zeon Wrote:Hi there,
When i first went out on the scene at the tender age of 18 (back when i realised what status my hometown is and has) i decided to do some reasearch on the topic of HIV and aids and alot of people were saying getting HIV??? That is harder to get than being hit by a bus yet sadly alot of them have now contracted the virus and the stupid thing is they blame everyone else for their own ignorance!!!! I remember some people used to beleieve you could get it from sharing the same toilet seat as someone with hiv... In my hometown statistics were something like 10% of the gay scene at the time living with HIV... I watched a dear friend also die of the virus but in his last few years he chose to die at the young age of 38... He took himself off medication and said his goodbyes and the only time you would see him is either totally drunk or suffering from smoking related illness'... If your what we called a Bug Baiter where you go out PURPOSELY to catch the virus (back in the year of 2003 you could get DLA ((DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE)) If you were HIV i had no respect for people who did this... Yet those like my friend who caught it from his Boyfriend who pierced a condom to deliberately infect his partner just because he was scared he was going to leave him i have sympathy for... Nowadays society has scrapped the DLA and if you get it its classed as a self inflicted injury and you get no benefits... On the other hand I know of people who have had it and regulary keep ontop of their health and one person who i know who was diagnosed HIV has now recently been told the virus count is 0 and CD4 count is 750 which is exactly the same as someone who is Hiv Negative so even though they go for check ups regularly they are offically classed now as HiV negative... I learnt alot through my friend dying as I went with him once to a clinic after a trip to asda and he revealed to me his virual load was higher than he expect which was virial load of 5 million and CD4 count of 200.... Soon after that well a couple of years his virial load got to almost 15 million and his CD4 count became so low he died as a result....:frown:
Since that moment onwards i always maintained an attitude No condom no screw its never worth the risk... Someone saying they are negative is only hear say no actual evidence and in life we all have too much to loose
Kindest regards
zeon xx
Yes your story of coming out 2005 or so is apparently very relevant to you. However, in 1987 (the time period of East's story that you replied to; when you were 2) people couldnt "go out and do some research" on HIV because there wasnt any. In fact, that research you were blessed to have access to was initally collected from men in the 80's who had contracted a virus that no one had known existed.
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Beaux Wrote:Yes your story of coming out 2005 or so is apparently very relevant to you. However, in 1987 (the time period of East's story that you replied to; when you were 2) people couldnt "go out and do some research" on HIV because there wasnt any. In fact, that research you were blessed to have access to was initally collected from men in the 80's who had contracted a virus that no one had known existed.
Well tahst true i didnt think about tjhat sorry my bad... I think alot of p[rejudice happenned in the 1980's and still does today... I know that in order to find a cure they would probabblyu need to figure out the mutating process.. Alot of people ask me from time to time whether i think its a man made virus or natural one and tbh i think man made as in the 1700's they never mentioned it... l have my beleifs as to where it came from and i dont beleive africa ill state that now lol
kindest regards
zeon
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zeon Wrote:Well tahst true i didnt think about tjhat sorry my bad... I think alot of p[rejudice happenned in the 1980's and still does today... I know that in order to find a cure they would probabblyu need to figure out the mutating process.. Alot of people ask me from time to time whether i think its a man made virus or natural one and tbh i think man made as in the 1700's they never mentioned it... l have my beleifs as to where it came from and i dont beleive africa ill state that now lol
kindest regards
zeon
Well there you go, we have something in common,  mile: as a biologist, the AIDS virus happens to be one of my pet interests as well. I am, also, am rather interested in the history of it, particullary as evidence has now come to light that a recorded case of the virus appeared in Chicago in the early 70's but went identified until the tissues from the victim that had been saved were later pulled from storage. Please feel free to contact me any time, and I will be happy to direct you to case studies that you may find relevant.
Beaux
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hehe thanks for that beaux...  ... I sometimes... sod it.. I sometimes think that the virus was a man made virus set out to cause devistation to a small part of the world wherever it may be and as a result it has got out of control and what with people trying to fight it it is something that doesnt have a gender a sexuality or a race it will take evertyone and anyone in its path... Hopefully though a cure can be found one day... I know fish apparently is ment to be a good cause of tackling it
Kindest regards
zeon
p.s my friends whoa re hiv are sick to death of me nagging them to buy bloody fish!!! If i didnt nag at them it would mean i wouldnt care for em
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zeon Wrote:hehe thanks for that beaux... ... I sometimes... sod it.. I sometimes think that the virus was a man made virus set out to cause devistation to a small part of the world wherever it may be and as a result it has got out of control and what with people trying to fight it it is something that doesnt have a gender a sexuality or a race it will take evertyone and anyone in its path... Hopefully though a cure can be found one day... I know fish apparently is ment to be a good cause of tackling it
Kindest regards
zeon
p.s my friends whoa re hiv are sick to death of me nagging them to buy bloody fish!!! If i didnt nag at them it would mean i wouldnt care for em
There are actually a lot of theories reguarding the virus that COULD hold merit, I continue to observe rather than try to form theories at this time, but you an not the only person that leans to the belief that the virus was man made and I cannot say that I would be shocked were this confirmed. Personally, I am more concerned with the geographic origins of the virus and it's mutation from what we may only assume to have been a single strand virus to the 2 strands that exist today and their multiple sub-types. As I am sure you are aware, many suffers are actually harboring multiple "types" of the virus.
