Finally! The recession is over!

"The new figure is due to a better blood test and new statistical methods, and not a worsening of the epidemic, officials said."

Oops, I spoke too soon.

Damn untrustwothy U.S. Senators hiding in the bathroom stalls.

Damn. The 80s really have come back with a vengence.

/Leg warmers, ladies? Really?

Four major problems, four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Coincidence? I think not.

Good job with that sex education. It is working so well.

I think Bush's plan for rescuing the economy by buying life insurance on everyone with AIDS was just discovered.

Michigan resident here. AIDS is skyrocketing, especially in the young crowd. I've mentioned in previous threads that it's so bad around here that there is a woman who does nothing but tell those leaving jail that it is "really bad" out there disease wise.

/abstinence only is working SO well, obviously

This is a double whammy for the California housing market. The gays were the last people with enough money to afford a house.

I heard on the news today that the group with the highest number of infected are African American women. I can only guess that the same guys who go around getting a bunch of women pregnant are also giving away diseases as well and there's a bunch of women can't seem to say no to these dumbasses. Maybe in addition to teaching safe sex they should teach a course for girls called "How to respect yourself and not believe some guy who says "Don't worry, I love only you, baby" when he's got half the women in your neighbourhood knocked up or raising his spawn."

Video games sales are up too!

I hate to be That Guy, but there is a monumental difference between HIV and AIDS. Just putting that out there.

"something is up in the US Fark"? So... other country Farks are safe?

WFern: I hate to be That Guy, but there is a monumental difference between HIV and AIDS. Just putting that out there.

Just like there is a big difference between the part of the black plague where you feel a little shiatty and your armpits are sore and the part when you're delirious and sporting a gaggle of festering black bubole in your lymph glands.

How many people die of cancer every year in the US?

Somehow that's not news.

No, because nobody is having sex before or outside of marriage!

This is just liberal media fear mongering.

hi all, here's a funny "cure for AIDS" idea i have i don't know where to share...ur welcome.

not a scientist or doctor here, so take this hypothesis with a grain of salt:

a couple of months ago i saw articles describing the belief of some researchers that HIV and SIV are mutants of a larger class of retroviruses. according to this view, HIV/SIV somehow lost one or more instruction codes that allow it effectively hide from the immune system. furthermore, this view suggests that retroviruses fully equipped with that code may be responsible for most of our so-called "junk DNA", which sits there inert and unused for eons.

losing that "cloaking ability" could be the very core mechanism of AIDS, as HIV/SIV apparently didnt lose any infectious/self-propagating abilities. meaning that the immune system MUST attack HIV because it detects it...and the problem lies in the fact that the body can not win. it may achieve stalemate thanks to HAART drugs or CCR5 mutations, but they're not a cure. the continued over-stimulation of the immune system by a virus it can never (on it's own) rid itself of seems to ME to be the defining mode of HIV-AIDS progression, even as the virus infects systemically, not just in the immune system.

QUESTION: what about letting HIV win at last, but in the supposedly original sense in which retroviruses did so? does the possibility exist that identifying or constructing such a "cloaking"-code, creating a transport mechanism for it to deliver throughout a person's infected cells (say by a custom virus meant to trade such codes with your own HIV strains), and allowing HIV to at last hide completely from the immune system and simply embed into our junk DNA, raise the possibility of a CURE at last? I wonder seriously that it COULD.

the problems of course are numerous:

how to study and test such a theory ethically? who wants to risk their life and what researchers would join them in that risk?
could such a code be custom-fitted to people's particular strains of HIV, so that in each person their "new HIV" is custom-made to be evolutionarily selected for within each person's body?

does HIV really disappear once it embeds in the genome? is that it? would/could it produce more undesireable effects? could it become even worse? also, could such a 'code-empowered' HIV revert back if other strains within show better 'fitness'?

how to design the proper custom virus? are there other delivery mechanisms for a supplemental cloaking-code?

i dont know of any cures for a virus...and the only truly promising prospect i know of is waiting/hoping for nanotechnology to mature to the point where all virii are curable. problem is that nanotech is not expected to be that good until 2035 or so, same for custom genetic manipulation (give or take a decade).

my idea seems counter-intuitive, and when i thought of it i simply assumed that other researchers MUSt have thought of this already...but not having seen any further news on that "cloaking' theory, i figure it cant hurt to speak up. a Cure is certainly worth some squeaky-wheeling and maybe even some grease, after all.

