14-02-2005 18:06									#61
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Provost Harrison No Kuci, you are speaking out of your arse. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors are not proteins, they are nucleotide analogues (AZT is a thymidine analogue). It blocks the active site of reverse transcriptase. However sometimes it can be integrated into the human genome by DNA polymerase. And hnce mutation can arise. Delivered by a virus? WTF are you talking about?

I was assuming it was an enzyme, since I didn't see how anything else would inhibit a reaction. That's why I said it would have to be delivered by a virus to be integrated - because only then would the code for it be present.

	14-02-2005 18:11									#62
	Using vaguely the term "Africa" and lumping it together to support your views Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist Word. So VJ thinks AIDS is killing of secularists? Interestingly, it's mostly killing people in Africa, where people on average is more religious than in the West ...

Compared to total amount of religious people in Africa, the people dying from AIDS certainly aren't particularly religious. Quite the opposite, actually. And if someone who would've be registered as a christian would actually die from AIDS, would that prove anything? Just about everyone can claim to be a true believer, but that doesn't mean that they are (homosexualists who **** around without protecting their partners when they know they themselves have HIV certainly aren't).

What really gets me, though, is the way you use Africa here: Essentially you pick a random statistic from an ENTIRE CONTINENT, pick another random statistic, then don't even re-check to see if there's ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THEM, then use it to support your bs point.

"So, you're claiming that Japanese people are smarter in maths than us Swedes? Interestingly, most Japanese are in Asia, where people on average are actually, according to IQ tests, dumber in maths than we, Swedes. OMG TOTALLY MAKING A POINT HERE!"

	14-02-2005 18:13									#63
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Compared to total amount of religious people in Africa, the people dying from AIDS certainly aren't particularly religious. Quite the opposite, actually.

Bullshit. They just don't follow YOUR religion to the letter of the doctrine YOU hold.

	14-02-2005 18:23									#64
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

VJ's ability to spot trolling is impressive.

Now, I'm sure he's got better things to do. Like praying for his enemies.

	14-02-2005 18:32									#65
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Can you remember the days when you used to have a decent-sized sig; none of those ridiculous badges (are you trying to make a point or something? they've been there for ages so isn't it obvious that nobody cares from your point?); you used to keep all your messages in a single post instead of 50 posts with one sentence; and most of all, when you used to back up your posts with data instead of making predictable, trigger-happy, arrogant knee-jerk posts? I'm willing to listen if you're gonna find me some proof. Go ahead and look it up, please. Whether they're muslims or christians, religious people, as a group, in Africa, don't get HI-virus as often as non-religious do.

Now I'm not claiming that this would be universal, since in some countries (Sweden comes to my mind) secularists are not willing to un-register their christianity [edit: I mean that they have parents which register them, they go to the christian summer camps etc. until they suddenly after high school decide that atheism, alcohol and unresponsible sex is cool] from official papers (being either too lazy or wanting to keep some sort of back-up social safety net in church).

quote: VJ's ability to spot trolling is impressive.

So you now noticed that you were wrong in your speculation, hm?

	14-02-2005 18:43									#66
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

The problem is that mutation is determined by two factors - population level and I cannot remember the technical term, essentially genome platicity.

The first factor says that the more organisms of the species out there, all things being equal, the better the chance of mutation. Simple genetics.

The other item is something interesting I read about several years ago in Scientific American, and I'm sorry I don't have the cite - it was in the early 1990's. It turns out certain organisms, the example they used was the polio virus, are extremely rigid. It has very little variablility in it's genome, thus making is fairly easy (combined with other factors) to create a vaccine for.

AIDS is fairly unique. It seems to be close to the limit of mutation while still maintaining it's integrity as a species, if you can use the term properly for viruses. They suspected, at least at the time, that is AIDS had much more variability, then it actually could not maintain it's integrity as a species.

