World Health Organisation Recommends That All Gay Men Should Take Antiretroviral Medicine To Halt 'exploding' Hiv Epidemic

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/world-health-organisation-recommends-that-all-gay-men-should-take-antiretroviral-medicine-to-halt-exploding-hiv-epidemic-9602688.html

The World Health Organisation has announced for the first time that all men who have sex with men should take antiretroviral drugs, in a bid to try and contain the growing rates of HIV in gay communities around the world.

In a report published on Friday, the WHO made “strong recommendations” that all men who have sex with men should seriously consider taking antiretroviral medicine “as an additional method of preventing the HIV infection from spreading”, even if they haven’t got the virus themselves.

The report says that in addition to other forms of protection like condoms and regular testing, increased use of antiretroviral drugs in the gay community could have a significant impact in stopping the spread of HIV and could prevent a million new infections in the next ten years, according to the WHO.

Could is also develop a HIV strain resistant to these drugs?

Being cynical is it a way of boosting drug sales for the companies that have developed these drugs?

[Patfig]

Drug companies make money by selling drugs

[1929crash]

It used to be limited to potential Nobel laureates like peter Duisburg but there is an increasing willingness to question the alleged HIV/AIDS link.

[Dorkins]

.

[DTMark]

As one of the forum's openly gay members, perhaps I can be more frank.. ("No, I want to be Frank this time, you were Frank last time")

Perhaps it has lot to do with unprotected sex ("bare-backing").

It is a medical fact that diseases are more transmissible via ay-n-al sex than the conventional hetero method.

Taking a drug to minimise the risk is not a substitute for safe sex.

I'm not saying that gay men indulge in unprotected sex more than hetero males. Witness the number of fatherless children.

I am saying that it is a risk and gay men would do well to beware of that risk. It only need be "that once".

Edit: ay-n-al is on the block list? Eh?

[1929crash]

As one of the forum's openly gay members, perhaps I can be more frank.. ("No, I want to be Frank this time, you were Frank last time")

Perhaps it has lot to do with unprotected sex ("bare-backing").

It is a medical fact that diseases are more transmissible via ay-n-al sex than the conventional hetero method.

Taking a drug to minimise the risk is not a substitute for safe sex.

I'm not saying that gay men indulge in unprotected sex more than hetero males. Witness the number of fatherless children.

I am saying that it is a risk and gay men would do well to beware of that risk. It only need be "that once".

Edit: ay-n-al is on the block list? Eh?

I have some genuine questions about HIV.

One is in relation o the question of antibodies. if someone has chicken pox antibodies in their blood that is a sign that they've had chickenpox and now they are immune, the antibodies being a sign of that. This line of reasoning doesn't apply to HIV though, and I can't understand why.

Following on from that is what seems to be the extreme subjectivity of the HIV test. The same results that will find you positive in one country will see you negative in another.

I used to think that Tabo Mbeke of South Africa was crazy, but my doubts about the reality of the AIDS/HIV connection have grown in the alst few years. I am sceptical as to whether chemotherapy works for cancer - although it certainly wrecks the immune system. heaven forbid that Big Pharma is in on this in the case of AIDS - dispensing AZT and the current lethal cocktail of drugs.

Your thoughts would be most welcome.

[Dorkins]

I have some genuine questions about HIV.

One is in relation o the question of antibodies. if someone has chicken pox antibodies in their blood that is a sign that they've had chickenpox and now they are immune, the antibodies being a sign of that. This line of reasoning doesn't apply to HIV though, and I can't understand why.

I work with the HIV virus, though not on the host immune aspects of it so I'm not the best person to answer your question. My guess is that somebody who worked in the field of HIV immunity would tell you that there isn't currently a complete answer to your question, though there are lots of fragments. When you get infected by HIV your body does raise antibodies against it, but these antibodies are not effective at clearing the virus. Possible reasons for this include the fact that HIV shields its envelope proteins with large quantities of sugar molecules as well as the virus' high mutation rate making it good at mutating to evade the more effective antibodies. Another strand of the answer involves HIV being able to manipulate the immune system e.g. by making the host's B cells have an 'exhausted' phenotype. Again, I'm not an immunologist so this is not my area of expertise, but if you want to start reading about it you could try something like this review:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.12225/full

[oracle]

I have some genuine questions about HIV.