AIDS is not only an interesting biological anomaly, but it has also helped to create break throughs in cancer research. I often wonder if the hetrosexual community can ever really appreciate how very very much the gay men of the "AIDS Generation" contributed to the welfare of society as a whole.
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There are multiple strains of HIV because it mutates very quickly. There is much greater strain diversity in Africa though, and known related retroviruses are found in the primates of central Africa, and it likely took around a 100 years for the disease to make its way out of Africa.
As bad as the AIDS situation was for the gay community in the 80s, the same pandemic went largely unnoticed in Africa until the mid-90s, and we should remember that most people living with AIDS are poor women in Africa.
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OrphanPip Wrote:There are multiple strains of HIV because it mutates very quickly. There is much greater strain diversity in Africa though, and known related retroviruses are found in the primates of central Africa, and it likely took around a 100 years for the disease to make its way out of Africa.
As bad as the AIDS situation was for the gay community in the 80s, the same pandemic went largely unnoticed in Africa until the mid-90s, and we should remember that most people living with AIDS are poor women in Africa.
Your quite right, it is unfortunate that Africa lacks sufficient medical personal to study and treat the emerging cases. It may also be noted that the US was one of the only countries where the virus emerged in the homosexual population first rather in than in the hetrosexual population.
There are actually (at this time) only 2 strains of HIV, with several subtypes of each strain (ex. HIV-1 has 4 sub types). It does have a high rate of mutation, however, when one considers its reletively short recorded history, one can only guess at its origins as no predecessor to the virus has been discovered.
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I believe 100% it was man made and intentional. I know I got a letter to come and get tested before they even had a name for it. So did alot of my friends and acquaintances. Where did they get our names?
Everyone who went to get tested came down with a nasty case of Karposis (purple spots) and all died within a year. The first case in Silicon Valley (San Jose) was a dear friend of mine . They wore spacesuits to treat him and treated the whole hospital wing as though it was radioactive...I could not visit him. He was fine before he went to the doctor.
Five years later...we wondered why Randy who was a certified virgin got a nasty case of Karposis...see..he was so afraid of germs he had never even been kissed....the people who sent him the letter did not know he was a virgin but like everyone else he came back with karposis.
I didn't go..I am fine. Five years later the four of us who were left out of a large group of people had one thing in common...none of us went to the doctor to get "tested". Do the math. 
(PS...I have since been tested..negative each time. I NEVER tell them I am gay)
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Beaux Wrote:There are actually (at this time) only 2 strains of HIV, with several subtypes of each strain (ex. HIV-1 has 4 sub types). It does have a high rate of mutation, however, when one considers its reletively short recorded history, one can only guess at its origins as no predecessor to the virus has been discovered.
Strain is a sweeping cladistic term that just implies a line of descent, so it can be used to refer to the broader types of HIV-1 or HIV-2, the 4 HIV-1 groups, or the subtypes (which there is a truck load of these days).
The semantics isn't really important though, it all amounts to the same thing. We certainly are mostly guessing at the origin, but it being the result of a zoonotic transmission from a simian is a certainty, the only question is which simian and when.
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OrphanPip Wrote:Strain is a sweeping cladistic term that just implies a line of descent, so it can be used to refer to the broader types of HIV-1 or HIV-2, the 4 HIV-1 groups, or the subtypes (which there is a truck load of these days).
The semantics isn't really important though, it all amounts to the same thing. We certainly are mostly guessing at the origin, but it being the result of a zoonotic transmission from a simian is a certainty, the only question is which simian and when.
To the layman it may seem that deferentiating btw 2 strains is a matter of semanics, however cladistics plays an important role in identifying an illness for treatment. There is a huge difference btw breast cancer and skin cancer. Both are cancer, however treatment for one is different than treatment for the other. HIV-2, for example is less easily transmitted and has a longer dormancy period. There are differences in the sub-types as well, subtype C for example is more promenently found in the heterosexual population and is more likely to be spread via a mucosal route. Study suggeste that subtype D is more virulent as it is more effective at binding to immune cells.
Then we come to the aspect of detection of the virus. Not all sub-types are created equally as far as our present tests are concerned. According to the CDC, "current HIV-1 EIAs can accurately identify infections with nearly all non-B subtypes and many infections with group O HIV subtypes." However, because HIV-2 and group O infections are extremely rare in most countries, routine screening programs might not be designed to test for them. Anyone who believes they may have contracted HIV-2, HIV-1 group O or one of the rarer subtypes of group M should seek expert advice.
Rapid tests - which can produce a result in less than an hour - are becoming increasingly popular. Most modern rapid HIV-1 tests are capable of detecting all the major subtypes of group M. Rapid tests which can detect HIV-2 are also now available but not frequently used in countries where HIV-2 is less prominant.
And yes, speciated HIV did enter human populations via zoonosis, however, wether that was a result of interspecies intercourse (parallel to middle eastern hearders fucking camels and passing syphilis into human populations) or (as is hotly debated) purposfully introduced to human populations via some goverment agency. (* I might add that there IS evidence of at least one instance where a CDC doctor was found guilty of purposfully infecting villagers in Africa with the virus).
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