The great HIV/AIDS thread

I started a thread on a science forum else where on this Aids controversy and some useful things came out of it. The item I quoted for the purposes of that thread was one relating to concerns regarding the effectiveness of the ELISA test in Africa. A quote is in this thread also. A man named Tony replied thus:


Tony wrote:
"The one thing that I find interesting from the OP is the assertion that the only HIV test done in Africa is the ELISA screening. This test is not that accurate - anywhere from .5% to 1% false positives in some situations. I myself came up false positive when I gave blood once. Does anyone know if only ELISA is done in Africa?"

A man named Fred (who seems well informed on this subject) replied thus:

"That's a good point. The ELISA test is very sensitive for HIV but not very specific. Sensitivity and specificity are important parameters in testing. Sensitivity describes how well a test identifies subjects who have a condition, while specificity describes how well a test excludes subjects who do not have it. The combination of ELISA and Western Blot is both sensitive and specific. If someone is HIV infected, the test will almost always be positive or become positive over a short interval. Similarly, if someone does not have HIV, the combination will almost always correctly classify that person as negative.

The Western Blotting test is itself both sensitive and specific, but it is probably too impractical for it to be used on everybody who is a candidate for screening. It is therefore reserved for those individuals who test positive with ELISA."

This is useful piece of dialogue which covers the concerns (which appear to be genuine) with a relevant and informative reply.

thoughts?

The quote I posted previously suggested that in Africa they rely heavily on the ELISA test only, is this correct? Fred says that if a person tests positive with the ELISA they go on to have the other more reliable test. In Africa is this ALWAYS the case? Anyone know?
 
Theoryofrelativity said:
The quote I posted previously suggested that in Africa they rely heavily on the ELISA test only, is this correct? Fred says that if a person tests positive with the ELISA they go on to have the other more reliable test. In Africa is this ALWAYS the case? Anyone know?
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Not too sure. ELISA requires some expensive equipment and basically a proper lab set up. In countries in Africa, where tests are having to be performed in some centres that are quite a distance from major towns or cities, this might be difficult to do. I think many of the tests used in Africa (or they were in 2004) are the Simple/Rapid Assays, becaues they are so much easier and faster.

In 57% of the countries more than half of the public sector laboratories use ELISA for serological diagnosis. ELISA tests require expensive equipment, a reliable electricity supply, and trained manpower to perform the tests. The reagents require a cold chain thus posing logistical problems in distribution. In addition, the need for batch testing limit their use to high volume laboratories. ELISA is thus more likely to be suitable to public laboratories at Central and regional levels.

3.1.2 Simple/Rapid Assays

The level of use of Rapid/Simple assays has rapidly increased in many countries. In 76% of the countries more than half of the laboratories in the public sector use the assays, while the usage in the private and NGO sectors is 35% and 24% respectively. The increased usage is also reflected at different health care levels. In 54% of the countries more than half of the laboratories at district level use rapid assays.

In many countries ELISA equipment, installed many years ago, is in most cases non-functional. This has, therefore, given rise to the increasing use of rapid assays at all levels including the central level. All countries reported some level of use of rapid assays at all health care levels.

The many advantages of Simple/Rapid assays over ELISA have made possible their use on a much wider scale and in many settings. They do not require highly sophisticated laboratory infrastructure. They are now extensively used at all levels of health care delivery in both the public and private sector. Their simplicity and ability to offer same day HIV results have made them suitable for use in VCT and PMTCT programmes. This is reflected in their increasing use to meet the growing demand for VCT and PMTCT services.
Link
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As to their accuracy, I'd imagine it would be akin to the ELISA test. Not too sure to be honest.

The link provided with the quote above is quite comprehensive in testing proceedures followed and used in Africa. It is a bit dated, but it was all that was available that was this comprehensive from the WHO. Hope it helps.
 
Theoryofrelativity said:
wow, that's a tad controversial like to elaborate?
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For quite a few years, many African Governments refused to accept AIDS as an issue, instead stating that it was a racist conspiracy by the white West. As a result, may African countries had sky rocketing AIDS and HIV infection rates, with their Governments giving very little funding or resources allocated towards educational programs or any form of programs at all dealing with HIV and AIDS. Instead they seemed to spend their money on what they considered more important, such as bigger and better weapons.

Made all the headlines in the early 2000's.
 
Remember that many of these countries were under white minority control just twenty to thirty years ago. The whites that were in control would jail and even kill people for having disagreements with the government. It is not only natural but accurate for the current governments to suspect conspiracies against them. That is the way things were done, and just because they handed over "power" last week does not mean that the whites have stopped doing what they were doing.

I don't want to simply declare a conspiracy about AIDS here. I want to show evidence that is true that adds up to whatever it adds up to.
 
I think it was more a case where they saw it as being a Western, foreign and white problem. It was basically a state of denial. I think only a couple of countries (in Africa that is) attempted to hold the spread of the disease and actually acted responsibly to educate, provive free AIDS tests and promote safe sex methods, etc, and they were fairly successful.. I think they were Senegal and Uganda if I remember correctly.. not too sure.

The rest just preferred to literally deny the risk existed. And the result has been catastrophic. It's only been in the last few years that the rest of the African nations have finally dragged their feet into accepting that it was a huge problem and they needed to do more. Sadly, it has been too late for millions of people.
 