Well, I am getting F'ed in the A by my portfolio, so I guess this stands to reason...

Just put a little more air in your tires.

Something farkers won't have to worry about.
You'd have to have sexual contact with a real person...

Hey at least it's not super-AIDS amirite?

Well, thank goodness I haven't been laid in years! I could catch teh AIDS!

Don't you have to have sex with someone like 100 times to pass the virus? It's not a cold.

FunkOut

4.55 of 10. Nice try. Better luck next time.

So what? If you catch AIDS nowadays it's your own damn fault.Everyone knows how it's spread. Don't be a dumb slut or a junkie. Simple as that. And I don't want you getting treatment off MY taxes for your negligence. Die quietly.

cryinoutloud: Well, thank goodness I haven't been laid in years! I could catch teh AIDS!

Don't you have to have sex with someone like 100 times to pass the virus? It's not a cold.

There's an interesting study on that here:

http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/gray2/

"When life gives you AIDS, make lemon aids."
- Sarah Silverman

In a positive light, at least the Bush Administration isn't the source of this particular problem. I wonder if they could use that to spin for the upcoming election:

Republicans: At least we didn't give people AIDS.

cryinoutloud: Well, thank goodness I haven't been laid in years! I could catch teh AIDS!

Don't you have to have sex with someone like 100 times to pass the virus? It's not a cold.

It would depend on how much virus the infected partner has in their various bodily fluids to share with their partner. But in any case, it obviously doesn't take more than one unlucky lay to get it, since a lot of people get it (reportedly) from casual sex.

Everyone has AIDS!
My grandma and my dog 'ol blue (AIDS AIDS AIDS)
The pope has got it and so do you (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS)
C'mon everybody we got quilting to do (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS)
We gotta break down these baricades, everyone has
AIDS! x 20

/breaks a tear at hearing the best song in his entire life

Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

Assfarking and shooting up are not the only ways people get it, retard.

Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

omg u bigoted hate-monger.

Guess they haven't closed enough pools.

You've got the AIDS!

/you knew it was comming
//Bush was actually pretty good on the aids issue, but still

The number of AIDS cases is up? Are you HIV positive?

Kyoki: FunkOut

4.55 of 10. Nice try. Better luck next time.

Huh? What was I trying?

penis_gourd: hi all, here's a funny "cure for AIDS" idea i have i don't know where to share...ur welcome.

As I understand it, the retroviruses that are just sitting in our genome as junk really don't exist as 'viruses' anymore -- it's more like keeping a garbled copy of the instructions around sandwiched in between our own genes. I don't think the "cloaking" is anything more than that. Having the instructions around doesn't hurt the body and therefore doesn't trigger the immune system. However, if the instructions worked and caused the cells to produce actual viruses, the immune system would go properly apeshiat.

Even if the immune system didn't track down and kill the HIV-infected T-cells, the virus would eventually kill the T-cells anyway -- being forced to produce viral particles interferes with normal cell operations (although HIV isn't as bad as some of the lytic viruses -- those puppies force the cell to make virions until it literally explodes).

does HIV really disappear once it embeds in the genome?

HIV actually can't reproduce UNLESS it embeds in the genome. There's a class of HIV drugs called integrase inhibitors that prevent the virus from doing exactly that, and they work pretty well.

Aside from this, trying to "fix" (in whatever sense) the literally trillions of viral particles in your typical infected patient is a statistical nightmare. If you miss even one, then all your work has just cleared the playing field for that one still-effective virus.

