AIDS (hah)

[kellyb]

Yes, it is mentioned. Why haven't I mentioned it? Because none of the individuals in the study were given antiretroviral treatment, as far as I am aware. I just double checked the study, and the only mention of any antiretrovirals were in the context of "we should be giving these people antiretrovirals to stop infant deaths".

I have no idea why you thought they were given ART as part of the study.

Because it's a different study that he's talking about.
The VitA study with the ARVs started around 1997 and ended around 2001, and the one you got the fulltext for was probably just completed last year or this year, and was just published last month.



ETA:
About the ZVITAMBO group.
http://research.hopkinsglobalhealth.org/GlobalProjectDetail.cfm?project_id=6246&country_code=ZI

 

[Belz...]

Eventually you realize the shocking truth: The virus is in fact a miniature clone of Fred Phelps, hating the gays and the blacks. Or something.

What in the blue HELL are you talking about ?

WHY is there an increased HIV prevalence in the third world?

How does this change anything ?

Please provide "evidence" to show that HIV positive folks are socio-economically identical to HIV negative folks. Within the study, or in the country, or in general.

???

Or in other words: PWNT!

What are you ? 12 ?

I think you guys missed the part where they gave antiretrovirals to the HIV+ infants and mothers. Since it is part of my hypothesis that antiretrovirals cause more harm than good, any difference in mortality can be explained within the drug-aids hypothesis.

Actually, it's called inventing the answer because you think it fits.

 

[JoeEllison]

What in the blue HELL are you talking about ?

I saw this coming about 2 days ago...

 

[Taffer]

Because it's a different study that he's talking about.
The VitA study with the ARVs started around 1997 and ended around 2001, and the one you got the fulltext for was probably just completed last year or this year, and was just published last month.



ETA:
About the ZVITAMBO group.
http://research.hopkinsglobalhealth.org/GlobalProjectDetail.cfm?project_id=6246&country_code=ZI

Ah. No wonder he's confused.

 

[Hellbound]

Because it's a different study that he's talking about.
The VitA study with the ARVs started around 1997 and ended around 2001, and the one you got the fulltext for was probably just completed last year or this year, and was just published last month.



ETA:
About the ZVITAMBO group.
http://research.hopkinsglobalhealth.org/GlobalProjectDetail.cfm?project_id=6246&country_code=ZI

Um, kelly. Sorry. The ZVITAMBO study, unless there are more than one, did not provide ARV treatment during the study. At least, that seems (to all indications I can find) to be the case. I have a copy of the mortality study, which is a part of ZVITAMBO and uses the ZVITAMBO trials as part of it's data. It is, specifically, the ZVITAMBO trials that gathered data starting in 1997. I quoted it above, but to re-quote:

This study confirms the main findings of the previous

pooled analysis of 7 African trials.

First, mortality is very high for all HIV-infected children, especially those infected perinatally. Indeed, mortality was even higher among the infected infants in ZVITAMBO compared with the pooled analysis (50% vs 35% at 12 months and 63% vs 53% at 24 months), no doubt because IU and IP infants made up 77% of the infected infants in ZVITAMBO compared with 39% in the pooled analysis, which included 3 trials providing ARV prophylaxis primarily targeting IP transmission.​

In fact, if you read that link you so kindly provided, you'll not that they did not begin clinical work until 2001, long after this test was completed.​

Do you have the full-text of the actual ZVITAMBO study available?​

ETA: Upon re-reading, it seems unclear to me know. I can tell that, at the least, there were some un-treated participants in the ZVITAMBO trials, and the mortality study did seperate these out as a seperate group in the paper and address this issue, at least in passing.​

Dang it, I don't want to spend another $27 to get that paper too. Can someone get any other info on it?​

 

[Hellbound]

On further looking, it appears that only some of the trials in the ZVITAMBO studies were given ARVs, not all. The trial link given by Dubjlah (http://www.isped.u-bordeaux2.fr/RECHERCHE/GHENT/WWW_BASE/US-GHENT-Detail-of-Trial.asp?CLE_TRIAL=10) lists only 110 participants. The first link he gives (in the same post) says nothing about the treatment or non-treatment with ARVs. Consdiering the full run of trials contained over 14,000 mothers and children, I believe this 110 he's pointing to as proof that all of them were given ARVs is simply a subset of the full data.

