rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (01/08/85)
Feel free to post this, but I prefer to keep dialogues off the net (I'm a 'r' not an 'f' man) since they sometimes degenerate into flaming. Some of this might make a good followup, but I also don't like monologues and already posted something (a nice article with facts and figures) and yes, you're right, 7000 haven't died, 7000 have been diagnosed. Concerning KS: it is just a tendency, it is after all an opportunistic infection and therefore related to surroundings, and therefore the patients one sees in Manhattan (primarily gay) and one sees here in the Bronx (IV) tend to be different in regards to KS. It's a little stronger than that but I don't think you can blame it all on the difference between the two boroughs. I don't read NY Native - they don't deliver to the Bronx, but false negatives and positives occur with all tests. Immunoassays tend to be very good. They also tend to improve with use, since better antigens are found. According to Gallo, they've gotten the actual False Positives down to near nothing. There is another kind of False Positive however. Remember, even if one comes out truely positive on the test, there is still some debate on what that means. It either means: 1) You have an active HTLV-3 infection and may get AIDS. 2) You had an infection fought it off and are now naturally immunized to AIDS 3) You were exposed to it and now have antibodies to the virus. and theoretically (or at least a few years down the line) 4) You were vaccinated against it. I think I covered the issues of discrimination and abuse, albeitly briefly, since I'm writing this as a net.med article primarily. Therefore, you have to give me the benefit of point of view. I have seen dozens of articles on the social aspects of AIDS but I'm not an expert on that. My expertise is more in the scientific aspects of the disease. Both are important. Like I said, feel free to post this response if you think it actually contains anything of public record and is just not an effort to defend myself.