Why is AIDS now a huge problem in Africa when, before it was invented, about two million people a year died of malaria and tuberculosis?
 
about the AIDS hoax:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8136240710964892606&q=Zapruder+Film

you are probably wondering what does the murder of JFK have to do with this.
the answer is simple really, disinformation.

i present the above to show that it doesn't really matter what position you are.
in situations like this you need to look outside the box. let's do that.

what are colds? have they been able to isolate the cold virus?
do colds actually exist? is there a single test for colds?

just something for you people to think about.
 
MetaKron said:
Remember that many of these countries were under white minority control just twenty to thirty years ago. The whites that were in control would jail and even kill people for having disagreements with the government. It is not only natural but accurate for the current governments to suspect conspiracies against them. That is the way things were done, and just because they handed over "power" last week does not mean that the whites have stopped doing what they were doing.

I don't want to simply declare a conspiracy about AIDS here. I want to show evidence that is true that adds up to whatever it adds up to.
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Whats up Metakron,

Yes, I think there is something perculiar about HIV/AIDS, I think some certain people know something about it than we do. Things that may have some socio-economical and even racial influence. Let me just go ahead and say this, AIDS is very possibly a synthetic ailment made out of a mistake or an intent by certain African government to reduce the population or fight rival tribes. Now of cause Western big wigs aren't entirely out of the fray. Westerners never interfere in African affairs unless they can exploit it, they don't even change anything, they just do as the African government says, but they find a way to serve their own purpose. Westerners probably helped develope AIDS, in fact they probably started the whole virus disaster.
My problem with AIDS is that there are too many unknowns and uncertainties surrounding the disease, while all primary and secondary medicinal companies are benefitting left and right. Most people with HIV/AIDS don't even die by hyper nutrition loss but by ailments such as fever, diarhear, and flu, and you can guess what kind of medicine these patients are using for this symptoms. The whole thing is too suspicions, even from its origin to its intricacies. Every ailment the human body has is a result of immune deficiency, even the common influenza, which pretty much means nobody knows Jack Shit about AIDS/HIV disease. Of cause I have absolutely no evidence for my acertions but we know pharmacutical industries constantly trial medicines in remote Africa and other undeveloped countries, and a lot of the trials and results are kept under the radar. I am not a consipracy type person but the whole event surrounding the disease is too fuckin suspicious. In Asia scientists wanted to breed a an ape with a human to see what would occur, but pressure from the people created mass hysteria and the science comunity halted the experiment, at least so they say, other scientists have some out to say there are strange rumours of such a thing actually happening but won't give details. However, I don't think AIDS/HIV came from monkeys, by all definition any money with that deficiency should die, and they is no record of any AIDS pandemic in apes or monkeys. I could be wrong about this post though, afterall Europe lost 1/3 of its population to the black plague many years ago, but who is to say the elite were not busy tampering with medicine and the human body in their relatively archaic universities. Biologicaly, virtually anything that can wipe out a huge population of any specie is almost always unatural.

MetaKron said:
Why is AIDS now a huge problem in Africa when, before it was invented, about two million people a year died of malaria and tuberculosis?
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There is no real verifiable record for that acertion. Native Africans have had malaria medicines for hundreds of years, in fact the modern version of malaria medicine is not too different. Malaria kills some people, but believe it or not some people are more immune to Malaria. I had a friend who once survived malaria(though it can be a very debelitating diseases). Tuberculosis is a bacterial disease than can be cured with early vaccination or antibacterial regimen. If you know anything about medicine or ever been sick you will notice that all classified ailments usually have one or more similar symptoms, which pretty much means the doctors are just picking the best possible ailment- and for the best possible treatment. This pretty much means Malaria killing the most people is questionable, even AIDS/HIV patients have malaria. If malaria was so rampant in Africa, it should be just as rampant in South America, which it is, but not as devastating.
 
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Hi spuriousmonkey,
Would you mind explaining something for me? Why is this disease called HIV-Aids? Is 'Aids' different from 'HIV-Aids'?
Thanks,
John
 
Well, Chatha, I pointed people to the Virusmyth site so they could read up on the whole thing. The African AIDS thing was debunked as early as 1987, by, you guess it, Duesberg. Then a lot of ad hominen arguments were used against Duesberg, but nothing came out that scientifically demonstrated that Duesberg was anything but right about "African AIDS."

I think that a conspiracy theorist is likely to be anyone who tried to find and use accurate information to debunk conspiracies. It may be the most certain route, if the debunker is intellectually honest and actually studies the material.

The things that are already admitted by so-called mainstream thinkers are absolutely horrifying. It seems innocent enough that before AIDS was invented, makers of baby formula were selling the formula to Africans. The trouble is, these people don't know a few things. These include the fact that baby formula is not that good for babies and increases the infant mortality rate. Then you have the fact that many Africans have no clean water to mix the formula with. Even if this is given to them free to "help feed Africa", it is still not a net benefit. The mothers would be better off drinking the formula themselves and breastfeeding.

It's not even part of a depopulation program because higher infant mortality rates drive people to have more babies, with a net gain over a lower infant mortality rate and fewer babies.
 
MetaKron said:
Then a lot of ad hominen arguments were used against Duesberg, but nothing came out that scientifically demonstrated that Duesberg was anything but right about "African AIDS."
Click to expand...


Mod comment
Back it up with real sources or run the risk of removal: see the forum guidelines and rules
 
shakushinnen said:
Hi
Can ANYONE tell me why this disease is called HIV-Aids? Is 'Aids' different from 'HIV-Aids'?
Thanks,
John
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It is. I don't know how it seems that the medical profession got into the habit of identifying AIDS with HIV. They should know better.
 
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