AIDS Risk Factor by Ethnicity

Kernel

Hi Learned Colleagues,

My unlearned colleague Pighead and I are having a medical debate regarding the risk factor of contracting HIV and developing full blown AIDS based on your ethnic origin. I have proposed that non caucasian races have an increased rick factor of developing AIDS (not just statistically, but physically), and there is also an increased chance of contracting the virus through anal sex - meaning homosexuals are more at risk also. Pighead thinks this is rubbish, but I have read that non-caucasian races have over twice the chance of developing AIDS as caucasians.

Further to this, I also believe that a U.S. agency or affiliate developed the virus in the late 60's / early 70's, and targetted Africa as a method of population control. Any opinions?

Pighead

Kernel wrote:

Hi Learned Colleagues,

My unlearned colleague Pighead and I are having a medical debate regarding the risk factor of contracting HIV and developing full blown AIDS based on your ethnic origin. I have proposed that non caucasian races have an increased rick factor of developing AIDS (not just statistically, but physically), and there is also an increased chance of contracting the virus through anal sex - meaning homosexuals are more at risk also. Pighead thinks this is rubbish, but I have read that non-caucasian races have over twice the chance of developing AIDS as caucasians.

Kernel you must have read the above statistics from "The Big Book Of Lies"because that is simply not true
Read below:
In the age of AIDS, everyone should know about safer sex. HIV can infect anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, sex, age, race, or economic class. While the incidence of AIDS is much higher in some populations than in others, it is not who you are that can give you AIDS, but what you do.
Taken from:http://www.sexuality.org/l/safersex/safety.html

AIDS does not discriminate - no matter what your religion, social status, race or culture.
Taken from:http://www.hivaidssearch.com/facts/hiv_aids_questions_answers.htm
Frankly young kernel your speaking a load of twaddle

DrIndy

I think this has the makings of an interesting debate!

I have not heard of this as being a significant risk factor. There is a higher predilection in certain countries to the spread of HIV and development of AIDS related to the health systems and education. Certain complications of AIDS are slightly more common in certain racial groups, but this relates to their country of origin rather than ethnicity per se.

Kernel

DrIndy wrote:

I think this has the makings of an interesting debate!

I have not heard of this as being a significant risk factor. There is a higher predilection in certain countries to the spread of HIV and development of AIDS related to the health systems and education. Certain complications of AIDS are slightly more common in certain racial groups, but this relates to their country of origin rather than ethnicity per se.

Nobody is debating Indy! I thought I'd post some info on the reason I asked this question, you see I believe the AIDS virus was created by US agencies to infect undesirable elements of society (undesireable to the right wing republicans that is), and population control in Africa.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/experimentation.html

That seems to be an interesting timeline of developments, that if true could point to a high likelihood of the conspiracy theory (haven't researched these 'facts' yet though).

Also, this is worth a read:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/aids.html

DrIndy

Thats news to me, however did you know that the (white) south african government had a secret project to develop a virus that would only kill black people? They planned to unleash it to reduce their "kaffer" population and allow more land for themselves.

This is theoretically possible as there are enough subtle differences in the genome to do so and indeed in comparison of genetic differences, african people are a distinct group as all other races spread across the world originated from an area close to Ethiopia and spread from there.

S. Africa also developed their own nuclear bomb and did a nuke bomb test in 1979

wes

Why would the US care about Africa's populations? Also the disease infects anyone no matter there ethnicity. Also wouldn't an air borne virus infect more if that was the purpose? The theory sounds kinda nuts.

Wibbs

There was some talk of people in some certain ethnic groups who had immunity. There are rare people out there that are indeed immune to HIV infection and indeed some others that if infected remained asymptomatic and their virus load stays low. These were almost exclusively European in origin(a few African prostitutes showed some immunity but long term they all succumbed).

The genes responsible for this appear to be two genes that give protection against bubonic plague of all things. Although plague is a bacterium and HIV is viral, there are certain similarities in modes of attack. Both invade white blood cells and make their way to the lymph glands where the infectious agent reproduces rapidly. I seem to remember that one of the protective genes codes a protein that stops HIV from entering the cell, the second gene stops propagation in the lymph. Quite a few people in Europe have one or other of these genes and a few have both. It's supposed that may explain the relative slowness of the HIV virus spread in Europe as most, if not all of our ancestors where exposed to plague.

