Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits

Source: The Independant

A quarter of a century after the outbreak of Aids, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted that the threat of a global heterosexual pandemic has disappeared.


In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy promoted by the major Aids organisations may have been misdirected, Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids said there will be no generalised epidemic of Aids in the heterosexual population outside Africa.

Dr De Cock, an epidemiologist who has spent much of his career leading the battle against the disease, said understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Whereas once it was seen as a risk to populations everywhere, it was now recognised that, outside sub-Saharan Africa, it was confined to high-risk groups including men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients.

snip (sorry Dr. de Cock)

But the factors driving HIV were still not fully understood, he said. "The impact of HIV is so heterogeneous. In the US , the rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region with the lowest rate. That is in one country. How do you explain such differences?"



Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/threat-of-world-aids-pandemic-among-heterosexuals-is-over-report-admits-842478.html

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This is good news. But the end of it interests me. Why more HIV in DC than N. Dakota?

If ya don't, you'll get your dingus frozen off.

People in DC engage in riskier forms of sex than those in North Dakota, they have a higher percentage of intravenous drug users etc. etc.

HIV seems to be one of those diseases that thrives on crowding.

People who aren't crowded seem to be in more stable relationships if only for lack of opportunity.

While you might find hookers in the bar at the businessman's hotel in Bismark or a gay dancing bar in Fargo, you're not going to find such amenities in much of the state. There's less transmission only because there is much less opportunity to do so.

In areas with high prevalence HIV jumps to the heterosexual population. Maybe the virus requires multiple exposures to infect.

are more likely to have multiple casual sex partners, whereas the Minot club scene's just not that rockin'. Instead of 100,000 potential sex partners, you probably have 100, and they're all people you went to high school with and who your friends dated.

/folk theory

I already did my rant about it in post #33.


If they did routine "annual physical" testing for HIV like they do for cholesterol and diabetes, their stats would change dramatically.

Lot lizards are the prostitutes that work the overnight lots at truck stops. These are the same women we all thought Crisco Johnny should have gone after when he ran a prostitution sting in NOLA and only made twelve arrests.

The problem with lot lizards, besides the obvious problems that come with any prostitution, is that their johns are in another state by the time they come down with whatever diseases they purchased. If a North Dakota-based lot lizard gives 100 men HIV, probably none of those men will show up on North Dakota's statistics. They'll show up as cases from the other 49 states. Guys don't just "forget one time" to use condoms: they either use them all the time or they don't use them at all. If you don't use rubbers, and you frequent prostitutes, you won't remember where you got your HIV from.

There's that, and there's the other thing--there ain't a lot of people in North Dakota in the first place, which means there's a lot less opportunity to be promiscuous. Some of those towns out there only have five or six hundred people in them.

especially after a one-time exposure with an infected prostitute. Not likely that a "lot lizard" could infect 100 men with HIV. A male could easily infect 100 women, however. Certain groups have a lower risk of catching the disease.

There are plenty of "straight" men who have sex with other men. They may have sex with men while they're traveling or while they're in prison or when they're drunk and out on the town. Then they go home and have sex with their wives and girlfriends.

But you can't assert they're the reasons without evidence.

A biggie: "a higher frequency of overlapping sexual partnerships creating sexual networks that, from an epidemiological point of view, are more efficient at spreading infection".


Think about what a sexual network would look like, and how you'd map one in the social space that is a densely populated city with a number of subcultures that probably have different kinds of sexual contacts between them. So, DC: large poor urban black community, middle- and upper-middle-class population composed of whites and blacks; an increasing Latino population; a poor white population.

Now, how are they going to mix, socially? Well, the chance of any poor black hooking up with a suitable poor black partner from anywhere else in the city is probably much greater than the chances of a poor black hooking up with a middle-class white, a Latino, a poor white, or even a middle-class black. And, when cross-race/class mixing happens, it's more likely to be white/middle-class man + black/lower-class woman--so the virus in the reservoir of HIV in the poor black community would have to "swim upstream", so to speak--men catch is less often during sex than women. I'd also suspect that a middle-class person is more likely to insist on protection, so black/poor men on white/middle-class women are more likely to get an argument if they go for unprotected sex.

