Wednesday, April 8, 2009

AIDS/HIV 2

More interesting tidbits:

1) The HIV test doesn't determine the presence of HIV itself, much less its prevalence -- only the presence of antibodies that indicate infection at some point in the past. Consequently, you could come up HIV-positive on a test and have no HIV in your system. The test can't tell the difference.

2) There is no documented demonstration of how HIV actually attacks T-cells.

3) HIV-positive Africans in Uganda without HIV treatments have the same 10-year survival rates and HIV-positive Westerners with the treatments.

4) In the West, AIDS is defined as any of 20-some diseases, plus the presence of HIV. For example, multiple bacterial infections plus HIV = AIDS. Multiple bacterial infections without HIV = not AIDS. So the correlation between AIDS and HIV is definitional. In other words, if you define "strong" as "being able to lift five pounds, and being tan," then you shouldn't be surprised when all the "strong" people are tan.

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