Posted on 11/25/2007 8:37:55 PM PST by neverdem
IGNORE the fuss over the news last week — the United Nations’ AIDS-fighting agency admits to overestimating the global epidemic by six million people. That was a sampling error, an epidemiologist’s Dewey Defeats Truman.
Look instead at the fact that glares out from the Orwellian but necessary revision of the figures for earlier years. There it is, starkly: AIDS has peaked.
New infections reached a high point in the late 1990’s — by the best estimate, in 1998.
There must have been such moments in the past — perhaps A.D. 543, when Constantinople realized it would survive the Plague of Justinian, or 1351 in medieval Europe, when hope dawned that the Black Death would not claw down everyone.
Eleven years ago, there was a milestone moment in AIDS history when Andrew Sullivan wrote an article in The New York Times Magazine titled “When Plagues End.” It argued that a new treatment, the triple therapy cocktail, meant it was finally possible to envision AIDS as a chronic illness, not an inevitable death sentence.
Naturally, he was, in his words, “flayed alive” by the AIDS establishment. An end in sight implied that vigilance could relax — although he hadn’t actually argued that.
Mr. Sullivan’s view was solipsistic. It celebrated hope for gay American men still reveling in their sexual freedom and barely mentioned the wider reality of newborn babies and faithful wives in Africa who were never to enjoy any freedoms and still were doomed to die miserably in numbers that would blast the exit doors off every gay bar in North America.
Now, out of the mists of the old data, another such moment has emerged, one for the worldwide stage.
The first thing experts are again quick to say is that it doesn’t mean anyone can relax.
More than three...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Great. When can we rethink global warming?
when algore has made enough money off of speaches and moovies
Don’t expect to see those lousy AID’s commercials on tv stopping anytime soon. You know “AID’s has killed more children worldwide then the number of kids in Blah, blah blah, blah blah blah....”
Gotta keep the $$$$ rolling in. It’s a regular industry.
Are they still telling schoolchildren that AIDS will spread into the heterosexual community?
Penicillin is not now an effective treatment for plague and never has been one. There are several good antibiotics, several of them old drugs, that work, but not penicillin. If you try it on plague you'll drop even faster than the Times circulation.
Who is looking at the NY Times guide to antimicrobial therapy? I'm looking at Sanford's and the sensitivity results after culture. Some beta lactam antibiotics work against plague.
Sure, the newer beta lactams are broader spectrum than the first one. “Penicillin” was essentially limited to gram positives, which plague isn’t. But then who is looking at the NY Times guide to anything these days... The original penicillin still is the right drug for a few infections, more than the Times is the right paper for news.
In light of the facts I imagine that even that has ceased being pushed.
There must have been such moments in the past — perhaps A.D. 543, when Constantinople realized it would survive the Plague of Justinian, or 1351 in medieval Europe, when hope dawned that the Black Death would not claw down everyone.Not to mention, AIDS was never quite like those past plagues. Just don't use needles or have unprotected sex and you won't get AIDS.
Just have sex with your spouse and you will not catch aids or any other sexually transmitted diease-that is the simple fact that the MSM does not want to get out.
You guys act as though journalists are expected to research what they print, and print only facts. If they did that they might miss deadlines, or get Republicans elected. We just can’t have them risk that, now can we?
No wonder. AIDS is the only disease with a "protected" status -- and, as far as I can recall, the only so-called "epidemic" in history that was not immediately countered with quarantine of the infected.
Scientists Discover That If You Slam Members of Congress(Good Read)
Secondhand smoke damages lungs, MRIs show How do you polarize helium-3?
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
People who thought it was gonna be a serious epidemic should read up on the last of the nasty worldwide influenza pandemics, “the Spanish Lady”, which killed more people than WWI — and did it in a matter of a few months.
Not only has it peaked, but it's not as virulent. Does that stop the Social Security people from giving full social security payments to these people for the rest of their lives? Nope. Get the virus, win a monthly check for life.
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