Think of drug cultures. All I know is from the media, don't know that I trust it. But if what's printed is true, there's a different in kind of drug usage between groups.

However even in the '90s some sceptics looked at the numbers and concluded what De Cock concluded: The numbers then showed HIV increasing in straight men who frequented prostitutes and used intravenous drugs; women who were prostitutes or used drugs or had sex with men who used prostitutes and intravenous drugs; men who had sex with men, whether or not they called themselves "gay" or not. And pretty much nobody else. Unless the incidence of HIV hit a tipping point in the straight population, it wasn't a threat, but was billed as a huge threat. The percentage increase of HIV in straight people was high--small number statistics are often misleading even when significant--and trumpeted as important. First the numbers involved straight men, then straight women, and so on. Why? To increase funding, overseas aid, all of which were faltering before it was billed as something threatening Mr. American Everyperson--never underestimate money as a motivation. Also to help increase awareness, to keep people in the groups at risk from contracting the virus--any publicity that saves lives, even if misleading, is good publicity and ethical. And to increase sympathy and remove a stigma--if you had HIV it was because you were in a socially stigmatized group (prostitutes, johns, drug user, gay or in the closet, or unable to get away from a drug user or john), and nobody likes to be stigmatized.

Yes, it meant money was misspent, but the campaign almost certainly increased money going to help the groups at risk: it increased the pie enough that the pieces going to those groups also increased. Fear works, and there's nothing like fear that you could be infected to increase awareness; it often shows up in public, where it's wrongly called "sympathy". Look how the threat of unemployment makes people more sympathetic to those unemployed--as soon as you might need increased unemployment benefits, increasing unemployment benefits looks like a good idea (in some people, it honestly does just increase awareness--but in most, as the fear of becoming unemployed wanes, so wanes their sympathy, with no lag whatsoever).

"any publicity that saves lives, even if misleading, is good publicity and ethical."

"Yes, it meant money was misspent, but the campaign almost certainly increased money going to help the groups at risk: it increased the pie enough that the pieces going to those groups also increased. Fear works, and there's nothing like fear that you could be infected to increase awareness"

Lying to the public for the "greater Good" is almost always wrong and has tons on unintended consequences.

This isn't a bubble. The AIDS pile takes away from Hepatitis C and other similar diseases. This isn't a problem if the money is spent wisely. But defending million dollar public service boondoggles that used monies that should have been targeted towards heath care and prevention is horrible.

Look at Breast Cancer for example. Millions are spent researching it that is a good thing. We have marches and wear ribbons. We never ever would accuse a woman of contributing to her own cancer even is she had risk factors such as family history and was morbidly obese.

But Lung Cancer victims brought it upon themselves. This message comes from the hundreds of PSA's that say smoking causes lung cancer. Of course a sizable proportion of Lung cancer victims never smoked (and that percentage increases yearly as the percentage of general population that smokes drops.) So no parades for you.

The new thing is smoking causes blindness

http://v1.dpi.org/lang-en/events/details?page=582

So give the machine another generation and I suppose blind people will be treated like lung cancer victims.

We should treat diseases not based on popularity and political correctness but on how many people they kill and quality of life.

Honestly clean drink water programs are more important in most third world nations than AIDS prevention. Both should be addressed.

We are in an economic worldwide triage. Decisions will have to be made that will cause some groups to live and others to die. We need the truth not propaganda to make those decisions wisely.







T

:rofl:

And with a high incidence of IV drug use and prostitution.

North Dakota is rural, with a much lower population density, a much lower incidence of the sort of urban poverty one sees in DC, a much lower incidence of IV drug use and prostitution. There are many fewer vectors for transmission, comparatively. Southeast Washington DC is, demographically, socioeconomically, and culturally, a world away from North Dakota, so any comparison is probably not useful.

It's cold.....

Actually the reason is right there in the report. Men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, and sex workers and their clients are the high risk groups. And I don't think I'm going to far out on a limb to say this is more common in DC than North Dakota.

