Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)

When the overwhelming body of evidence points to something, denialist seems appropriate. e.g. climate change denialist.

There was a reasonable case for HIV is not the cause of AIDS for a while in the 90s, but everything that pointed that way was overturned by further inquiry.

I met an HIV causes AIDS denialist once in university, so I did a bunch of research so find out if he was a crackpot or not. Things may have changed since I looked, but in 2007 there was no credible evidence I could find to suggest that HIV isn't the cause of AIDS.

There are also some paranoid people who use encryption because secret services could be spying on them. We have no idea how aids causes hiv, cannot even predict weather for next week, but we are 110% sure some theories are right.

No wonder, it is waste of money to get phd today

It could be a cultural thing also. I watched the movie in Africa as a kid. AIDS was everywhere, the reference in the movie immediately jumped at me.

It doesn't sound crazy, because he spends 90% of the essay more or less arguing semantics. As he says, AIDS isn't a disease. It's a syndrome. And the diseases which do the damage aren't caused by the HIV virus. He just points that out like it's something which no-one else is brave enough to mention, when he's really just attacking strawmen.

The really crazy bits are when he talks about whether or not HIV can damage the immune system, by killing T-Cells. I counted 8 mentions of the word "immune", and 7 mentions of the word "T-cell"; and he only mentions them halfway through the document.

Because of the complicated chain of causality (untreated HIV eventually wipes out the immune system, which causes a whole bunch of weird diseases to take hold), it's easy to write thousands of words about why rare diseases (which are called AIDS, in HIV positive patients) are only correlated with HIV, not necessarily caused by it. But in the middle of the article, the crazy bits are there.

It's like reading a long rambling article about why CO2 doesn't necessarily cause global warming (which has a grain of truth to it - it's a little more complicated than that with the role of positive and negative feedback effects), and halfway through the article the author suddenly mentions the greenhouse effect for the first time, then says it's unfounded (which changes the article from slightly crackpot to stark raving mad) .

Physician here: maybe you could enlighten us all on studies showing "genetics" are "strongest" determinants of "your risk for acquiring HIV."

Are you actually trying to advance the theory that the "genetics" of a particular minority group is a "determinant", rather than social class?

A lack of socioeconomic resources is linked to the practice of riskier health behaviors, which can lead to the contraction of HIV. These behaviors include earlier initiation of sexual activity and less frequent use of condoms (Adler, 2006).

Unstable housing has been linked to risk for HIV infection, including IV drug use and unsafe sexual behaviors (Aidala, Cross, Stall, Harre, & Sumartojo, 2005).

Individuals who are homeless or in unstable housing arrangements are significantly more likely to be infected with HIV compared to individuals in more stable housing environments (Culhane, Gollub, Kuhn, & Shpaner, 2001).

Lack of socioeconomic resources is also associated with risk factors for neuropsychiatric dysfunction, such as exposure to environmental toxins and injuries. These factors can make persons with HIV more vulnerable to the central nervous system effects of the virus, including more rapid cognitive decline and onset of dementia (Satz, 1993).

HIV status often has a negative impact on socioeconomic status by constraining an individual’s ability to work and earn income. Research indicates that up to 45 percent of people living with HIV are unemployed (Rabkin, McElhiney, Ferrando, Van Gorp, & Lin, 2004).

The effects of HIV on physical and mental functioning can make maintaining regular employment difficult. Patients with HIV infection may also find that their work responsibilities compete with their health care needs. Individuals infected with HIV are often discriminated against in the workplace, leading to their termination or forced resignation (Dray-Spira, Lert, Marimoutou, Bouhnik, & Obadia, 2003; Kass et al., 1994).

Children infected with HIV often exhibit cognitive deficits when compared with their uninfected peers (Martin et al., 2006). These deficits can adversely affect learning and earning ability later in life.

SES status often determines access to HIV treatment. Individuals of low SES have delayed treatment initiation relative to more affluent patients, reducing their chances of survival (Joy et al., 2008).

Patients of lower SES with HIV have increased morbidity and mortality rates. Research suggests a correlation between low SES and earlier death from HIV/AIDS (Cunningham et al., 2005).

Accordingly, individuals of higher SES levels experience slower progression of HIV infection (Schechter et al., 1994).

Decreased access to health insurance and preventive services is a major contributor to health disparities between high- and low-SES individuals. Low-income individuals are not likely to have health coverage or receive optimal treatment and care for HIV/AIDS, such as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) (Wood et al., 2002)

Source: http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-h...

Psueodoscience and outright bigotry is "rarely PC", that's for damned sure.