread, but it just isn't that easy. It seems pretty clear that most of the straight women who are acquiring HIV have a history of drug abuse.

We see lots of what is claimed to be heterosexual contact spreading AIDS in Africa, but when we look closer, we seem to see a lot of "CYA" of hospitals, clinics, and public health organizations re-using needles and then trying to put the blame for their grievous failure elsehwere.

Most men by their actions are confident that HIV doesn't spread by heterosexual contact whatever they may say in public for reasons of political reality. Women are less sure, but the reality is that we are being infected by clamydia, herpes, HPV, etc. at far greater rates than by HIV. It may all hinge on your definition of "damn fine job." I accept that it's possible for heterosexual transmission of HIV to occur but I don't rank it anywhere near as likely as heterosexual transmission of, say, HPV.

If I'm wrong about this, set me straight. I won't be offended. If it is a misconception, it is a very very common one, I must say.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

20. Interesting

Heterosexuals do not use condoms, not really.

Yes, that's true - someone on another board informed me of that, and I was not too surprised, frankly.

Married men play around as much (or more) in the internet era than ever...and married partners do not use condoms. Yet we can find damn few cases of HIV spread here from married men to their innocent wives.

Yes, but no. Black American females make up the fastest growing group of new HIV infections.

But I've seen discussion that anal sex is more popular with black couples than white couples. So if the guy is HIV+ and he is doing it back door style without a condom, then she is at greatest risk of contracting the virus that way.

We see lots of what is claimed to be heterosexual contact spreading AIDS in Africa, but when we look closer, we seem to see a lot of "CYA" of hospitals, clinics, and public health organizations re-using needles and then trying to put the blame for their grievous failure elsehwere.

I don't buy this. How many communities in Africa don't even HAVE hospitals or modern healthcare, i.e. hypodermic needles? I daresay tons. They don't even have enough money to keep from starving; I doubt they have the money to construct many hospitals.

I accept that it's possible for heterosexual transmission of HIV to occur but I don't rank it anywhere near as likely as heterosexual transmission of, say, HPV.

Again, I think you need to examine precisely which sexual activities couples are engaging in if you want to have some reliable indicators of who is going to get HIV and who isn't.

I am not a doctor nor do I work in healthcare, but I'm curious if there is any research that HIV is transmitted more easily during anal sex rather than vaginal sex because the skin is ruptured more easily during anal sex, as the anus is tighter than the vagina and also, the anus is not naturally lubricated, leading to even more risk of rupture/exposure to the bloodstream? That is, the anus is generally tight and dry, whereas the vagina is generally the opposite?

If the research supports that, then women probably contract HIV at a lower rate because they stick with vaginal sex which can be less painful than anal sex, thereby keeping the risk lower.

[jdj]

28. just so we're clear

HIV/AIDS IN THE UNITED STATES

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 850,000 to 950,000 U.S. residents are living with HIV infection, one-quarter of whom are unaware of their infection.(2)

Approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year in the United States, about 70 percent among men and 30 percent among women. Of these newly infected people, half are younger than 25 years of age.(3,4)

Of new infections among men in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 60 percent of men were infected through homosexual sex, 25 percent through injection drug use, and 15 percent through heterosexual sex. Of newly infected men, approximately 50 percent are black, 30 percent are white, 20 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.(4)

Of new infections among women in the United States, CDC estimates that approximately 75 percent of women were infected through heterosexual sex and 25 percent through injection drug use. Of newly infected women, approximately 64 percent are black, 18 percent are white, 18 percent are Hispanic, and a small percentage are members of other racial/ethnic groups.(4)

The estimated number of AIDS diagnoses through 2002 in the United States is 886,575. Adult and adolescent AIDS cases total 877,275, with 718,002 cases in males and 159,271 cases in females. Through the same time period, 9,300 AIDS cases were estimated in children under age 13.(5)

The estimated number of new adult/adolescent AIDS diagnoses in the United States was 43,225 in 1998, 41,134 in 1999, 42,239 in 2000, 41,227 in 2001, and 42,136 in 2002.(5)

The estimated number of new pediatric AIDS cases (cases among individuals younger than age 13) in the United States fell from 952 in 1992 to 92 in 2002.(5)

The estimated rate of adult/adolescent AIDS diagnoses in the United States in 2002 (per 100,000 population) was 76.4 among blacks, 26.0 among Hispanics, 11.2 among American Indians/Alaska Natives, 7.0 among whites, and 4.9 among Asians/Pacific Islanders.(5)

From 1985 to 2002, the proportion of adult/adolescent AIDS cases in the United States reported in women increased from 7 percent to 26 percent.(5)

As of the end of 2002, an estimated 384,906 people in the United States were living with AIDS.(5)

As of December 31, 2002, an estimated 501,669 people with AIDS in the United States had died.(5)

The estimated annual number of AIDS-related deaths in the United States fell approximately 14 percent from 1998 to 2002, from 19,005 deaths in 1998 to 16,371 deaths in 2002.(5)

Of the estimated 16,371 AIDS-related deaths in the United States in 2002, approximately 52 percent were among blacks, 28 percent among whites, 19 percent among Hispanics, and less than 1 percent among Asians/Pacific Islanders and American Indians/Alaska Natives.(5)
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Factsheets/aidsstat.htm

see also:

http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/GAR2004_html/ExecSummary_en/ExecSumm_en_01.htm#P52_5995

[NickB79]

32. Tell that to the 20 million African women infected with HIV

And ask them how they contracted it. HIV = gay is almost entirely a US/European phenomenon. For the vast majority of the world, HIV is spread by heterosexual contact.

