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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

#121

Post by foldr »

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.

I feel like you're leaving homophobia out of the equation. Asimov was ashamed, and there would have been a backlash, because society associated AIDS with gay men. If people had really believed that he'd got it through surgery, there wouldn't have been a bad reaction.

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

#122

Post by foldr »

smabie wrote: post #98
qubex wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, in Italy (where I grew up) there was next to no association in the public mind between HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. It was linked to drug use and sexual promiscuity, but it was drilled into us that any kind of unprotected sex (and for most people, that was automatically construed as heterosexual sex) was a risky behaviour. I was honestly very surprised when, towards the end of the nineties and early 20…

Sure, but getting AIDS from "regular" sex is pretty rare and difficult. The chance of infection is very low.

It can't be that difficult. Look at Africa, for example.

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

#123

Post by pinkfoot »

foldr wrote: post #122
smabie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but getting AIDS from "regular" sex is pretty rare and difficult. The chance of infection is very low.

It can't be that difficult. Look at Africa, for example.

Google 'dry sex and AIDS' first. You might have to broaden your definition of normal.

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

#124

Post by foldr »

Scaevolus wrote: post #28
drewbug01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first was to spend billions of dollars hoping to find a cure while certain behaviors continued to spread the virus. And yet here we are, with governments spending billions of dollars to find a cure when we can stop the spread of COVID-19 by reducing certain behaviors. The difference in government response to the (ongoing, btw) AIDS crisis and COVID-19 has a hell of a lot to do with the fact that COVID-19 is not…

Transmission rates vary widely by sex act. 2/3 of transmissions in the US are between homosexual men. It's not homophobia to observe that some populations are at more risk from HIV.

And in Africa most transmissions are between heterosexuals. But you never hear the same rhetoric about irresponsible promiscuous heteros.

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

#125

Post by dang »

longtom wrote: post #56
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…

The notion of the "gay problem" does not come from nowhere though. Gays have extremely promiscuous lifestyles with 3.5 as many lifetime sex partners, resulting in a 60x higher rate of HIV infections[1], accounting for 67% of HIV diagnoses despite making up 2% of the population or so.[2] So gays are clearly massively responsible for the spreading of the virus and they could reduce its prevalence by engaging less in an…

If you keep posting flamebait to HN we will ban you again.

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

#126

Post by dang »

apcragg wrote: post #60
longtom wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion of the "gay problem" does not come from nowhere though. Gays have extremely promiscuous lifestyles with 3.5 as many lifetime sex partners, resulting in a 60x higher rate of HIV infections[1], accounting for 67% of HIV diagnoses despite making up 2% of the population or so.[2] So gays are clearly massively responsible for the spreading of the virus and they could reduce its prevalence by engaging less in an…

Fuck you

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

#127

Post by ReptileMan »

JordanFarmer wrote: post #120
GreeniFi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kids got it trough birth/breastfeeding.

Combine that with AK, 2002 - I would guess somewhere in the southern half of Africa.

I guess that it was combination of medicine not being cheap and IIRC some political leaders in the region were downplaying HIV by that time.

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

#128

Post by foldr »

pinkfoot wrote: post #123
foldr wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be that difficult. Look at Africa, for example.

Google 'dry sex and AIDS' first. You might have to broaden your definition of normal.

My definition of 'normal' includes men fucking each other in the butt. I hope yours does too.

Everyone who's at all serious about tackling AIDS in Africa (rather than making some kind of veiled political or moral point) is focused on reducing unprotected sex.

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

#129

Post by prox »

acqq wrote: post #119
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…

Interesting you mention this, in the WP series Operation Infektion, one of the disinformation campaigns by the Soviet Union is placing an article in a small newspaper in India, wherein the claim is made HIV was made in a lab in the US.

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

#130

Post by sandebert »

qubex wrote: post #65
jdub wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Australian government's 1987 "Grim Reaper" ad gives some impression of the mood at the time. Of course, it didn't do any favours to the gay community. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lhFc_9U_UY

Italy’s 1990 “ AIDS: If you know it, you avoid it ” public service advertisement is indelibly seared into the consciousness of my whole generation. Drawing purple outlines around things is still an instant reminder of that. The soundtrack is often heard overlaid over threatening scenarios much as the Benny Hill soundtrack is overload over situations to indicate they are ‘funny’. https://youtu.be/so94WTK8kBw

What a sad way to ruin the song "Oh Superman" by Laurie Anderson.
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