One is in relation o the question of antibodies. if someone has chicken pox antibodies in their blood that is a sign that they've had chickenpox and now they are immune, the antibodies being a sign of that. This line of reasoning doesn't apply to HIV though, and I can't understand why.

Following on from that is what seems to be the extreme subjectivity of the HIV test. The same results that will find you positive in one country will see you negative in another.

I used to think that Tabo Mbeke of South Africa was crazy, but my doubts about the reality of the AIDS/HIV connection have grown in the alst few years. I am sceptical as to whether chemotherapy works for cancer - although it certainly wrecks the immune system. heaven forbid that Big Pharma is in on this in the case of AIDS - dispensing AZT and the current lethal cocktail of drugs.

Your thoughts would be most welcome.

accoustic medicine

that's the future.

[1929crash]

I work with the HIV virus, though not on the host immune aspects of it so I'm not the best person to answer your question. My guess is that somebody who worked in the field of HIV immunity would tell you that there isn't currently a complete answer to your question, though there are lots of fragments. When you get infected by HIV your body does raise antibodies against it, but these antibodies are not effective at clearing the virus. Possible reasons for this include the fact that HIV shields its envelope proteins with large quantities of sugar molecules as well as the virus' high mutation rate making it good at mutating to evade the more effective antibodies. Another strand of the answer involves HIV being able to manipulate the immune system e.g. by making the host's B cells have an 'exhausted' phenotype. Again, I'm not an immunologist so this is not my area of expertise, but if you want to start reading about it you could try something like this review:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.12225/full

I appreciate your attempt at an answer, but if we accept the view that antibodies are not a sign of immunity to a disease then that opens a whole door into questioning the effectiveness of vaccines.

This idea that antibodies are a sign of immunity for everything except HIV seems to me to be a perfect example of the Pharmaceutical Establishment having their cake and eating it.

[thecrashingisles]

I appreciate your attempt at an answer, but if we accept the view that antibodies are not a sign of immunity to a disease then that opens a whole door into questioning the effectiveness of vaccines.

This idea that antibodies are a sign of immunity for everything except HIV seems to me to be a perfect example of the Pharmaceutical Establishment having their cake and eating it.

Or a perfect example of someone who can't be bothered to understand exactly what an antibody is pontificating about biochemistry.

[1929crash]

Or a perfect example of someone who can't be bothered to understand exactly what an antibody is pontificating about biochemistry.

I certainly am not pontificating. I am quite willing to hear your definition of an antibody and your explanation/pontification as to why it signifies immunity in cases where a vaccine is available and disease requiring deadly drugs in instances where a vaccine is not available.

I confess that my thoughts are not entirely my own - they have been influenced by academics like Peter Duesberg who do not have skin in the pharmaceutical game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesberg_hypothesis

[thecrashingisles]

I certainly am not pontificating. I am quite willing to hear your definition of an antibody and your explanation/pontification as to why it signifies immunity in cases where a vaccine is available and disease requiring deadly drugs in instances where a vaccine is not available.

I confess that my thoughts are not entirely my own - they have been influenced by academics like Peter Duesberg who do not have skin in the pharmaceutical game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duesberg_hypothesis

What is the connection between the Duesberg hypothesis and your statements about antibodies? The hypothesis is simply that HIV does not cause AIDS, not that people develop immunity to HIV upon exposure.

The presence of an antibody is just used as an indicator that the body has been exposed to an antigen and so is a useful test.

[1929crash]

What is the connection between the Duesberg hypothesis and your statements about antibodies? The hypothesis is simply that HIV does not cause AIDS, not that people develop immunity to HIV upon exposure.

The presence of an antibody is just used as an indicator that the body has been exposed to an antigen and so is a useful test.

Duesberg has stated many times that antibodies are a signifier of immunity - as with my chickenpox example - but that there is a deviation from conventional thinking in relation to HIV that makes no sense. So the connection with the Duesberg hypothesis is the comments of Duesberg himself.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

As one of the forum's openly gay members, perhaps I can be more frank.. ("No, I want to be Frank this time, you were Frank last time")

Perhaps it has lot to do with unprotected sex ("bare-backing").

It is a medical fact that diseases are more transmissible via ay-n-al sex than the conventional hetero method.

Taking a drug to minimise the risk is not a substitute for safe sex.

I'm not saying that gay men indulge in unprotected sex more than hetero males. Witness the number of fatherless children.

