Man dies of AIDS in 1950s
Chip Armstrong
late 1980s, then again last fall, on a radio station that kept fading in and
out as I drove through south-west Oregon. I'm hoping someone can tell me
if this is a true story or not.
It begins in the 1950s (or maybe 1960s) when a man has some
mysterious illness and the doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong
with him. Slowly the man wastes away and dies, and blood and tissue samples
are stored away, in the hope that some day medical science can discover
what exactly killed him.
FF to the early 1980s. A doctor is reading the literature on the
newly discovered AIDS virus when he suddenly recalls the case from the
1950s. Since many of the symptoms the man with the mysterious disease had
are similar to those seen in AIDS cases, he decides to investigate. The
blood and tissue samples (or whatever it was they saved) are pulled from
deep storage and tested, and it is found that the man from the 1950s had
the AIDS virus.
Has anyone else heard this one? It's now been reported to me by two
different sources, who have no direct connection to one another, so if it
isn't true it seems to have spread pretty far.
Chip
Eric Adair
: Has anyone else heard this one? It's now been reported to me by two
: different sources, who have no direct connection to one another, so if it
: isn't true it seems to have spread pretty far.
I remember reading something about this in some update volume to an
encyclopedia. The man in question was a sailor, I think.
I'll try to dig up the specific reference, but it might take some time.
Eric Adair
Steve Mayer
AIDS in 50s]
Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor out
of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a hobby
of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
Steve "And if you don't believe me, try spending some time researching in
a library" Mayer
V-X
>In article <D4MKH...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Ted Frank <th...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>In article <D4MGu...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>>Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>> 2) What is the political impact of this "Sailor died of AIDS in
>>> the 50's" story? I.e., why should we care? Every AIDS story
>>> has political content. What effect would the acceptance of
>>> this story have on political policy?
>>
>>For one thing, it would refute the "AIDS is manmade" UL conclusively.
>Why? Not that I have any particular opinion on the subject, but they could
>just as easily have built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s.
>Then of course you have to come up with a theory for how they choose
>exactly when to unleash it (It being in beta until then).
Um, I'm no scientist, so I'm going out on a limb, here, but there must be some
among us...
Really? The US Gov't/KKK/KGB/Knights Templar could have constructed a new
virus in the 40s or 50s?
V-X can draw like nobody's business. Resume and examples awailable at
http://www.teleport.com/~vx
Home of the Unofficial WWW/FTP Jack Chick Archive!
Stupid Internet...
Dave Wilton
> [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
>AIDS in 50s]
>
> Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor
>out of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a
>hobby of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
I have not seen any documentation proving this, but then I haven't
really researched it. Please post references to medical/scientific
journals where this case is discussed.
There may be several plausible explanations. The sailor may have had
some other kind of immune deficiency (other diseases have similar
effects). This would not necessarily explain the postive HIV response in
his stored tissues though.
It is possible that he actually did have AIDS. This may have been a case
of an earlier outbreak that did not reach epidemic proportions. Emerging
diseases often occur in small outbreaks before being recognized.
The most likely explanation (without benefit of research) is that it is
a UL. Last year, some rube at work (Ollie North fan club, Christian
Coalition member--this is not political comment, only a possible source
for his misinformation) claimed that AIDS had been around for centuries,
only they used to call it "consumption." I corrected him, but I don't
think he believed that consumption is actually tuberculosis.
Whether or not this incident with the sailor is true, I think that there
is a lot of misinformation about AIDS and its origins floating around
out there. Enough for lots of ULs to develop.
--Dave "I'm not a Virologist, but I play one on TV" Wilton
dwi...@ix.netcom.com
fl...@virginia.edu
Motto!
Ahem, if you want someone to believe you, you do the research,
post it here when you find the answer. Till then you and
Enchanter! should go play in the traffic.