This is a very good thing as most of us with an ounce of common sense have noticed the lack of a heterosexual aids pandemic for a couple of decades now. Unfortunately well meaning people have tried to keep fear alive by pushing the meme that everyone is at risk and we all have AIDS ect.

This is done for all the right reasons. Not to ostrisize male homosexuals or bisexuals and to attract funding for a cure that might not be so forthcoming if the face of AIDS was an urban hustler or intervenous drug user.

But like most good intentions that ignore facts. (Anti smoking campaigns are a particular modern offender in this regard.) There is a backlash and a sense of Reefer Madness in the public Aids propaganda.

I lost friends to this disease and NONE OF THE DESERVED IT... but all of them had a lifestyle that made it a known risk. We do the world no favors by lying to it. Even when our heart is in the right place.

I'm thinking of a girl i knew who died from this. I haven't thought of her in twenty years. I think a tear fell into my morning coffee.

Peace out...

if you're a health-care worker. Everyone from brain surgeons to dental hygienists treats every patient as if he or she were HIV positive. These "universal precautions" have undoubtedly been instrumental in preventing the explosion of AIDS into the general population. I, too, have lost friends to this horrible disease, and would probably have lost more if strict infection-control protocols had not been practiced in health-care institutions across this country.

Neither I nor the article are referring to infectious disease controls among health care workers. We are referring to feel good misleading public policy campaigns that target those not at risk while ignoring those that are.

As the article notes. "There were "elements of truth" in the criticism, Dr De Cock said. "You will not do much about Aids in London by spending the funds in schools. You need to go where transmission is occurring. It is true that countries have not always been good at that.""

Political Correctness kills people. This is no more obvious than the education on AIDS. Instead of concentrating on populations where the infection rate is increasing such as prison populations, woman of color and young male homosexuals. We waste money on education programs for senior citizens as well as seventh graders. (Yes in a perfect world we would have money to educate everyone. but this isn't a perfect world and we simply don't)

Treating every gun like a loaded gun is a good policy for the individual. But if your a health organization trying to prevent an epidemic you need to worry about the guns pointed at you not those locked in the gun case.

It would be nice and convenient if AIDS epidemic focused on everyone equally but the TRUTH is it doesn't. There are high risk groups and those are the groups we should be focused on.

The PC one-size-fits-all approach reminds me of the "security theater" we must all practice at the airport, too.

We have strictly finite resources (money, time, attention, public awareness and enthusiasm, etc.) for any problem we face. PC doctrines effectively shrink these resources further by causing us to squander them inefficiently on all people equally without regard to their relative risk. This happens so that the decision-making classes can feel good about themselves...usually because a politician notes that it will help with election. Then, that kind of thinking becomes a received truth among the bureaucrats whose careers depend upon its continuation.

There are a lot of dead people because of this foolishness.

Actually pretty simple to figure out if a person took the extra 30 seconds to THINK.

If you're wondering about what I mean, in her post Carnea said:

I lost friends to this disease and NONE OF THE(M) DESERVED IT... but all of them had a lifestyle that made it a known risk. We do the world no favors by lying to it. Even when our heart is in the right place. (Italics mine.)

I said similar things a few years ago. I referred to the words written by Philip K. Dick about drug addiction, in the factual postscript to his novel A Scanner Darkly. Dick himself got addicted to drugs, and said (approximately) "Drug abuse is not a disease; it is a conscious choice, like the choice to step in front of a moving car."

Basically I said that, in that context, many people did things that heavily increased their chance of getting AIDS. I got a posting assault that would have destroyed King Kong.

The pretense about AIDS did not help the disease get limited. Just as claiming that "only gays get it, and they deserve to die" did nobody any favors.

I would only add that, from what I've heard, mature gays understand the risks and take the appropriate measures in their relationships. Young gays think they're immortal and want to be daring, and they are truly gambling with their lives.

As for "sex workers" (can't we just call them prostitutes and be honest there too?) anyone, and I mean anyone, who pays for sex is contributing to slavery. The belief that even half of the prostitutes working now are doing so voluntarily, the "happy hooker" hallucination, is pathetic. It's a fiction maintained by the slavers (pimps) to make their ugly business look acceptable.