I am saying that it is a risk and gay men would do well to beware of that risk. It only need be "that once".

Edit: ay-n-al is on the block list? Eh?

It's possible isn't it

I don't know enough about virus' to even start to pretend to know the ins and outs of HIV but it does seem to me that whilst STI diagnoses in the UK have climbed steadily over the last 25 years, HIV diagnoses have dropped. I just googled for some charts of historical STI diagnoses in the UK and HIV isn't even usually listed in the annual 'UK has more clap than ever' newspaper articles and charts.

Which suggests to me that a. the general population continues to engage in lots of lovely, unprotected 'sex' and b. HIV transmission rates are not a simple product of unprotected 'sex'.

I can understand, particularly back in the 80s, that gay activists and campaigners were concerned that AIDS/HIV would be used as a pretext to demonise a particular section of society. That's one thing, but this 'don't die of ignorance' business has elements of a cruel joke impo. Given that there are heterosexual people out there, particularly in less educated communities, who believe that going in through the, um, tradesman's isn't 'sex' and is safe even without a condom. Come to think of it, and admittedly this isn't based on first hand experience, if you do pop into the tradesman's with a regular condom without additional precautions my understanding is that they can be prone to tearing anyway. I suspect that there's still a lot of ignorance out there which a couple of decades public spending and education has steered cleared of addressing directly.

Happy to be put right if I've got this wrong in some way...

[StuG III]

The pathogenesis of HIV is rather complex, which is probably why conspiretards baulk at even trying to comprehend it.

In a nutshell, initial infection with HIV leads to a rapid increase in viral load and causes symptoms of acute viremia - something similar to the 'flu. The body responds by producing antibodies and the viral load decreases to almost nil.

Almost nil.

HIV continues to exist within the CD4+ Helper T-Cells within the lymphatic system. One of the viral proteins (Nef) interferes with the T-Cell receptor response, effectively down-regulating the the major histocompatibility complexes that act as molecular bill-boards presenting antigens and thus protecting the infected T-Cells from cytolytic and other immune responses.

HIV also encodes a protein that, amongst other things, is analogous to bee venom and causes slow but cumulative damage to the lymphatic system and by extension, the immune system as a whole.

The body and HIV are able to co-exist in a state of near equilibrium for an extended period of time. The cumulative damage to the immune system does have an effect and after a while, the body will be unable to cope and the viral load with escalate. This escalation is usually triggered by another stress event ie. a period of poor nutrition or an unrelated disease over-stressing the immune system.

As the viral load escalates, the patient develops AIDS. The increased viral load leads eventually to a decrease in CD4+ T-Cells which is why these cell counts are used as a prognostic indicator for AIDS patients.

The point of taking anti-retrovirals is to maintain the equilibrium indefinitely by reducing the viral loads to a minimum.

The point of developing a vaccine is so that uninfected people will already have an immune response should an infection occur. The hope being that the body will be able to eliminate the virus before it becomes established in the lymphatic system.

This is the same idea with the rabies and tetanus vaccines and once you have developed a full blow infection with either tetanus or rabies then its too late.

I am quite willing to hear your definition of an antibody and your explanation/pontification as to why it signifies immunity in cases where a vaccine is available and disease requiring deadly drugs in instances where a vaccine is not available.

Antibodies are an indicator of immunity where an *effective* vaccine is available. On the other hand, the presence of antibodies where there is no effective vaccine is simply an indicator of infection, and some form of therapy would therefore be needed.

The presence of antibodies does not always signify immunity. I have no or little immunity to either malaria or bilharzia yet I certainly have antibodies to both, having been infected with both on multiple occasions. I do have immunity to Hep B because I have been succesfully innoculated with an effective vaccine.

Peter Duesberg

Frankly, Duesberg's hypothesis has absoluetly zero merit, being a prime example of cherrypicking and handwaving to dismiss the mountain of evidence that contradicts his hypothesis.

[corevalue]

OK, where' is the peer-reviewed scientific paper which shows that HIV causes AIDS?

There isn't one. Nobel Laureate Karen Mullis, even managed to ask this directly of Luc Montagnier, and couldn't get an answer.

Karen Mullis developed the PCR specifically to amplify HIV, but couldn't find the reference when he wanted to write up his paper. None of the virologists who he asked could help him either - everyone told him, it was established scientific fact.