Bo "burden of proof" Bradham
Pete Edwards
chi...@netcom.com "Chip Armstrong" writes:
> It begins in the 1950s (or maybe 1960s) when a man has some
> mysterious illness and the doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong
> with him. Slowly the man wastes away and dies, and blood and tissue samples
> are stored away, in the hope that some day medical science can discover
> what exactly killed him.
>
Sometime in the 1950's a British sailor was admitted to the Manchester
(uk) hospital for tropical diseases, with symptoms as above. No doctors were
able to diagnose and the sailor died. The last job he had was on a ship
which frequently visited the West African coast.
I saw this story on local tv about 4/5 yrs ago, the inference was that this
could have been the first documented case, at the time the theory was that
the HIV virus had spread from Africa. All the evidence is circumstantial
since no tissue samples were taken from the patient.
All the above is verifiable, anything else is conjecture.
--
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
| Pete Edwards (pe...@tholian.demon.co.uk) |
| *My God*, it's full of stars! :-0 |
\______________________________________ /
Ted Frank
Steve Mayer <sma...@netcom.com> wrote:
> [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
>AIDS in 50s]
>
> Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor out
>of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a hobby
>of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
There's an earlier case of a young St.Louis male prostitute from the mid-
1950's.
Documented in Paul Fumento's "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS"; whatever
you think of Fumento and his book, the primary source for this particular
incident seems to be correct.
--
ted frank
Jeremy Mathers
>I have heard a similar story, except it involved a young boy, and was supposed
>to have been in either the late Sixties, or early Seventies. I heard that
>report some years ago, and I believe it is cited by those who claim that HIV
>is not the infectious agent for AIDS. They claim that HIV is a harmless
>virus that becomes quite prolific in those with an immune system impaired by
>other causes. They cite this case as "proof" of that. I believe current
>theories hold that AIDS was around a lot longer than previously thought, but
>that it simply did not get into the population enough to cause major problems
>until recently.
Unless you believe it was manufactured by the CIA (or by WHO or some
other initialed agency), you pretty much have to accept that its been
around for a lot longer than 20 or so years. Evolution just doesn't
happen that fast. (CHIYDGI)
Two discussion topics:
1) In _The Hot Zone_, Richard Preston blames it all on the
paving of the Kinshasa Highway in the middle 70's.
Something to think about now that we are considering paving
over the Darrien Gap.
2) What is the political impact of this "Sailor died of AIDS in
the 50's" story? I.e., why should we care? Every AIDS story
has political content. What effect would the acceptance of
this story have on political policy?
************************************************************************
Evangelists do more than lay people.
- py...@quads.uchicago.edu, who is still costing the net
hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, every time he posts -
************************************************************************
rwvpf wpnrrj ibf ijrfer
Steven Cherry
>fl...@virginia.edu wrote:
>: sma...@netcom.com writes:
>: > Steve "And if you don't believe me, try spending some time researching in
>: > a library" Mayer
>: Motto!
> Thank you ;-)
This is not a compliment.
>: Ahem, if you want someone to believe you, you do the research,
>: post it here when you find the answer. Till then you and
>: Enchanter! should go play in the traffic.
> Now that's not nice ;-) Seriously, I do enough reading that I can't
>recall the source for every shard of data I come across.
Of course not. None of us can. But we don't post every blessed little
thing we recall, either. So the rule of thumb is, for those few that we
both recall *and* post, we either recall the source too, or go back and
dig it up.
FWIW, this story
>had legs in '93. You might try _Rolling Stone_, which included it in its
>retraction of its "WHO polio vaccine started AIDS" story (It was a December,
>1993 issue, I believe). They include further cites, e.g., an earlier article
>in _The Advocate_, the medical journal(s) that covered the case, etc.
> Steve "If you really wish to prove me wrong, start at the library" Mayer
Now really, Steve, you've been told once, reasonably nicely. If you really
wish to prove yourself right, start at the library.
Steven "I know, I should have said something about the acronym and the
emoticon. But in this case, content before form" Cherry
--
<s...@panix.com> <s...@acm.org>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
But, you see, it's not OUR job to substantiate YOUR assertions.