The WHO's AIDS Epidemiologist is named Kevin of Cock?????? :wtf:

If I was a few years younger and joining a heavy metal band, I would be changing my name: Tandalayo of...

wondering if/when someone would notice.

Kevin De Cock, noted STD researcher, says "Keep it wrapped, kids." :P

Just sayin'. :)

Double phallic name...Groucho's joke not mine....

prison system?

similar demographics. DC is urban. It would be remarkable if there were significant differences between DC, LA, NYC, Chicago or Miami. The best you could do is compare Bismarck and DC. You are still comparing a dense pack of people versus a vast expanse of nothing.

I am pleased to see that there is a decreased risk. The big question is whether the decrease in risk will persist when the WHO takes its eye off of the ball.

The bigger question is whether the decreased risk of epidemic makes any difference to the person who contracts HIV because their "faithful" partner brings it home from a business trip to Bismarck. Education is one key, but we should never stop looking for the cure!

:bounce:

last I heard it was on the rise with young people in Washington
and how many people live in N. Dakota and how many people live in the DC area
maybe locking down the neighborhoods will keep it from spreading
:sarcasm:

got married, and learned to keep it in our knickers.

This will merely fuel the "gay plague" approach in many of the Third World countries as well as our own.

What is overlooked are the number of heterosexuals who are never tested even here and, more importantly, the lack of reliable statistical reporting in many of these Third World countries. Most of the population in these countries don't even have access to health care.

There are still doctors in our country who never test because obviously the patient is heterosexual and therefore couldn't possibly have AIDS.

And so, here we go again.

I mean, that acknowledging that AIDS disproportionately affects specific groups (IV drug users sharing needles and people who have unprotected sex with multiple partners) will start up the gay plague nonsense. Back in the late 80s, most everyone I knew had it figured out that our chief threat came from unprotected sex, either our own or that of a cheating partner. It's the same for every venereal disease that ever was and is as true for gay couples as for hetero couples.

You nailed it.

The wonderful phrase "high risk category" justifies not doing an HIV test.

And elderly population sure as hell is not put in that category even though they are an age group much more likely to get it. WHY? They are past child bearing age and don't feel a need to use condoms. All it takes is getting into an intimate relationship with ONE person who is either deceitful or perhaps really doesn't know that they have been exposed from a previous relationship.


We have one older gentleman who married a widow...she told him that her first husband died of a heart attack. Now he may very well have died of a heart attack...but he also had HIV which he had given to his widow. The widow knew her deceased husband was + and that she herself was + but NEVER told her second husband. HE didn't find that out til he, too, tested +.
No doubt they had unprotected sex cuz HOW was she going to explain to her 2nd husband about the need for a condom since she was well past child bearing age. He would have been wondering WHY..and she already decided to keep her HIV status from him.

We should try using them in arguments.

Focusing AIDS dollars on people that need it is a good thing.

"And elderly population sure as hell is not put in that category even though they are an age group much more likely to get it. WHY? They are past child bearing age and don't feel a need to use condoms. All it takes is getting into an intimate relationship with ONE person who is either deceitful or perhaps really doesn't know that they have been exposed from a previous relationship"

I would accuse you of making this up but I have seen PSA's with the same theme. The fact money is spent this way probably gets people killed.

Despite Viagra there has been no perfect storm of elderly AIDS patients.

I don't care if it is inconvenient but High risk groups are just that. High Risk. Anyone can get Aids. That is true Anyone can be killed by a serial killer. But if you hitchhike every night in a miniskirt and a I love clowns t-shirt your increasing your risk (Of getting killed by a serial killer and probably of getting AIDS. Kids don't do this)

People everyday engage in behaviors that expose them to the AIDS virus. We know who they are. Lets target our efforts towards those people.

I agree - education is key so Im going to start with you...




There is no AIDS virus. People do not get AIDS. People get the HIV Virus and develop AIDS.

Please check this website and take the online quiz...I learned a lot about those who have been afflicted with this virus.

http://www.posornot.com/

Has a nice ring to it. Not a "cock ring," per se...