This is germane because it means that if a mutation can create resistance to a drug class, then AIDS is the organism to do it. Thus the resistance does not surprise me in the slightest. My biggest worry is that it has a 1st cousin in Greenland or Iceland. It turns out it is mosquito born, and highly lethal to sheep. Since we really don't know the mutations necessary to create an insect vectored disease, that's what bothers me. That mutation would make the Black Plague look like a mild cold.

That is why it behooves us all to be involved in slowing the disease. I won't call it a plague except in Africa, which shows that is has the potential. I also do agree with the concept of isolation. We have gotten so blaise to modern medicine we have forgotten the old protocals of public health. Isolating people with communicable diseases is a very effective technique. Castro supposedly used that technique to stop AIDS cold in Cuba.

Oh - and in Africa many so-called healers are suggesting sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS. Since the vaginal tracts of young girls are not fully keratinized (thickening of the epithelial tissue essentially in preparation for sex) they are tremendously more likely to catch the disease from a single exposure. This has had horrendous results.

	14-02-2005 22:33									#67
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Er, VJ, you might want to edit that last post some more. You know, mods, flames, put two and two together?

Can somebody explain to me, or provide a link explaining, why anti-retrovirals cause all those side effects?

	14-02-2005 22:44									#68
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by VJ So you now noticed that you were wrong in your speculation, hm?

I take it back. VJ is not merely unable to spot trolling; he's got severe problems with basic cognition.

	14-02-2005 22:47									#69
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Hmmm... let's discuss the TOPIC, and NOT the POSTERS!

	14-02-2005 22:51									#70
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker I was assuming it was an enzyme, since I didn't see how anything else would inhibit a reaction. That's why I said it would have to be delivered by a virus to be integrated - because only then would the code for it be present.

He is an industry expert, doofus. It's what he does for a living.

	14-02-2005 23:00									#71
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by shawnmmcc The problem is that mutation is determined by two factors - population level and I cannot remember the technical term, essentially genome platicity. The first factor says that the more organisms of the species out there, all things being equal, the better the chance of mutation. Simple genetics. The other item is something interesting I read about several years ago in Scientific American, and I'm sorry I don't have the cite - it was in the early 1990's. It turns out certain organisms, the example they used was the polio virus, are extremely rigid. It has very little variablility in it's genome, thus making is fairly easy (combined with other factors) to create a vaccine for. AIDS is fairly unique. It seems to be close to the limit of mutation while still maintaining it's integrity as a species, if you can use the term properly for viruses. They suspected, at least at the time, that is AIDS had much more variability, then it actually could not maintain it's integrity as a species. This is germane because it means that if a mutation can create resistance to a drug class, then AIDS is the organism to do it. Thus the resistance does not surprise me in the slightest. My biggest worry is that it has a 1st cousin in Greenland or Iceland. It turns out it is mosquito born, and highly lethal to sheep. Since we really don't know the mutations necessary to create an insect vectored disease, that's what bothers me. That mutation would make the Black Plague look like a mild cold. That is why it behooves us all to be involved in slowing the disease. I won't call it a plague except in Africa, which shows that is has the potential. I also do agree with the concept of isolation. We have gotten so blaise to modern medicine we have forgotten the old protocals of public health. Isolating people with communicable diseases is a very effective technique. Castro supposedly used that technique to stop AIDS cold in Cuba. Oh - and in Africa many so-called healers are suggesting sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS. Since the vaginal tracts of young girls are not fully keratinized (thickening of the epithelial tissue essentially in preparation for sex) they are tremendously more likely to catch the disease from a single exposure. This has had horrendous results.

Yeah, the ability of AIDS to mutate so quickly comes from the relative inaccuracy of reverse transcriptase - our DNA polymerase complex replicates and checks for mistakes. Reverse transcriptase just bangs out a copy. I am not sure of the progress but one of the clever ideas was to create a CD4/immunoglobulin hybrid protein. HIV finds CD4 to integrate into a cell. So (in theory, HIV seems to be a bit more complicated than using CD4 alone, bastard ) the HIV will bind to this hybrid protein and trigger an immune response onto it. A clever idea but I don't think it got anywhere which is a shame. The other thing they were trying to do was find highly conserved areas of HIVs protein (generally stuff like RT's active site or some aspects of the coat protein) and presenting those directly to the immune system (like a vaccine) and developing an immunity to HIV before it can cause any problem. Quite clever stuff...