It's.... well, yours, you see. VJ Robinson/alt.folklore.urban
Ted Frank
> the 50's" story? I.e., why should we care? Every AIDS story
> has political content. What effect would the acceptance of
> this story have on political policy?
For one thing, it would refute the "AIDS is manmade" UL conclusively.
--
ted frank
Jeremy Mathers
Why? Not that I have any particular opinion on the subject, but they could
just as easily have built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s.
Then of course you have to come up with a theory for how they choose
exactly when to unleash it (It being in beta until then).
J. "who probably shouldn't be posting to AFU anymore because he
doesn't seem to have the required 'open & shut' mindset that
seems to have become dominant lately..." M.
************************************************************************
It is not enough that others fail. I must succeed!
Steve Mayer
: In article <D4MGu...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
I actually _did_ do a library search and wrote an article on the
Manchester sailor to refute the "WHO started AIDS" story over on
alt.conspiracy back around March, 1994. It had cites and everything. The
post had zero (0) follow-ups, but I did receive a reasonably vicious
email telling me that I was an idiot to think that WHO had started AIDS.
Anyhow, if anyone cares, I'll provide cites in the future if they're at
hand. Of course, even if an article provides cites, one still has to
check them, yes? Gee, I bet a library would come in handy for that...
-Steve
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <D4MKH...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Ted Frank <th...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
>>For one thing, it would refute the "AIDS is manmade" UL conclusively.
>
>Why? Not that I have any particular opinion on the subject, but they could
>just as easily have built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s.
I'm curious as to why you don't think that was an opinion.
In any case, if you think they could have created a virus just as
easily in the 1940s as in the 1980s, it's a pretty bad opinion. They
didn't even know the structure of DNA in the 1940s.
--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@netcom.com) **********
* Daly City California: *
* where San Francisco meets The Peninsula *
* and the San Andreas Fault meets the Sea *
*******************************************************
Dave Wilton
> I actually _did_ do a library search and wrote an article on the
>Manchester sailor to refute the "WHO started AIDS" story over on
>alt.conspiracy back around March, 1994. It had cites and everything...
> Anyhow, if anyone cares, I'll provide cites in the future if they're
>at hand. Of course, even if an article provides cites, one still has to
>check them, yes? Gee, I bet a library would come in handy for that...
Yes we do have to check them, but we cannot check what you have not
provided. Anyone can claim anything. So far, you haven't backed up your
claims with anything substantial (Rolling Stone is hardly an
authoritative source on anything except music. Did you check JAMA, The
Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, CDC's MMWR, etc.?). Please do
so before posting again.
And yes, there is nothing wrong with posting from memory, but when the
discussion involves proof, don't get your shorts in a bunch because
people ask you for citations.
Regarding the earlier post that said that no tissue samples had been
taken from this sailor: If that is true, you cannot say that the man
died of AIDS. He exhibited symptions of an immune deficiency disorder.
AIDS is not the only immune deficiency disease. Without tissue samples,
you cannot determine if HIV was present.
--Dave Wilton
dwi...@ix.netcom.com
John Ayala
>In any case, if you think they could have created a virus just as
>easily in the 1940s as in the 1980s, it's a pretty bad opinion. They
>didn't even know the structure of DNA in the 1940s.
"AIDS is manmade" UL do so for political reasons. They won't let an
inconvenient scientific fact spoil their theory. For example "YOU say the
structure of DNA was unknown in the 1940's, but what about the Smith
report?" I would agree with this (slight) amendment of your statement:
A case of AIDS in the 1950's would conclusively refute the "AIDS is manmade"
UL for all rational people.
John
BASEL, LESLIE
> [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
>AIDS in 50s]
>
> Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor out
>of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a hobby
>of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
>
And if you do want to do the research in the library--
in front of the microfiche reader, I should think-- I
distinctly remember reading that article in the New
York Times during 1989-1991. I know that doesn't
really narrow it down much, but at least the story
has a mighty fine pedigree.