... making it seem like there should be less concern about AIDS, since it appears that it will just wipe-out the population of Africa and not the whole world.

Did all the infected suffer early deaths before spreading the disease? Or is this one more coverup?

I'll believe it when I see it. I don't trust anything in the MSM anymore. Sad, isn't it?

and nothing short of disinformation. With this nonsense, they can continue to try and blame "everyone else" besides hetrosexuals for the the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

... since one has no way of really gauging what the "real" state of things is.

a threat of a global pandemic. I'd say that's a good thing even if there's still a long way to go.

Talked with an infectious disease doc a while back..at least one doc SHE has talked to made comments like he didn't have any of the "high risk" population in his practice so he didn't test for it.. So much for him following the CDC recommendation of opt OUT for HIV test and not opt IN!
I wanna drag his ass to the HIV clinic I work at here in the southwest and let him look around the waiting room. Black, white, Hispanic, Asians, 18 yr olds, 60 + year olds, married, single, straight, gay, moms with babies/toddlers.

Anyone needing a clearer image? Next time you go to you local mall or movie theater, look around you. The faces that you see are what we see every day..and every new patient orientation class gets fuller every time they have one.

It is NOT "they don't have a lot HIV+ in ND"..it's "they don't do enough testing in ND". The real survey they need to do is one of the doctors in ND and other places where there are fewer cases reported and ask them "are you following the CDC recommendations and doing HIV testing on ALL of your patients??" Guaranty you the answer will be the same as the doc I mentioned in the beginning of my post.

there would have been a spike in deaths in pneumonia, HIV related cancers and the other opportunistic infections that take place when one is suffering from AIDS. There would also be a dramatic decrease in life expectancy versus those populations where people test and treated for HIV.

Since there has not been an uptick in those kinds of diseases then one may use as a working assumption that HIV is not as prevalent in ND as DC -- primarily because for some reason the people of ND do not engage in the activities that make HIV more prevalent in DC.

I have to say this articles is talking about exactly the kind of thinking that you are displaying. HIV gets transmitted through certain practices mainly in the US. Sex workers, people who engage in anal intercourse, IV drug users and the sex partners of these people. In Africa there are other factors. It is possible to get HIV other ways and we all know that every precaution must be made to prevent infection, but it is more efficient to target those with high-risk behavior.

The feared generalized transmission into the general population has not occurred in Russia, Thailand, India, China because most of the people do not have the sex practices that make it more prevalent as in Africa.

"The feared generalized transmission into the general population has not occurred in Russia, Thailand, India, China because most of the people do not have the sex practices that make it more prevalent as in Africa. "

...and is incorrect.

"Since there has not been an uptick in those kinds of diseases then one may use as a working assumption that HIV is not as prevalent in ND as DC -- primarily because for some reason the people of ND do not engage in the activities that make HIV more prevalent in DC."

It may not be prevalent, but it does exist in ND.

population outside Africa." Really? tell that to Russia, India and China.

Now, many people suspect the stats we are getting from India, Russia and China, but the stats have been improving over the last few years. The stats are the best we have so lets look at them:

Aids in Russia seems to be tied in with drug use:
http://www.avert.org/ecstatee.htm
Mostly among Heroin Users:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-04-19-russia-aids_x.htm
http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/6/1/22
http://aands.virginia.edu/x12194.xml

The same with China:
http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/yunnanbarth.html
This is a 2000 report saying "Heterosexual transmission may become the main Transmission method in a few years" but at the time of the report the main means of transmission was drugs

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/356/18/1801
Which points out the problem is still drug related.

As to India:
There seems to be some movement into the Heterosexual population, but even today it is less then 1% of the general population and mostly women getting it from their Husbands:
http://www.twq.com/04autumn/docs/04autumn_mitra.pdf
http://www.avert.org/hiv-india.htm

While women seems to get HIV from their husbands, the husbands seems to being getting HIV from Sex workers and illegal drugs in India. Thus the mix signal we are getting from India, but even in India it is still tied in with Sex workers, Drug Users and other high risks groups NOT the general Heterosexual population (Through Truck Drivers are a big source of HIV into the sex workers population).