There is also an increased risk of infection from anal sex as the structures are not as well constructed for the process involved as the vagina is. Microtears are way more likely, thus increasing the chances of virus transfer. Also, I seem to remember that semen contains substances that lower immunity, especially when introduced into areas(ahem) that may not have been evolved to cope.


It's late so finding links to this is not a high priority. I'll look around at a later date for the info. Please excuse any inaccuracy on my humble part.

CJhaughey

It was reported on the BBC site that having a foreskin apparently increases your chances of being infected, the cells in the FS tissue are apparently thin skinned and can uptake the virus easily.
I will try and post a link when I am not as tired.

Wibbs

Fair point. The circumsised penis becomes keretinised(sp) and the glans skin becomes thicker as a result, so it's possible that the thicker skin may work as a barrier. That said, men with a circumcised penis may be more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior as the keretinisation also makes the glans less sensitive.

It has also been found that the intact foreskin contains many immune system cells that may in fact prevent infections.

Much of this research comes from America. a country where circumcision is nearly 90% among males. It seems biased. They looked at cultures in Africa who circumcised against those who didn't and found that indeed there was less infection among the circumcised groups. What they didn't take into account was that the circumcised groups were more religious and less likely to engage in dangerous behaviour(anal and extramarital sex). They also found that in cultures that practised female circumcision the rates were lower too, for much the same reasons. Hardly a good standpoint.

The jury is still out on that one.

Kernel

wes wrote:

Why would the US care about Africa's populations? Also the disease infects anyone no matter there ethnicity. Also wouldn't an air borne virus infect more if that was the purpose? The theory sounds kinda nuts.

Well, at the time (60's) there was a huge amount of concern about the world population explosion, and it's long term effects. Africa was also an unruly and even unknown quantity in regard to the dictatorships and regimes, and their attitude to America. As well as that, white America at the time didn't show much respect for Africans at all. It's late and it's been a long day, so my brain ain't firing on all cylinders, but think of 50's/60's capitalist america as being like the rich neighbourhood of town. Africa was the poor area. It's in American interests to maintain the status quo, as if the whole town becomes rich, that means the former poor area will have taken resources (of which there are only a finite amount) from the rich neighbourhood, and if everyone was rich, then who is going to do the ****ty jobs? It's an analogy, but do you think the first world can exist in the comfort it has become accustomed to without a first world of cheap labour and produce to make money from? It cannot, it would take years for the markets to stabilise on a global scale, and the result would almost certainly be a decrease in quality of life in the first world whilest this was happening (and it will happen in this century - probably). In order to share the wealth with poor nations, we have to tighten our belts until they develop a strong market economy, whereby they can import goods we produce.

The disease does effect everyone, regardless of ethnicity, but as I have asked in this thread, there are doctors who are suggesting that those of a non-caucasion ethnic origin have a higher propensity or vulnerability to be infected by it.

Simple fear of Africans attaining equal power to the US could have had a part to play also - examples of this can be seen today:

US: "We're allowed have as many nukes as we want."
IRAN: "That's not fair, you hate us and threaten our region, we want a stick as big as yours to fight you off with."
US: "No way, you people are far too primitive and barbaric to possess such technology!"

As for why they didn't create an airborne virus, remember that the HIV virus is very specific in how it infects people - only through blood or sexual fluids (not even transmitted through saliva). An airborne virus would have backfired too easily, and would not be possible to control. Doesn't it seem strange that a virus that is so specific in terms of method of transmission only popped up in Africa in the 70s?? And exploded in 3 regions where the US was carrying out 'smallpox vaccinations' on the locals?

Check out the links, I'm not saying it's the 100% truth, but there's a lot of interesting questions raised.