ETA: Also, considering that Dubljah's link still lists the recruitment start/stop dates and end-of-trial dates as anticipated (from 1997-2001) makes me wonder as to the accurracy of the data there. I'll go by what the memebers of the ZITVAMBO group actually state in their published papers and data, barring any additional, reliable information sources.

 

[kellyb]

On further looking, it appears that only some of the trials in the ZVITAMBO studies were given ARVs, not all. The trial link given by Dubjlah (http://www.isped.u-bordeaux2.fr/RECHERCHE/GHENT/WWW_BASE/US-GHENT-Detail-of-Trial.asp?CLE_TRIAL=10) lists only 110 participants. The first link he gives (in the same post) says nothing about the treatment or non-treatment with ARVs. Consdiering the full run of trials contained over 14,000 mothers and children, I believe this 110 he's pointing to as proof that all of them were given ARVs is simply a subset of the full data.

Right. The ZVITAMBO group has done a bunch of studies.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&scoring=r&q=ZVITAMBO&as_ylo=1998

 

[Hellbound]

kellyb:

Well, they've done a lot of trials, and then several studies all based on various portions (or the whole) of that trial data

It's a clearer picture to me now. From what I've seen, all the trials were done in one bunch (from 1997 to 2001), with various conditions and the data recorded for a number of studies of various aspects of this.

IN any case, the mortality study (which used the same data) accounted for the use of ARVs in some of the cases, and recorded when they were used. This shows that ARVs do increase life span (as the HIV+ infants on ARVs had a lower mortality rate than those without), and also removes the "effects" or ARVs as a possible confounder in the data shwoing HIV+ infants to have a much higher mortality rate.

 

[kellyb]

Yeah...I think this part:

http://www.pidj.org/pt/re/pidj/abst...lN0zgpDG5tcysBtn!-199097273!181195629!8091!-1

HIV-positive mothers with more advanced disease are not only more likely to infect their infants, but their infants are more likely to die, whether infected or not: provision of antiretroviral treatment to pregnant and lactating women is an urgent need for both mothers and their children.

Sort of says it all.

 

[robinson]

http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd?l...and+Item+%3A+1&HIDDEN_TIMESTAMP=1184951596441

It is interesting how a study about the relationship between a disease "HIV infection", and infant mortality, avoids the obvious problem of actually recording and testing for what actually happened. One could have also tested mothers for any of the following endemic diseases, and found a connection between them and infant mortality.

Typhoid fever
Malaria
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis E
Meningococcal meningitis,
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever,
Plague,
Yellow fever
Lassa fever
Japanese Encephalitis
African Trypanosomiasis
Dengue fever
Schistosomiasis,
Leptospirosis

All those, and more, are endemic problems for mothers and babies in the region the study used.

One could add in poor sanitation, lack of food, social isolation, and any number of other factors. Just the effect of ostracism from being HIV+ alone, is probably a huge factor in infant mortality.

But what is most odd, is the number of HIV+ mothers who gave birth to HIV- babies. And that late stage HIV/AIDS was linked to infant mortality, when they didn't have HIV. Lets be clear on this, mothers HIV status effected the chance of baby being dead in the first two years of life.

What does that mean?

If some woo study proving homeopathic treatments worked had this kind of research, it would be shredded on so many levels. But because everybody already knows HIV kills babies, even when they don't have it, we nod our heads and agree, HIV is deadly.

So everybody agrees it is a good study. It would have been a lot better if they had tested everybody involved, for all factors that effect infant mortality, but that would have cost a lot of money.

Now why are we even talking about a study like this? Because there isn't any study showing HIV kills you, by producing AIDS, which is fatal. It has never been done.

I find that odd.

It hasn't been done because animal studies couldn't be done. It hasn't been done with HIV populations either. I find this hard to swallow. You would think that a Pandemic of this proportion, the worst ever known to mankind, would have some basic scientific experiments done.
Every time this issue arises, the same problem shows up. Where is the basic experiment? Where are the peer reviewed studies? Where is the most basic research?

While this may seem ridiculous, because everybody knows HIV causes AIDS which kills you, there is one source of good information. Which as some know, I will now turn to, in the next post.

 

[Dabljuh]

Alright, apparently the part where it says they used ART is from something other ZVITAMBO, possibly an earlier design of the study.

Yes, it does, because the immune system doesn't stop working when you're hungry or cold.