My point is even if those countries, HIV occurs in the high risk groups and those people who have sex with people who are in the high risk groups.

If husbands are giving HIV to their wives because they are fornicating with prostitutes...are they not included in the general 'heterosexual' population?

There may not be an increase of HIV/AIDS in heterosexuals, but I highly doubt there has been a significant drop in infections. Sex, is a high risk activity for contacting several diseases, not just HIV/AIDS. It does not matter if your heterosexual or homosexual, if your having sex you are at risk.

I am also rather skeptical about your statistical sources.

Most heterosexual couples (like most Lesbians) tend to have sex only with their spouse (or partner, or who ever they are living with). Thus the rate of transmission via sex is quite low among such groups (With Lesbians having lower AIDS rates then even heterosexual couples).

Male Homosexual tend NOT to be so selective. Multiple partners appear to be the norm among male homosexuals (Through the statistic are questionable). The bath house o of San Francisco was a Known point of the spread of AIDS till they were closed down. San Francisco faced massive objections to closing the Bath Houses down from the Homosexual community do to the fact many male homosexuals went to the Bath houses for sex with other male homosexuals.

As to China and Russia the statistics, even done by outside sources, tend to support that AIDs is being spread by needles more then sex. In the early 1990s Scientific American did an extensive output on AIDs, and one of the fact that dropped out of the research is that as you go north and east in Europe, people's ability to resist and fight off AIDs increased. Why no one knows. The best explanation is supported by the earliest report of AIDs I know of. In 1959 a youth went to a Doctor in Britain with medical problems. His doctor could not figure out what was wrong with him. The youth subsequently died. 20 years later the Doctor remembered the case for it had bothered him for the intervening years what did the youth have? Thus in the late 1970s or early 1980s when a test for AIDs became available, the Doctor took a piece of the youth he had kept for future testing, and it tested positive for AIDs. The problem with this youth is he only went to sea once, and that trip was in to Leningrad (Now and previously, St Petersburg).

We also know that when a new disease is introduced into a population never exposed to that disease, it can be both deadly and spread quickly. Small Pox being introduced into the New World is a Classic example. It is believed within 50 years of Columbus Discovery of the New World up to 80% of the native Population was dead, do to Small Pox, a disease deadly to Europeans but not to the extend of the Native American population (And there appear to be no intention on the part of Spain to Spread Small Pox. It just happened, the only report of intentional spread of Small Pox was by General Amhurst during the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. Amhurst never was permitted to do so, at least officially, but George Washington knew of the proposal so he had the entire US Army inoculated against Small Pox during the subsequent War for Independence given that Amhurst had been promoted to over all command of the British Army during the War for Independence).

Anyway, the spread of AIDs in Africa may be that it is a disease introduced from outside the area into a virgin population. It should be noted that AIDs appear in Africa and South East Asia as the Russian expanded their presence in both areas during and after the war in Vietnam. My point is that AIDs may be a Eurasian disease, kept in check for centuries by partial immunity and cultural restrictions that prevented it from expanding (Much like the theory on Syphilis, that it was a Caribbean disease, kept local by lack of movement of the people of the area, but spread like wildfire in Europe in the 20-30 years after the discovery of America, being introduced into Italy by Spanish Soldiers thus making Syphilis became know as the "Italian" disease, for Syphilis seems to spread from Italy to the rest of Europe and the world. An aside: This is one theory on Syphilis. There are others, including that it existed in Europe for decades before 1492, but the facts supporting such existence is weak and may just be the results of similar disease, like the desert flea disease common in Iraq, which is caused by a very similar bacteria to Syphilis.

