By the time the "cocktail" is doing its job - the HIV has already been knocked out by anti-bodies.
The trouble is the protagonists seem to make up stories as they go along. HIV seems to be a fairly simple "passenger virus". When they can't find it (because it's been killed off) it is said to be undiagnosable and hidden. Remember, no-one has found the connection between HIV with AIDS - yet they know it disappears into DNA. They also know it hangs around ready to pop up in ten years or so.
This is not the way that viruses behave. I must confess I am not so much skeptical as incredulous.
The pattern seems clear. Drugs in the West and malnutrition in Africa weaken the immune system and the next disease in the queue does its worst. If the patient has HIV antibodies in his blood - an indication that the virus has been knocked out. The disease is no longer tuberculosis, but AIDS.
If there is no HIV - the disease becomes tuberculosis. The weakened condition of the patient prevents any worthwhile defence of the disease - whatever it is.
Harry
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Keith wrote:
Arthur, One of the features of the HIV virus is that it has a very high rate of mutation. (If it's not hit with a veritable cocktail of drugs, it simply adapts to a single drug very easily by mutation. However, although the cocktail slows down the growth of HIV it can't wipe it out because sufficient of the virus has already injected itself into some of the host's own DNA [safely wrapped behind the cell nucleus and thus impermeable to diagnostic tests] and can remain totally hidden for years.)Can it mutate into a flying form? Most unlikely I'd have thought. (Though, like anthrax, I suppose it would be possible to manufacture it into a fine powder form awhich could float in the air.) We need a molecular biologist on our list for this! Keith At 10:29 13/01/03 -0500, you wrote: >The question I had was: Can the virus mutate? So that it can be transmitted >by air much as the flu virus. > >This would dramatically change things, of course. > >May be a low, very low probablility event but with a very high impact and >thus worth considering. > >arthur > >-----Original Message----- >From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >Sent: Monday, January 13, 2003 5:56 AM >To: Harry Pollard >Cc: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: RE: [Futurework] The epidemic of Aids > > >Harry, > >Aids can only spread by direct entry into the blood stream -- hence via >injuries or through severely abraded skin. A nurse would normally have no >risk of becoming a victim but if, say, you were a bricklayer then you'd be >very unwise to look after an Aids sufferer unless you wore surgical gloves >while at home. > >Aids is not very catchable. It needs a considerable local concentration of >sufferers before it gets a start. But given this *and* a great frequency of >practices that causes skin abrasion then it can then spread -- after it did >after Haight-Ashbury -- and keep on spreading because its symptoms are not >obvious for years in some cases. > >Keith > >At 23:11 12/01/03 -0800, you wrote: >>Arthur, >> >>AIDS is not contagious, and doesn't appear to be infectious. Shown by the >>apparent absence of harm to any of the care-givers of the hundreds of >>thousands of aids victims. >> >>Now, ain't that a funny virus? Think of a flu virus and compare. >> >>There was a period I remember when someone started a rumor that you can get > >>AIDS from mosquitos. >> >>Harry
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