Umm... no. Ever caught a "cold" ? The pathogens that cause the actual symptoms are latent in every person, its the cold that causes constriction of capillar vessels on mucosa and thus prevents the immune system from intervening, thus allowing the pathogens to develop to a point where they cause symptoms. Or so I'm told.
And yes, Hunger causes immune system depression. The body requires a large amount of ressources and chemical energy to fight disease. Ever heard of vitamin C? Wouldn't you agree that it would be correct to call hypovitaminosis-C a (partial) depression of the immune system?
Many other factors also cause immune system depression. For example, (psychological) depression, excessive contact with pathogens, cancer, a wide range of toxins, age etc... In short "Immune system depression" was invented long before HIV came along.

Now, why do you so stubbornly refuse to answer my question ?

Do you think you've got a better chance of survival if your immune system works when you get a disease ?

I refuse to answer this question because it is a fallacy. The immune system *works* in all cases, "without" an immune system you'd be dead within 1-3 days, even absent of viral or bacterial pathogens (due to body-internal waste processes that are usually regulated by the immune system, but also things like assisting the digestion of proteins). The real question is "is the immune system effective at controlling the pathogens?"

The HIV-AIDS hypothesis states that HIV destroys the CD4+ T-Helper Cell population and thus renders the immune system less effective. However the mechanism by which HIV supposedly destroys the T-Helper cell population is not known (Several posts here to that end only confused speculation with "evidence") but this not necessarily vital to the validity of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, provided a clear, causal case can be made for "HIV destroys the CD4+ T-Helper Cell population", and I remain unconvinced.

In addition, even if the CD4+ T-Helper Cell population could be shown to be causally reduced by HIV, another proof would remain to show that the immune system is helpless against disease without the CD4+ T-Helper Cells. Which it is not: T-Helper Cells are mostly enablers for the rest of the immune system, they are important at speeding up an immune response, but not necessarily vital to it.

Now, "Do you think you've got a better chance of survival if your immune system works when you get a disease?"... What should I say? Yes? No? I don't know? Your mother!

 

[kellyb]

But what is most odd, is the number of HIV+ mothers who gave birth to HIV- babies.

No, that's about in line with what we know. It's not at all unusual.

ETA:
http://www.phppo.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/GAP/pa_pmtct.htm

Without intervention, there is a 15-30% risk of a HIV-infected mother transmitting HIV to her child during pregnancy and delivery, and an additional 10-20% risk of transmission through breastfeeding.

And that late stage HIV/AIDS was linked to infant mortality, when they didn't have HIV. Lets be clear on this, mothers HIV status effected the chance of baby being dead in the first two years of life.

Evolutionarily, what do you thing the 'purpose' is for the immune globulins that are delivered across the placenta before birth, and the sIgA and IgG in breastmilk?

How could severe maternal immunosupression affect that system?

 

[kellyb]

The HIV-AIDS hypothesis states that HIV destroys the CD4+ T-Helper Cell population and thus renders the immune system less effective. However the mechanism by which HIV supposedly destroys the T-Helper cell population is not known (Several posts here to that end only confused speculation with "evidence") but this not necessarily vital to the validity of the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, provided a clear, causal case can be made for "HIV destroys the CD4+ T-Helper Cell population", and I remain unconvinced.

*sigh*
Trying again.
http://biologie.kappa.ro/Literature/Misc_cogsci/Aids/AIDSCD4.pdf

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not really, it's just very odd. PCR is viewed as the "gold standard" of HIV tests. They tested the Mothers, once, with double-ELISA (and in the case of discordant results, a western blot), and then they test the kids - repeatedly - with PCR. Would you do it that way? Wouldn't it make more sense, since you appear to have access to a vast number of PCR tests, to test everyone with the same test? Why would they do it the way they did? It just doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

The fact it makes no sense to you is because you don't understand the tests or the science. You should really stop drawing conclusions about things you don't understand because you are drawing false conclusions.

First as far as babies bleeding can't be good in your post above, that is absurd. Taking infants' blood for lab tests has a track record of saving countless babies' lives.

Second, ELISA tests are a screening test. There are false positives but it is a cheaper faster test. So you start by screening people.

Repeating the test is good laboratory practice which is what I assume you mean when you say, "double-ELISA". Repeating tests decreases human caused lab errors.

The Western Blot is a more specific HIV test. There are very few false positives. It is expensive and it saves money to screen people with the ELISA test first.