French Luc Montagnier is the Nobel laureate, given for his work in identifying the virus, although American Gallo claimed the to be the first (at a press conference, not via the usual "scientific" method of peer-reviewed publication).

And the African AIDS epidemic is a computer model! Check the Bangui definition of AIDs to see how almost every endemic African disease can be counted in the statistics.

[thecrashingisles]

OK, where' is the peer-reviewed scientific paper which shows that HIV causes AIDS?

Where is the AIDS patient who is HIV negative?

[StuG III]

OK, where' is the peer-reviewed scientific paper which shows that HIV causes AIDS?

That's a bit like saying "Show me the peer-reviewed scientific paper which shows that smoking causes cancer"

There isnt one. There are many. What is it with conspiretards that everything has absolutely black and white and that any qualification or equivocation is evidence that the lizards dunnit?

Karen Mullis developed the PCR specifically to amplify HIV, but couldn't find the reference when he wanted to write up his paper. None of the virologists who he asked could help him either - everyone told him, it was established scientific fact.

You mean Kary Mullis? Apart from the fact that Mullis did not develop PCR to amplify HIV (it was only discovered in 1983, not sequenced till much later) what exactly are you trying to say? That HIV doesnt exist? *Really?*

French Luc Montagnier is the Nobel laureate, given for his work in identifying the virus, although American Gallo claimed the to be the first (at a press conference, not via the usual "scientific" method of peer-reviewed publication).

So this means what exactly?

[1929crash]

Where is the AIDS patient who is HIV negative?

Most likely in Africa, where malnourishment produces all the symptoms of AIDS.

[StuG III]

Most likely in Africa, where malnourishment produces all the symptoms of AIDS.

Evidence that malnourishment = AIDS?

What about all the people with AIDS and HIV but arent malnourished?

What about the haemophilicas with AIDs and HIV but arent malnourished?

In fact, HIV is the only commonality between every AIDS victim across every geographical and social grouping.

[1929crash]

Evidence that malnourishment = AIDS?

What about all the people with AIDS and HIV but arent malnourished?

What about the haemophilicas with AIDs and HIV but arent malnourished?

In fact, HIV is the only commonality between every AIDS victim across every geographical and social grouping.

malnourishment in sub-Saharan Africa produces a set of symptoms including weight loss, lassitude and vulnerability to infections.

It may be that the so-called AIDS populations in the developing world and in the West are suffering from entirely different problems.

Anyway, psoters have not mentioned the unreliability and subjectivity of the HIV test which I referred to above. The same results will get you a HIV positive label in one country and an all-clear signal in another.

[StuG III]

malnourishment in sub-Saharan Africa produces a set of symptoms including weight loss, lassitude and vulnerability to infections.

It may be that the so-called AIDS populations in the developing world and in the West are suffering from entirely different problems.

Anyway, psoters have not mentioned the unreliability and subjectivity of the HIV test which I referred to above. The same results will get you a HIV positive label in one country and an all-clear signal in another.

No. We're are talking about AIDS. Not "weight loss, lassitude and vulnerability to infections" Actually AIDS. You are trying to hand-wave your way out of the argument.

Poor nutrition /= AIDS.

And you are sidestepping my point that the only commonality between all AIDS victims is HIV. That's across all geographical and social groups.

Now, where are all these AIDS victims without HIV? If HIV doesnt cause AIDS, there must be tens of thousands of AIDS victims without HIV. Where are they?

[1929crash]

And you are sidestepping my point that the only commonality between all AIDS victims is HIV. That's across all geographical and social groups.

Now, where are all these AIDS victims without HIV? If HIV doesnt cause AIDS, there must be tens of thousands of AIDS victims without HIV. Where are they?

First sentence - not true.

second sentence - In Africa - but in the West there is a catch-22. If you don't show HIV infection, you are not classified as having AIDS, even if you present with all the symptoms.

[thecrashingisles]

second sentence - In Africa - but in the West there is a catch-22. If you don't show HIV infection, you are not classified as having AIDS, even if you present with all the symptoms.

Are you denying the reported infection rates of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa?

In the West, can you refer to one single case of someone with 'all the symptoms of AIDS' but did not have HIV?

[ccc]

Are you denying the reported infection rates of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa?

In the West, can you refer to one single case of someone with 'all the symptoms of AIDS' but did not have HIV?

There must be ? Surely there are people with auto immune disorders who show similar symptoms ?