Leslie "all the ULs that are fit to print" Basel
l...@ccit.arizona.edu
Jeremy Mathers
John Ayala <pad...@delphi.com> wrote:
>inconvenient scientific fact spoil their theory. For example "YOU say the
>structure of DNA was unknown in the 1940's, but what about the Smith
>report?" I would agree with this (slight) amendment of your statement:
>A case of AIDS in the 1950's would conclusively refute the "AIDS is manmade"
>UL for all rational people.
But that's exactly the point. A "rational" person would never believe
it in the first place.
BTW, I trust Mr. Hatunen really does understand the difference between
questioning the logic of an argument and asserting the falsehood of the
conclusion reached.
************************************************************************
Simplex: (n) The working part of a duplex.
Steve Mayer
: In article <smayerD4...@netcom.com>, sma...@netcom.com (Steve Mayer)
: > [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
: >AIDS in 50s]
: And if you do want to do the research in the library--
: in front of the microfiche reader, I should think-- I
: distinctly remember reading that article in the New
: York Times during 1989-1991.
A microfiche reader? That's so...so...eighties! A far less painful way
would be a search of "The Reader's Guide to Periodicals" on CD-ROM.
That's made its way into a lot of public libraries in the last few years.
Another approach would be gopher; I suspect that some of the bigger AIDS
ftp sites would have the story.
: I know that doesn't
: really narrow it down much, but at least the story
: has a mighty fine pedigree.
I'll probably look for it tomorrow. I'll even save the liberals some
legwork and look for some cites on the "St. Louis prostitute,
mid-fifties" story that Ted Frank cited from "The Myth of Heterosexual
AIDS." Of course, Ted's cite is fine for most of us, but TMHA tops even
"The Real Anita Hill" on the annual "banned books" list issued by the
Democratic Party, so we might as well find an "objective" source for that
one, too.
-Steve
Ted Frank
>legwork and look for some cites on the "St. Louis prostitute,
>mid-fifties" story that Ted Frank cited from "The Myth of Heterosexual
>AIDS." Of course, Ted's cite is fine for most of us, but TMHA tops even
>"The Real Anita Hill" on the annual "banned books" list issued by the
>Democratic Party, so we might as well find an "objective" source for that
>one, too.
As Jason Heimbaugh corrected me, it's Michael Fumento who wrote TMHA.
The book has an unfortunate title and an overly polemic tone, but I
have yet to find an inaccuracy in it, other than it giving a ridiculously
low protection rate for condoms. At any rate, the particular anecdote
to which I refer is documented by others, and *cited* by TMHA, so one
can go directly to the primary source without dirtying one's hands by
citing Fumento.
--
ted frank
Daniel B Case
>Regarding the earlier post that said that no tissue samples had been
>taken from this sailor: If that is true, you cannot say that the man
>died of AIDS. He exhibited symptions of an immune deficiency disorder.
>AIDS is not the only immune deficiency disease. Without tissue samples,
>you cannot determine if HIV was present.
An addendum, with what factual value I do not know: I have read of two cases
where victims who had previously died of an unknown disease had tissue samples
taken that were re-examined after HIV was identified and HIV was found. The
Manchester sailor discussed earlier is one; the other was a teenaged male
prostitute in St. Louis in the late 1960s. This latter case was referred to,
with the attending physician named, in a National Geographic article on
epidemiology sometime in the last several years.
Dan "That should pin it down" Case
Daniel Case V140...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
"A man should build a house with his own hands
before he calls himself an engineer."
Prodigy:WDNS15D -Alexander Solzhenitsyn dc...@acsu.buffalo.edu
Steve Mayer
: In article <smayerD4...@netcom.com>,
: Steve Mayer <sma...@netcom.com> wrote:
[deletia of my post on looking for the primary sources behind the "St.