Both of those tests look for antibodies to the HIVirus. PCR antigen tests look for the actual virus. However, we use PCR antigen tests on infections where not everyone with antibodies also has virus remaining. Hepatitis C is the most common infection I order a PCR antigen for. It tells me if someone who has antibodies to hepatitis C is currently infected. If they were infected in the past but did not become a carrier, just testing antibodies isn't going to tell me that.

For some infections like hepatitis B, there is a reagent test for the virus. So PCR is not needed to determine if the person is currently infected, I can order an HBsAG test instead.

HIV PCR testing is a little more complicated. It was first done because the p24 antigen test became positive earlier in the infection than the antibody test. I only ordered one once after a health care worker exposure. The patient the physician was exposed to had symptoms suggesting the initial HIV infection.

The p24 Antigen Test

The p24 antigen test identifies actual HIV viral particles in blood (p24 is a protein specific for HIV). However, the p24 antigen test is generally only positive from about one week to 3 - 4 weeks after infection with HIV. The p24 protein cannot be detected until about a week after infection with HIV, because it generally takes that long for the virus to become established and multiply to sufficient numbers that they can be detected. The p24 antigens then become undetectable again after sufficient antibodies to HIV have been produced, because they bind to the P-24 protein and eliminate it from the blood. Once antibodies are produced, the p24 test will register negative even in people who are infected with HIV. Of course, at that point the regular HIV antibody test will then be positive.

The p24 antigen test has very limited value in diagnosing HIV infection. It has been used in HIV research and, since 1996, has been used as an additional screening test in blood banks to help reduce the window period and reduce the possibility of HIV infected blood being used in transfusions.

Most people will not benefit from having a p24 antigen test. People who have engaged in behaviors that may have put them at increased risk of infection with HIV should not give blood in order to be tested by the blood bank. Instead, call the HIV/STD Hotline at (206) 205-7837 for options to get HIV testing.

Otherwise PCR testing for HIV infection is used to test the patient's viral load.

> Viral load / PCR Testing

Viral load testing is the direct measurement of the amount of HIV present in the blood. Several different tests identify and measure the genetic material resulting from virus infection, either RNA or DNA. These tests are also called nucleic acid tests. The laboratory procedure used to test for the genetic material of HIV is called the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test. PCR viral load testing is usually done to allow doctors to track how active HIV is in a person’s body to help make antiviral treatment decisions. PCR tests are also used in research on primary HIV infection.

The FDA has not approved these PCR tests as ways to identify new HIV infections. The regular antibody test continues to be the most accurate and reliable way for people to know if they are infected with HIV. PCR tests may be negative in people with HIV if their infection is so recent (e.g, less than 5 days old) that virus has not yet begun to produce detectable quantities of virus, or if they have brought the infection under control spontaneously or with the help of the new potent anti-retroviral medications. Occasionally, PCR tests also can be falsely positive in the absence of HIV infection. The test is also very expensive (around $150) and cannot be done anonymously except through certain research studies. (In Seattle, see the Primary Infection Research Clinic.) Finally, any PCR test used to identify infection must be followed by a regular HIV antibody test taken three months after exposure to confirm the PCR test result. PCR viral load tests are most useful in people who already know their HIV status and to help make antiviral drug treatment decisions.

Viral load testing has become a standard method of monitoring viral activity and is used to monitor the success of antiviral treatment. Results from viral load tests can range from "undetectable" to over a million copies per milliliter of blood. Lower numbers mean fewer viruses in the blood and less active disease; higher numbers mean more viruses in the blood and more active disease. The goal of antiviral treatment is to substantially reduce the viral load. Viral load tests are used to determine when to start treatment and when to change or stop treatment. An "undetectable" viral load does not mean that the person is free of HIV infection. Most viral load tests can only detect down to the level of 40 viral particles per milliliter of blood. Thus "undetectable" means less virus per milliliter than this test can measure (e.g., up to 39 viral copies per milliliter.)

A person with an "undetectable" viral load is still infected with HIV and can still infect others. Viral loads measure the amount of virus in the blood; most transmission is sexual and sexual fluids may contain measurable virus even when blood virus is undetectable. Generally, however, the higher one's viral load the more likely one is to transmit the virus and the lower one's viral load the less likely one is to transmit the virus.

Maybe if you looked at why you distrust every single person who works with HIV infected patients you could get over that absurd position and trust the people who do understand these lab tests instead of making up your own incorrect answers.