Annemimi

I'm not sure about these conspiracy theories relating to the emergence of HIV in the human population. I'm not saying it's impossible that any powerful government, such as that in America, would do such a thing, but I think that these theories grow out of a desire to believe that a worldwide tragedy such as the devistation caused by HIV/AIDS could not be a random event, it mused be have been 'caused' by someone intentionally. It's too scary to think that some random event, such as the accidental transmission of the virus from some other primate to a human, could cause the pandemic that we are faced with today. I think if I had to though, I would put my money on accidental transmission from animal to humans coupled with social factors that aided the spread of the disease in the 70s/80s.

One theory goes that the virus was present in isolated communities in Central Africa for a long time but post-colonial social conflict in the 70s led to mass movement of people and an unprecedented spread the virus. Prostitution, which for many women in countries such as Zaire was (and in some areas still is) their only means of survival during conflict,created an ideal social situation for the spread of the virus (btw this is not moralistic, just a statement of fact). It is one of the ways in which the virus spreads far and wide even today: men leave villages to work, sometimes for long periods of time, sleep with prostitutes, and return home with the virus and infect their wives in remote villages. And many hundreds of women were raped by soldiers during civil wars and wars between countries in central Africa.

There may be a grain of truth in what was said about the US government being involved in somewhat of a conspiracy though. The virus first presented itself among the gay community, IV drug users and Hatians in the 80s in America. Reagan's fairly right wing administration did little to facillitate the research that many scientists were trying to do into the extremely frightening emerging epidemic. In fact by choking off funds they basically stood in the way of scientists trying desperately to learn about the disease. I mean why put money into reseaching a disease that was sent by God or whoever to punish homosexuals and drug users, and I suppose any non-white non-American?
Considering the huge reaction to Legionnaire's disease which, while tragic for those involved, would prove to be far less widespread and less fatal, one has to conclude that the respectibilty of those affected with this 'justified' a much greated investment than that put into HIV/AIDS.

OK this post is miles long so I'll just say have a look at this http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/AIDS/
if you want another conspiracy theory on have HIV was spread in Africa, this guy thinks that it was accidently spread in contaminated polio vaccines.

Also just to make things more complicated here's a guy who thinks AIDS is not caused by a transmissable virus at all, making the whole conspiracy or not point mute
http://www.duesberg.com/

Wibbs

Further to my post of the other night(when I was following Kernels anti ulcer alcohol infusion regime and was thusly too befuddled to find links)

Here's a link that says it wasn't bubonic plague that conferred immunity, but rather endemic smallpox in Europe that may have caused the mutation. I find it a little unlikely however as smallpox was endemic among Africans for almost as long.

http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/517399.html

It's also possible that another epidemic caused these changes among Europeans giving some protection against HIV(if indeed it is HIV that causes AIDS. Interesting link there Annemimi). The black death may have been the culprit. While most commentators feel bubonic plague was to blame, some think it another agent entirely. Plague came and went but the black death came very rapidly, killed very quickly and rapidly became airborne. While bubonic plague can go airborne in the pneumonic form, it's transmission rate isn't as high as what befell Europe with the black death. Many clues point to a virus. In fact one of the last outbreaks in Europe occurred in France in the 17th century. It followed the MO of the black death, but many commentators thought it wasn't plague as the symptoms were radically different. Even the kids nursery game "ring a ring a rosy" which directly refers to the black death, ends with the line "atishoo attishoo we all fall down". The symptoms were flu-like and the infected died suddenly. Sounds more like some sort of a respiratory virus to me. Bit more info here http://whyfiles.org/159aids3/3.html

Just a thought. If you look at Europeans, we have been exposed to a myriad of infectious agents for a very long time. I've personally had measles(both kinds), mumps, chicken pox and a myriad of colds and flus. In the past you could also add whooping cough, smallpox, cowpox, syphilis, various plagues and even malaria in more southern regions. Is it possible that this litany of diseases conferred some protection to modern Europeans?

When you compare our exposure to disease with other populations, we seem to have more. Just look at what happened when Europeans showed up in the new world. We decimated the population with smallpox, measles and even the common cold for which the locals had no immunity. Maybe that's why HIV/AIDS has spread so slowly through the European population.

Jeez that was a long typing session. Sadly at this time of the day I can't blame it on drink