Louis prostitute" story, rather than relying on "The Myth of Heterosexual
AIDS"]
: The book has an unfortunate title and an overly polemic tone, but I
: have yet to find an inaccuracy in it, other than it giving a ridiculously
: low protection rate for condoms. At any rate, the particular anecdote
: to which I refer is documented by others, and *cited* by TMHA, so one
: can go directly to the primary source without dirtying one's hands by
: citing Fumento.
The title was deliberately polemical, of course, but few of its
detractors have cared to actually address it. The situation is the same
with Brock's "The Real Anita Hill", which isn't cited even once in the
most recent puff piece on St. Anita. It was my intention to look for
non-Fumento sources, but it's nice to know that they're readily available.
ObBrock slam of Anita Hill: After Brock examines Hill's testimony, he
concludes that if it is true, then Joe Biden, Clarence Thomas, 2 FBI agents,
ten other sworn witnesses, and all four of Hill's witnesses committed
perjury.
Chip Armstrong
: I saw this story on local tv about 4/5 yrs ago, the inference was that this
: could have been the first documented case, at the time the theory was that
: the HIV virus had spread from Africa. All the evidence is circumstantial
: since no tissue samples were taken from the patient.
If it is true that no samples from the man were kept, then the
versions I heard were changed from the original story. Now that a few
people have mentioned it, I do recall that the man was a sailor, but both
times I heard the story tests were done on whatever they kept from the
sailor, and they came back positive for the AIDS virus (or HIV, I really
don't understand this stuff enough to make the distinction).
I guess the sources of the information might have decided to
embellish a bit, thinking that if the evidence was just circumstantial,
the whole story might be somewhat unsatisfactory.
Chip Armstrong
Barbara Hamel
question. From the _New York Times_, July 24 1990 issue:
THE DOCTOR'S WORLD; Puzzle of Sailor's Death Solved After 31 Years:
The Answer Is AIDS, By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN
DOCTORS in Manchester, England, have diagnosed a case of AIDS by using
a new laboratory technique on tissue stored for 31 years.
The tissue was from a 25-year-old sailor who died in 1959, making his
the oldest documented case of AIDS. His case, reported in the July 7 issue
of The Lancet, a British medical journal, eclipsed those now known to have
occurred in the 1960's.
Earlier scientists had found evidence of AIDS infection dating to 1959
in one blood sample that was collected in a research study in Zaire in
Africa and tested for the AIDS virus after the disease was first recognized
in 1981. But no one knows if the Zairian, who was not identified, ever
developed AIDS.
The sailor's case had stumped a large number of doctors, including Sir
Robert Platt, then president of the Royal College of Physicians, who was
called in as a consultant. Like some other doctors on the team, he had an
inkling that they might be dealing with something new.
Dr. Platt, speculating that the sailor might have a previously unknown
viral disease, wrote in the sailor's hospital chart that he had been
wondering "if we are in for a new wave of virus disease now that the
bacterial illnesses are so nearly conquered."
Dr. Platt was wrong about the bacteria being conquered but right to
worry about the viruses. However, the state of knowledge and the virological
techniques were too crude to pin down the cause of the sailor's illness.
The new evidence strongly suggests that the AIDS virus, which can take
a decade or more to cause disease after it enters the body, has been
transmitted among people since at least the early 1950's, longer than some
have believed or even suspected.
The case also refutes the widely publicized charges made by Soviet
officials several years ago that AIDS arose from a virus that had escaped
from a laboratory experiment that went awry or was a biological warfare
agent. The human retrovirus group to which the AIDS virus belongs was
unknown at the time. Nor did scientists then have the genetic engineering
techniques needed to create a new virus.
The AIDS or human immunodeficiency virus "has probably been stalking
around the population for some time but lacked the sort of momentum that
is necessary for it to create an epidemic" until the right conditions came
along, said Dr. George Williams, the University of Manchester pathologist
who kept the sailor's specimens in his laboratory.
Many doctors are nagged by a case they cannot solve and pursue it in
hopes that new tests or evidence will turn up someday enabling them to
diagnose an illness from stored tissues, even if the patient is long dead.