Anyway. the Russian theory on AIDs, is that it existed in Russia for centuries. That the Tzars and then the Communist restricted movement within Russia worked with a growing immunity to the disease to prevent it from Spreading (along with a stricter definition of Homosexuality then in Southern Europe and India and restrictions on any homosexual activity). All three worked together to keep AIDs some sort of local disease (The high death rate without medication was also a factor). Then someone who had it introduced it to Africa and Asia (and given the dominate version of AIDs in each area is different, a different person from a different area of Russia may have introduced two different versions of AIDs). In Africa and South east Asia, they was no partial immunity and the social rules were NOT geared to keep AIDs down (and you had more freedom of movement then existed in the old Soviet Union). With the break down of the Old Soviet Union you had more freedom of movement AND greater movement of drugs that one needs a needle to use. Thus the story that China and Russia AIDs is tied in with Drug Use may be the result of the partial immunity previously noted and Social norms that discourage sex outside of a permanent relationship (Causal sex is discouraged in both countries as it is discouraged in most of Europe, I know a lot of marketers use sex to sell products and sex sells, but there is a difference between what is shown on Television and what people actually do). Notice I said Discouraged, not made illegal, there is a difference and discouragement is more effective then illegality.

I go into the above to simply show that the main thrust of most infections in most of Europe, the Americas, China and rest of the Orient, seems to be intravenous drug use followed by sex with people who use drugs or are a "sex worker" (and people who have multiple partners instead of just one). Thus social norms have been as powerful as education in preventing the AIDs from entering the Heterosexual population. Thus in Russia and China the stats tend to follow drug use not sex routes (Through both are often the same). India seems to be the exception, but again AIDs is most common among people who use drugs or have multiple sexual partners. 1% infection rate through Heterosexual sex is not an massive movement into the Heterosexual population (roughly 94% of the population).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3343458&mesg_id=3345813

If you want other stats, I just have those.

Sexual relations in Russia were not especially discouraged even during soviet times. I don't see really how you justify this "russian origin" theory.

One generally only develop an immunity to a disease if exposed to it, thus why does it appear that about 5% of the people of Northern Europe (England, Scotland, Norway, Germany etc) are immune from AIDS? A higher percentage is "partially immune". This Immunity goes as to go north AND east in Europe (and we are talking of sexually transmitted AIDs not Needle transmitted AIDs). Where did this Immunity come from? Remember something like AIDs prior to the 20th Century would never have been diagnosed, the person would have come down with something else and that would be want killed the person (as is the case with AIDs today. you do NOT die of AIDS, but some other optimistic disease that invades your body and kills you for the body is to weak fighting AIDs to fight off whatever will kill you).

The rapid expansion in Africa and South East Asia occurred after the Russians sent advisor's to both areas in the 1960s and 1970s. Previously no such Advisers had been sent by the Soviets to either area (preferring to bring any young radicals to Russia and control they every movement). While it is a step, it is a logical step, someone with AIDs, but who was partially immune had the disease and ordered to Africa or Southeast Asia. They he had sex, sometime with a male sometime with a female, but somehow AIDs arrived into the Homosexual community. AIDS then spread rapidly in the Homosexual community and other high risk groups given the lack of any immunity in the native population of both areas.

As to why it was NOT found in Russia first, first Russia was noted to have bad medical treatment, AIDs may never have been found because they was NO reward for finding a new Disease. In 1964 the Soviet Union noted a population DROP, the politburo immediately classified the report. Every who developed that report received a clear message, population drops were NOT to be reported. This prejudice extended to any thing that was causing the population to drop, such as excessive pollution. This prejudice did not stop till the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and by that time AIDs was while known in the West and the new Russian Republic could not longer ignore it and hope it go away.

My point was no one in the Soviet Union had a reason to discover AIDs. In fact most of the people who were in a position to find AIDs, quickly learned finding a new Disease that was killing people was NOT a path for promotion (and may be a path to demotion).

On top of this HOW Russia was structured contained AIDS, In Russia under the Tsars if you were a Peasant (and 90% of the population was) you needed permission of your local noble to move from your Village, even to a Village down the road. No permission, no movement (England has a Similar system as late as the 1700s in its prime Agricultural areas, and it was the norm in most of Europe till while into the 1800s). This system of controls on Movement was abolished in the Russian Revolution of 1917, but reimposed by Stalin in the Mid-1920s with his system of "internal Passports". You no longer needed the local noble's permission, you now needed the local Party leader's Permission to move. This stayed the rule till 1991. Thus if you had a small population of people where AIDS existed, and they could NOT move out except under special circumstances, the Spread of AIDS would be controlled without anyone really knowing the disease exists.