	14-02-2005 23:04									#72
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

our body reverse engineered the mutation...

this is why I tell people to keep a good design history file! development engineering is getting a copy of that!

	14-02-2005 23:15									#73
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by JohnT He is an industry expert, doofus. It's what he does for a living.

PH washed out of the program.

	14-02-2005 23:15									#74
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

He did?

Oh, well. I guess the doofus here is... moi.

	14-02-2005 23:18									#75
	Put an end to popups!

Yeah, I quit research, not the direction I wanted to go in any longer. Although I work for GSK now and the product line I analyse on (and head a small team): Zidovudine (retrovir, AZT, whatever you want to call it)

	14-02-2005 23:20									#76
	Remove this text

Manufacturing support is much more stable. If you want to be innovative do so with techniques and methods.

	15-02-2005 07:56									#77
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Bullshit. They just don't follow YOUR religion to the letter of the doctrine YOU hold.

Uh, and what religion would that be Kuci?

He has a point. Look at the difference in AIDS transmission between northern and southern Africa.

	15-02-2005 08:09									#78
	Inflate your Upload Space

In areas of Africa where there are significvant populations of muslims, and christians HIV does indeed tend to infect christians at a higher rate than muslims. People of both types of religions tend to fool around alot, but muslims may be protected by the tradition of circumcision. Many muslim groups in Africa practice ritual circumcision, whie circumcision is relatively rare among Africa christians.

	15-02-2005 09:02									#79
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Uh, and what religion would that be Kuci? He has a point. Look at the difference in AIDS transmission between northern and southern Africa.

Their particular brand of Christianity.

	15-02-2005 10:18									#80
	Put an end to popups!

There are two critical differences between Christianity and Islam that may account for the difference. First, since Islam is highly intolerant of polytheists (they are considered infidels, and in fact the Koran requires their conversion, if necessary by the sword), it will be it's very nature reduce the level of so-called witch doctors who are suggesting the young virgin cure bit. That is a hideous vector, as I strongly suspect - note suspect, versus other factual data here - that those young girls are going to end up in the sex trade, becoming ideal vectors for the disease.

Secondly, the AIDS transmission may be reduced by the combination of female genital mutilation, which is very common through the Moslem parts of Africa (and also practiced in the Christian areas, though not to the same degree), and the penalty for adultery, which is stoning to death. However, that penalty is very seldom enforced against men since simply being pregnant can be considered proof against a woman, versus two witnesses being required for a man (google the cases in Northern Nigeria over the last several years).

I strongly suspect that this results in less adultery than in the Christian areas since you are effectively eliminating most female adultery (no clitoris means little pleasure, and the death penalty can reduce temptation in this context, i.e. is that piece of a** worth dying for). In fact, if the Moslem level of adultery is much higher than 50% of the Christian one, that would indicate that the rate of adultery in Moslem men is higher than in Christian men, given the substantially reduced rate of female adultery. This would be consistant with cultures where women are definitely second class citizens, i.e. having fewer political and social rights then their male counterparts, and lack the ability to tell their partners "no" in reference to having sex. Again, you have this in Christian parts of Africa as well - but Sharia codifies this, making it an integral part of Moslem culture.

	15-02-2005 20:19									#81
	Suffering from ads?

quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi Uh, and what religion would that be Kuci? He has a point. Look at the difference in AIDS transmission between northern and southern Africa.

And let's not address the differing political situations in different states at all. Or indeed, the openness about disease transmission, difficulties in arriving at statistics, differing health services, et cetera, et cetera.