R351589
4 months ago

bump.

R351606
4 months ago

No one who disputes that HIV leads to AIDS can help

but I’m good at networking!

R351607
4 months ago

Isn’t it possible that sick, malnourished people + dirty needles = immune system failure? I mean, whether HIV is present or not?

R351608
4 months ago

duplicate

R351612
4 months ago

dirty needles mostly transmit three blood-blorne viruses: hepatitis b, hepatitis c and hiv

Neither hep B nor hep C will give you AIDS symptoms

sickly malnurished people can be mistaken for AIDS victims in the absence of access to tests, but the scale of the major national epidemics has been confirmed by sampling and testing the general population, it’s not an illusion created by hunger

Although, you may be interested to know that the low life expectancies in Africa correlate to poverty levels more closely than they correlate to HIV prevalence. Poverty actually is much more lethal than AIDS.

R351613
4 months ago

I don’t qualify, but damn, breath of fresh air seein you here.

best of luck on the project

R351622
4 months ago

ditto, great to see you gavin!

R351630
4 months ago

If I had the right qualifications I’d help you out in a heartbeat Gavin.

R351650
4 months ago

awesome, but i cannot help beyond saying awesome

R351651
4 months ago

No one who disputes that HIV leads to AIDS can help.

I beg to differ. No one who disputes that HIV leads to AIDS can hurt.

Also, what is the relevance (of HIV causing AIDS or not) as it applies to injection safety?

R351654
4 months ago

You can’t transmit, say, the common cold via dirty needles? I’m very ignorant about this issue, but that seems a bit counter intuitive.

R351657
4 months ago

johnny’s link, yet another fine example of the high eugenics being carried out against us all.

R351678
4 months ago

Thanks guys, long time.

The common cold isn’t a blood-borne virus, bacchus. I don’t know why not, but there it is.

Fifi, guys, I would really love to have your help, and if you have the time but not the background, the qualifications are flexible. I taught myself epidemiology to get involved with this, and it wasn’t very hard. If you’re comfortable with algebra and have university library access complete with an on-line catalog of academic journals, you can pick up the jargon and the structure of the theories involved. Look up anything by David Gisselquist and tell me if you can follow the argument and identify two or three ways of collecting evidence to test his hypothesis further. (Or if you are convinced HIV is not the cause of AIDS, can you elaborate on why not? This is an exclusion criterion to keep the discussion in the realm of official credibility. I don’t want to risk marginalizing David’s thesis further by association with HIV skepticism.)

R351710
4 months ago

Look up anything by David Gisselquist and tell me if you can follow the argument and identify two or three ways of collecting evidence to test his hypothesis further.

I learned a cool new word – iatrogenic. But damn if I could find a website that would let me read one of Gisselquist’s papers. Damn scientists in a conspiracy to make me go to one of those buildings called a “library”. The BioInfoBank Library lists a bunch of his papers. I didn’t see any that would be his direct reply to the WHO rebuttal.

His own paper Valid evaluation of iatrogenic and sexual HIV transmission requires proof probably lists ways to collect evidence to test his hypothesis further.

As for “following his argument”, I don’t think I need to read an entire paper to get it. But the devil is in the details, and what he will get mired down in (and it sounds like he is) is statistics – how to prove that a certain percentage of HIV infections in Africa are iatrogenic. Certainly some are, but how many? I don’t think you’re ever going to create an unassailable study on that scale. Either the majority is willing to believe it, or not.

R351801
4 months ago

Well, scholars in this area aren’t expecting an unassailable study. Their own models of the risk from unsafe injections are extremely simple, and my corrections to the reference model are necessarily simple. It’s algebra and common sense. There are a handful of statistical concepts you would want to pick up.

If you’re interested in spending time on this, I would love to fill you in. Theoretically, you could work from pubmed abstracts, but I would rather find a way to get you access to entire articles.

R351805
4 months ago

If you’re comfortable with algebra and have university library access complete with an on-line catalog of academic journals, you can pick up the jargon and the structure of the theories involved.

heh…not really making it sound any easier there, y’know…

R351811
4 months ago

I’ve activated my account’s ability to receive messages. Please PM me the next steps – I would love to help. My BS is in Biochem, but I haven’t been involved in that since college (15 yrs ago). Both of my parents are in the medical field (Dad – anesthesiologist, Mom – RN) – I could bounce some ideas off them as well.

My wife is managing a research project for Stanford, which should wrap up in the next year. She wrote the Manual of Operations, and served as the overall project manager (I think, I’m not keen on the titles). A hell of a lot of work for little pay. And talk about plodding. So I have an idea of what it’s like to do the grunt work, because I’ve lived with someone who’s been doing it for years.

My understanding of statistics is a bit beyond the study of the outcome of pulling marbles out of a bag – but not much. I can’t remember the last time I needed to calculate a Chi-square distribution…

Figuring out the odds of an iatrogenic HIV infection in certain situations may be “algebra and common sense”, but if the plan is to extrapolate those results to the entire population of Africa then things get sticky. I believe that is where Gisselquist’s hypothesis appears most “assailable”. The study needs proof that the demographics used to extrapolate the model are solid.

It would be easier to forego the extrapolation and focus on the simple. “In X situations, the chance of iatrogenic HIV infection raises to Y. We don’t know how much X occurs in all of Africa, but we know it is occuring here, here and here. So let’s begin with a focus to alleviate this problem in those specific places.” Might not get the support dollars you’re looking for, but it’s a start.

R352338
4 months ago

I have some clerical work to support the technical networking project, if anybody else wants to get involved. Basically I need an .xls of the names of presenters in this conference, the topics they addressed and their e-mail (from google). Not the ambassadors, just the scientists. Linking to a web page that lists their recent academic publications, when available, would also be a great help.

http://www.hivimplementers.org/default.asp

Thanks for sending your support! Good to see you again.

R352372
4 months ago

Wow, it’s good to see you here. Wish I could help, but the school year just started and the little people need Mr. Sarcasm.

R352374
4 months ago

Lovely to see you too.

Sending my best thoughts to you and the little ones.

R352384
4 months ago

Aw, thanks, I have an outstanding class this year. Very exciting!