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Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

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Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#111

Post by sampo »

djaque wrote: post #3

I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…

And The Band Played On, the whole 1993 film (2h20min) is on YouTube. It's based on a 1987 book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KthBMpST7Q

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#112

Post by guruz »

School-Cotton wrote: post #44
Fezzik wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it that much different than how everyone jokes about HSV1 today? It is still a (ridiculous and stupid) running punchline on SNL. Obviously it is a far less dire virus (as far as we know, today) but, we as a species (generally) compared to our individual potential, are absolute idiots and almost always take the easy intellectual route (humor and bullshit) when faced with uncommon information. The video really seems…

“far less dire” is an understatement. HSV-1 causes only cosmetic effects in the vast majority of cases.

Herpes virusses can stay in the body in all kind of parts and can cause all kind of things.

For example they make gum disease a lot worse (which then in turn is linked to Alzheimer's for example) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-051x....

Note that there is a ton of other HSV-*, for example HSV-6 https://hhv-6foundation.org/what-is-hhv-6 I think there is just not enough research yet on what is caused or made worse by which herpes virus.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#113

Post by gumby »

fencepost wrote: post #48
gumby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how public restrooms in the USA always have paper toilet seat covers? This dates to that era (the product existed already but was extremely uncommon). Because of that whenever I see those I think of the bigoted attitude that lead to their deployment and won't use them.

Really? I'd think they'd be more likely for things like herpes, staph and maybe fungal diseases.

They do help for those things, and not for HIV. But which caused them to be deployed?

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#114

Post by drewbug01 »

ImaCake wrote: post #109
drewbug01 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which doesn't really mean that HIV/AIDS is not dangerous, but rather it underscores how much more dangerous CoViD really is. I truly hope we manage a better response than the AIDS crisis, because a similar response to COVID-19 would be incredibly devastating.

I wonder what HIV would have done if it hit before mass adoption of protective equipment for sex. I think it could have brought civilization to it's knees.

Maybe?

I’m not sure that prophylactics really would be the deciding factor. Condoms are older than you might think, but on the other hand usage rates are still relatively low.

And humanity keeps bouncing back from things: for example, the plague (multiple times!)

I think the relatively long incubation time is probably what would have made it especially bad if it had taken hold earlier - say, in the 1800s when our understanding would have been limited and our ability to track it worse. It might have been much, much worse then.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#115

Post by acqq »

ekianjo wrote: post #84
sn41 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's disturbing that we are being told to learn to live with the virus when there is such a high risk of contraction.

High risk but most infected have close to no symptoms which is nothing like AIDS which used to be a death sentence.

> most infected have close to no symptoms

Only most of recently infected have no symptoms, whereas most of infected do develop symptoms, but typically after they already transmitted the illness to other people. According to what it is currently known, from all infected around 80% do eventually develop some symptoms, up to 10% need hospital, up to 5% need intensive care and around 1% of all infected eventually die. That is when observed across all age groups, among the older it's much worse.

And as soon as the health system can't cope the percentages of dead increase rapidly to even higher values -- i.e. those that need hospital need it because half of them will need intensive care (and nobody knows before it's critical who), those that need intensive care need it because most of them will need oxygen in some form and half of these will need:

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

That's why it's undesired to have non-functioning health system, and to avoid overwhelming the existing health systems.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#116

Post by qubex »

gjkood wrote: post #96

If you have time I would recommend two movies that touches deeply upon this topic. They are 'Philadelphia'[1] which garnered a 'Best Actor' Oscar for Tom Hanks and 'And the band played on'[2] starring Mathew Modine. 'Philadelphia' a fictional movie that touches on the social stigma associated with HIV and 'And the band played on' captures the politics of why it was ignored by Reagan and his supporters for so long and…

Yes! The comments on this thread made me think of Philadelphia instantly!

I have Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia (the titular song of that film) playing right in this instant.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#117

Post by neilwilson »

dorchadas wrote: post #33
bluetwo wrote: post #11

Semi-related: Thinking about this era I wondered how long it look for AIDS to kill 100,000 Americans. The answer is about 5 years. CoViD did it in 5 months.

Yet we still have biology teachers the school I work at asking why we shut down for Corona/Covid and not HIV/Aids. He's a fucking biology teacher, and he refuses to see the difference because he wants his precious soccer team to play this year. It's so damn frustrating, especially knowing that nothing will happen to him because he's a coach.

Now do the comparison with the 1950/51 Asian flu pandemic, and ask the same question.

It's an area under the graph thing.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#118

Post by neltnerb »

djaque wrote: post #82
fortran77 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isaac Asimov was so embarrassed to have contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion that it wasn't mentioned 'til after his death.

I had no idea that he died of AIDS and that was in the 90s. It's terrifying how recent it was that he would have received public backlash for contracting a disease during a surgery.

To be fair, 1990 is 30 years ago.

I remember how much of a hero Magic Johnson was presented as being for simply publicly admitting he got it during surgery and advocating.

It was brave for a multi-millionaire celebrity to admit publicly that he got it by accident. If he'd have been gay too my gosh... what scandal...

Terrifying indeed.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#119

Post by acqq »

ImaCake wrote: post #110

People might be interested in why this useful. Much like with Covid today, scientists are interested in understanding when the disease first appeared. Because that gives us clues about where it came from and how quickly it is changing now. You can estimate this based on changes in the sequence of the genome. Changes (mutations) will appear in the genome at a predictable rate ("mutation rate"), and is measured as muta…

It's also relevant to demonstrate now that this virus too hasn't been made in the lab. The "lab origin" is a claim that some like to spread on every outbreak, even in spite of the fact that virologists know that nature produces the viruses very easily and there are no facts supporting anything else this time too.

From the abstract:

"Our phylogenetic analyses date the origin of the pandemic lineage of HIV-1 to a time period around the turn of the 20th century (1881 to 1918)."

At that time humanity didn't even know what the virus really is -- they just knew that something in some liquid transmits some illness. The most advanced lab at that time could only get that liquid using the filters.

Re: Oldest 'nearly complete' HIV genome found in forgotten tissue sample from 1966

#120

Post by JordanFarmer »

GreeniFi wrote: post #100
djaque wrote: post #3

I didn't understand the AIDS epidemic until I listened to a podcast [1] where they interviewed a gay survivor. I can't imagine my friends dying off one by one around me from an unknown specter. The government pretending you didn't exist and ignoring you because it was a "gay problem". Society demonizing you. He said that even after it was understood that AIDS was not transmissible by touch, morgues would refuse to ac…

In 2002, I was back in my hometown after some years away. By then they estimated that HIV infection was running at 1/3 of the population. I had a job that took me most days to the local cemetery, and was harrowed by the next round of graves freshly dug, most three foot long. I imagine you can guess why they were so short. And if that sounds angry, it is anger - still - but not directed at you, OP. I went to the hospi…

Sorry... Trying to understand. Are you saying that all these little kids died of aids? How did they contract it? Most kids are 3 feet tall by age three or four. Also, why so many deaths in 2002? Very effective drugs had been widely available for a long time.
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