Interesting ideas, though!

nmchico24: Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

Assfarking and shooting up are not the only ways people get it, retard.

Well said. Sitting on a public toilet seat will also give you the AIDS.

Yeah, sorry, but hetero non-drug users aren't at a huge risk of AIDS in the developed world, and it's only due to a massive PR campaign that many believe otherwise.

Of course, quarantine would have worked just fine, but that'd be homophobic because obviously that suggestion was only a veiled attempt to eliminate gays.

So many dead and dying because of sexual politics...

Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

Yeah! You'll never get it from being farked in the vagina or the mouth! Only fags and junkies get HIV!

Gash
So what? If you catch AIDS nowadays it's your own damn fault.Everyone knows how it's spread. Don't be a dumb slut or a junkie. Simple as that. And I don't want you getting treatment off MY taxes for your negligence. Die quietly.

Tough break for children born HIV-positive, rape victims, health care workers who accidentally poked themselves with the needle, and people whose spouses cheated on them, eh?

Mongo cut wood
Good job with that sex abstinance-only education. It is working so well.

Fixed that for you.

Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

Your special kind of wisdom was needed about 30 years ago.
BTW, according to CNN 1 out of 2 HIV positive are black.
Do you consider that a 2 birds/1 stone situation?

penis_gourd: Lots of stuff...

That's a horrible idea. HIV already mutates enough on it's own in the wild. It doesn't need a helping hand.

It'd be like giving criminals handguns when they leave prison in the hope they only use it for self defense when they return to their dangerous neighborhoods.

I'm not crying... I just bought a foreclosure in San Diego, CA whose last sale price 2 years ago was 387,000 dollars, and I bought for 180,000 dollars.

Hahahaha

/AIDS meh.

panzerfaustbob: nmchico24: Brockway: I have an idea. Maybe don't shoot up, or FARK people in the ass.

Assfarking and shooting up are not the only ways people get it, retard.

Well said. Sitting on a public toilet seat will also give you the AIDS.

That's the best troll you could come up with?

nice to know that abstinence-only sex education is having a big impact on the spread of AIDS just like the fundies said it would. Link (new window)

no, Gash, not everyone knows how AIDS is spread.

Link (new window)

Link (new window)

Penn & Teller also have an interesting episode on the subject.

Blink: In a positive light, at least the Bush Administration isn't the source of this particular problem. I wonder if they could use that to spin for the upcoming election:

Republicans: At least we didn't give people AIDS.

Well, Bush's promotion of abstinence-only sex education is a part of the problem.

FunkOut I heard on the news today that the group with the highest number of infected are African American women. I can only guess that the same guys who go around getting a bunch of women pregnant are also giving away diseases as well and there's a bunch of women can't seem to say no to these dumbasses. Maybe in addition to teaching safe sex they should teach a course for girls called "How to respect yourself and not believe some guy who says "Don't worry, I love only you, baby" when he's got half the women in your neighbourhood knocked up or raising his spawn."

I agree wholeheartedly. The problem of course is that there are so many roadblocks to overcome that protect the root of the problem: Unwillingness to accept personal responsibility.

Some would call your idea racist, or targeting the vulnerable poor. After all, how many "community activists" are there out there that make their living thriving on the weakness and ignorance of the poor? People who don't really want to cure the problems of their community, they just want more money and notoriety in order to continue doing their *good work*. Preachers, activists, the whole lot. Plus on the individual level, people don't want to take on a life of responsibility, and thus condemn any attempts to do so as acts of "selling out". This pertains to both sexes, but not specifically to one ethnic group of people. Whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, etc. It's easier to blame someone else for a lack of opportunities, than it is to seek them out and admit failure when it does happen on occasion.

People want to make a change? Work as a community towards instilling a sense of pride by proving responsibility and self control in the masses, until that happens, things will not change. And for those that oppose such change because of their own fears, ostracize them and cast them away.