 

[kellyb]

Now why are we even talking about a study like this? Because there isn't any study showing HIV kills you, by producing AIDS, which is fatal. It has never been done.

I find that odd.

Can you find for me a study proving that influenza causes the flu?
Or that varicella causes chickenpox?
I could go on and on...

The purpose of my asking is not to make a point that "science doesn't test things properly", but rather to point out that you're perception of "how it works" is off.

 

[robinson]

Can you find for me a study proving that influenza causes the flu?

Of course. Smith, W; Andrewes CH, Laidlaw PP (1933). "A virus obtained from influenza patients". Lancet 2: 66–68.

Nobody doubts that a virus causes the symptoms, the virus is always found, it can be isolated, introducing a pure isolation of the virus causes the symptoms. It is basic science.

The etiological cause of influenza, the Orthomyxoviridae family of viruses, was first discovered in pigs by Richard Schope in 1931.

Shimizu, K (Oct 1997). "History of influenza epidemics and discovery of influenza virus". Nippon Rinsho 55 (10): 2505–201. PMID 9360364.

This discovery was shortly followed by the isolation of the virus from humans by a group headed by Patrick Laidlaw at the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom in 1933.

You can see a picture of it here, http://www.state.nj.us/health/flu/pandemic.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

 

[Dabljuh]

The fact it makes no sense to you is because you don't understand the tests or the science.

...
(Lots and lots of blah, blah, blah)
...

Maybe if you looked at why you distrust every single person who works with HIV infected patients you could get over that absurd position and trust the people who do understand these lab tests instead of making up your own incorrect answers.

Let me see if I get this right... Science means... trusting you... yeah... right...

Hey I know we had a good run and so on but I think we should be seeing other threads. And by "we" I mean "you".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Or if they had food... Sanitation... Medical supplies... right?

So you believe that not a single child who has died from HIV (especially in Africa) came from a middle class family in a modern city and instead lived in poverty in a mud hut or something?

Should I post the link again to the pictures of real big modern cities in Africa? It is unfortunate so many people in the USA have such an ignorant picture of Africa. Or that people so often think only people living in squalor in Africa get sick.

Let's try Uganda. They were hit earliest and hardest with HIV in Africa. As of 2003 the HIV rate averaged 4.1% and the poverty rate averaged 35% in 2001. 67% of the population is literate.
Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.

I am not saying there isn't poverty and malnutrition in Africa. There are plenty of health problems there. But your imagination that people with malnutrition are mistaken for people with HIV is as poorly informed as was your imagination about what the laboratory tests meant. This is a typical 3rd world city with a lot of poverty. There are still real laboratories, real hospitals, real medical clinics and they do real HIV tests.

 

[robinson]

Now onto the good stuff. Science stuff. From the only country in the world that responded to a deadly incurable Pandemic that was going to wipe out entire populations and devastate the planet.

Cuba. Cuba, the country that destroyed blood supplies, refused to import blood, tested all blood, and quarantined every person who was found to have an incurable deadly disease. The country that has records of every person who has HIV, that has come down with AIDS, and data on every person who died from AIDS.

What does the hard data from Cuba show? About HIV and AIDS, in Cuba?

HIV is transmitted by sex, but not often. HIV is transmitted through blood, very often. HIV is transmitted by mothers to children, sometimes.
HIV is very common in male to male sex. HIV is rare when I.V. drug use is absent. Most females that got HIV were infected by husbands who had male to male sex. Most AIDS deaths are Gay men, most HIV cases are Gay men.

Most people with HIV don't develop AIDS, at least not in 20 years. Of the HIV+ that develop AIDS, most have not died yet. (20 years). Taking drugs against HIV doesn't change your chance of death. The oldest person with HIV, but not AIDS, takes no medication. (over 20 years infected).

All of that is hard fact. Scientific data. Real information, based on a population of 11 million people, with good health care and sanitation and food.

None of that data is valid for any other population. But it is without a doubt real for Cuba. All of this data is, of course, available for anyone to read.

What does it all mean? That seems to be up to what ever you think.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Let me see if I get this right... Science means... trusting you... yeah... right...

Hey I know we had a good run and so on but I think we should be seeing other threads. And by "we" I mean "you".

No science means educating yourself. Currently your poor understanding of the science that I and others posted here for you to read is your problem. It has nothing to do with trusting me.