Now the Soviet Union did require all of Male Citizens of the Soviet Union to Serve in the Army. This meant a large set of the population would be on the move (i.e. Drafted and transferred to units that needed them). Now the Red Army was raised locally, i.e. you were recruited together rout of school and you stayed together as you did your two years service. So it also controlled how AIDS would have traveled. The problem was sooner or later someone in that area would opt to stay in the Regular Soviet Army and become an adviser to foreign governments. Till the 1960s all that meant was training three world soldiers about Soviet Equipment in the Soviet Union, but in the 1960s this started to change. First with advisor's in South East Asia (Through not with actual troops going into combat) and then advisor's with African soldiers in Africa, including going into the field with them i.e. into combat.

Remember all you need is one person to transfer AIDs to a person with no social restrictions that controls it and no immunity. Such a person could transfer it into any local high risk group and once in, AIDS will stay,

As I said the real issue is NOT how it could have spread from the Soviet Union or even NOT be detected in the Soviet Union, but why do Europeans have a partial immunity and that immunity increases as you go North and East? I use Russia, but it can be a Polish subgroup, Lithuanian subgroup or even a group in one of the Central Asia Republics. I do NOT know, the issue is why the immunity?

Side Note: I only read of the Immunity once, in Scientific American in the 1990s. I never heard of the researched being disproved, but also have never heard of it being furthered. It fits the facts better then a transfer from Monkeys (Which could have occurred before, and each new infection increasing the immunity of the surrounding Human population, which seems NOT to have occurred). I can not rule out an African Source for the Disease, but the Possibility of a Eurasia cause I believe is NOT being investigated enough.

I don't have the source right now, but we read a paper in my moleculear biology class about it. Plague and HIV bind to cells by a similiar mechanism. The immunity that some people of European descent have is based on a mutation with their binding proteins. Plague and HIV cannot not nimd to the cells at all in full immunity. In partial immunity, it cannot bind as well so people exposed are less likely to get it and if they do get it, it will multiply much more slowly.
The Plague/HIV connection might just be coincidental.

Africans are much more likely to catch AIDS with the exact same exposure.

Virus have been called escaped DNA, for that is all a Virus is, DNA. The Virus penetrates a Cell and then attached itself to the DNA of the Cell, it then uses the Cell's own duplication process to make many copies of itself, The Cell then burst do to to many viri and each new Virus enters a New Cell and the process starts all over again.

Bacteria infections are fundamentally different, Being cells themselves they reproduce by themselves, they attack on the host's cells is for a source of food to keep itself alive AND provide the energy to re-produce.

The problem is AIDS is a viral infection while the Plague was a cellular invader of the body. Thus for the same mechanism to work for BOTH AIDs and the Plague would require some fundamental changes how AIDS works as a virus.

AIDs is a constantly changing Virus, each change requires the body to come up with a new anti-body to fight it. AIDs kills someone by changing itself, so that as the body builds up the Anti-bodies to defeat one version of AIDS, a new version appears and the body has to detect it and build new ANti-bodies.

As to cellular infections, white blood cells search for cells that are NOT to be in the body and destroys them. Thus how the body attacks both types of disease is fundamentally different.

I should say I have heard of this theory, but the above indicates that such a common method would be hard to come into play. Again I can not rule it out, but the fundamental methods of Viral and Cellular invaders are different.

...favoring the mutation conferring HIV-1 resistance in some Northern Europeans. Biologically it seems a bit more plausible, as both HIV and smallpox are caused by viruses (while plague is a bacterial illness); additionally, though the timing of the mutation compared to the timing of the Black Death matches up, it's now less than completely accepted that all or even most "Black Death" outbreaks were actually caused by bubonic plague. Anyway, the smallpox bacterium seems to invade cells in a similar fashion to HIV, and it would definitely have been a more consistent selective pressure.

(Sorry no references -- my office is being moved, and all my work links and articles are on that computer!)

The threat of a world AIDS pandemic among heterosexuals is over WHAT? And does the doctor HAVE to be named de Cock?

:headbang:
rocknation