[jdj]

33. apparently women in the US are at a much greater risk

of ALL kinds of STD infection than men, not just HIV. It's obvious why we are more biologically vulnerable, because of the way we are made. Still, men need to not be stupid, they need to wear condoms, because although male to female tranmission is the more likely route, there are always cases like that of a strapping healthy young male like Magic Johnson. It just aint' worth the risk.

edit: I am also thinking perhaps our european ancestors that survived the plagues that swept over Europe really did have some genetic immunity of sorts (that Africans may not have had) that is directly related to HIV and not to diseases like chlamadia, gonnorhea, herpes and syphilis. Of those the only one that is going down in infection rate is syphilis (among heterosexuals) the rest are going up and up. Also, the rate of infection among American black women is skyrocketing as well, and you can't tell me that black men are anymore on the down low than white men.

[jdj]

26. well, two things.

first latin cultures tend to be along the lines of the 2nd definition of homosexualty, and

the statistics about spread of AIDS in this country apparently are skewed because of the way we here define homosexualty. My friend who worked with the Western North Carolina AIDS project told me that one reason that there has never been a documented case of female to female sexual transmission of AIDS is because health depts. do not list a female as a lesbian if she has ever had sex with a man, therefore making it ambiguous who is spreading the disease and how. I think he said the same is true for gay men, in that if they have had sex with females they are not counted statistically as gay, regardless of how they define themselves. It seems like an assinine way to keep statistical record of an epidemic...it has been a few years since we had this conversation, maybe they have changed it since then.

[happyslug]

45. History of Sexually transmitted disease.

Historically, sexual transmitted disease has a tendency to hit the homosexual community before the heterosexual community. That is how Syphilis seems to have started to spread throwout Europe in the early 1500s and how Aids spread in the US and Europe. That is why I mention the Homosexual community. It tends to be hit first and hardest when it comes to sexually transmitted disease and thus a restriction on such conduct would restrict the spreading of that disease. It is noted that the definition of Homosexuality differs North and South of the Alps and no one can explain that difference. The Mediterranean difination seems to be the default definition (Given the US Prison experience) why did the definition change north of the Alps? I suspect AIDS and by using that Broader definition restrict all out of marriage sexual activity.

When discussing AIDS you can not just ignore Homosexuality, while AIDS can spread by Heterosexual conduct, heterosexual spread seems to be behind both Homosexual and sharing needles. Thus anything that restrict these two methods of spreading the disease would have greater affect than restrictions on Heterosexual conduct. Just a point, don't leave your prejudices affect evaluation of evidence.

[goodboy]

15. well for the record, I'd MUCH rather have the plague....(nt)

[jdj]

27. really?

you have a longer life-span with HIV

[goodboy]

44. really?

I didn't know that.

[VegasWolf]

24. Yes, in other news, death halts aging. Yawn! n/t

[rayofreason]

35. Ancient AIDS in chimps

HIV-related retroviruses seem to have been around for some time. An ancient epidemic apparently slaughtered chimps, causing a reduction in genetic diversity that is observable now. Here is the abstract of the paper, for those interested.

Evidence for an ancient selective sweep in the MHC class I gene repertoire of chimpanzees

Natasja G. de Groot†, Nel Otting†, Gaby G. M. Doxiadis†, Sunita S. Balla-Jhagjhoorsingh†, Jonathan L. Heeney†, Jon J. van Rood‡, Pascal Gagneux§, and Ronald E. Bontrop†

†Departments of Immunobiology and Virology, Biomedical Primate Research Centre, P.O. Box 3306, 2280 GH, Rijswijk, The Netherlands; ‡Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, Leiden University Medical Center, E3-Q, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC, Leiden, The Netherlands; and §Glycobiology Research and Training Center CMM-East, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0687

MHC class I molecules play an essential role in the immune defense against intracellular infections. The hallmark of the MHC is its extensive degree of polymorphism at the population level. However, the present comparison of MHC class I gene intron variation revealed that chimpanzees have experienced a severe repertoire reduction at the orthologues of the HLA-A, -B, and -C loci. The loss of variability predates the (sub)speciation of chimpanzees and did not effect other known gene systems. Therefore the selective sweep in the MHC class I gene may have resulted from a widespread viral infection. Based on the present results and the fact that chimpanzees have a natural resistance to the development of AIDS, we hypothesize that the selective sweep was caused by the chimpanzee-derived simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVcpz), the closest relative of HIV-1, or a closely related retrovirus. Hence, the contemporary chimpanzee populations represent the offspring of AIDS-resistant animals, the survivors of a HIV-like pandemic that took place in the distant past.

11748–11753 PNAS September 3, 2002 vol. 99 no. 18

[Baconfoot]

39. They'll never read it. [sarcasm] Who do you think pays for those studies?

</sarcasm>

[Lori Price CLG]

46. Why were all bird flu posts moved to Science forum, but not this one? n/t