Few such efforts succeed, in part because the stored tissues have been
long forgotten or cannot be found at the crucial moment.
Those cases that are solved reflect foresight, curiosity, good memories
and luck.
That combination led to the recent documentation of the case of the
British sailor, who in 1958 began suffering inflammation of his gums and
skin ulcers on his face and anus. He gradually developed shortness of
breath, weightloss, fatigue and fever.
Because of his foreign travel, the doctors thought he had a tropical
disease. But they found none.
The sailor's symptoms fit tuberculosis but the doctors could not find
any evidence of the bacterial infection. Just to be safe, they treated him
for tuberculosis, to no avail.
If tuberculosis had been confirmed the case would have been closed and
long forgotten, said Dr. Trevor B. Stretton, a physician who cared for the
sailor.
Before the sailor died, Dr. Stretton's team documented two unusual
infections, pneumocystis pneumonia and cytomegalovirus, that were then
unusual but which now are known to be common problems among people with AIDS.
"If the sailor came in today, we would think of AIDS straight away,"
Dr. Stretton said in an interview.
The sailor's case was a cause celebre at the Royal Infirmary in
Manchester. When it was discussed at a conference devoted to puzzling
diagnostic problems, the room was packed. But no one knew what ailed the
sailor.
An autopsy confirmed the sailor's pneumonia but could not determine
what had made his body so vulnerable to the unusual infections that killed
him. "We just didn't know what we were dealing with," Dr. Williams said.
In hopes that other doctors who might have treated similar cases would
share their experience, the doctors reported the case in The Lancet in
1960. However, the report drew little response.
The sailor had made his mark on the Manchester team. Through the years,
"his case would crop up in conversation from time to time at lunch,"
Dr. Williams said. "Then it would recede very quickly when we could take
it no further."
The diagnosis clicked only after the Manchester doctors learned about
AIDS. In 1983 they wrote to The Lancet again to remind experts of the
sailor's case. They said the sailor was single and that they knew nothing
about his sexual preference. No relatives could be found and the doctors
could not determine whether he had transmitted the virus to other people.
This time there was a heavy response, including calls from epidemiologists
from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
In 1985, the Manchester team ran into another frustration. Although
a blood test for the AIDS virus had been developed by then, the sailor's
blood samples had not been saved and the doctors could not verify the
presumed diagnosis of AIDS.
They did have tissue that had been saved in paraffin, and they tried
other techniques on it. But none could detect the virus.
The break came with a new technique known as PCR, for polymerase chain
reaction. It can detect just a single particle of DNA from a virus and make
millions of copies in several hours so that researchers can have ample
material to do studies.
"We felt it was worth a go at it with the tissues we had preserved,"
Dr. Williams said. But to get reproducible results with PCR, meticulous
care must be taken to avoid the slightest contamination. The doctors used
separate knives and carried out different steps in the tests in four
laboratories. The tests, which ended in June, took eight months to complete.
The scientists wanted to be sure that stored tissue could not somehow
produce false results. So as a scientific control the scientists used
tissue from a young man who was killed in a car accident in 1959.
They found the AIDS virus in tissue samples from the sailor's kidney,
bone marrow, spleen and the lining of his mouth. No AIDS virus was found
in samples from the accident victim.
While other scientists may eventually detect even older AIDS cases,
the chances are slim; most hospitals do not routinely save tissue from
autopsies and surgery for many years.
The University of Manchester's pathology department routinely stores
tissue and keeps extra samples from unusual cases. Tissues remain from
selected cases dating to the 1940's.
In the United States the length of time such tissues are stored varies
widely and is largely determined by cost and availability of storage space.
Some teaching hospitals may keep tissues forever, said Dr. John Mason, a
pathologist at Christ Hospital Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., and a
spokesman for the College of American Pathologists.
New York State's requirement that specimens of tissues taken at surgery
be kept for 20 years is by far the longest such requirenment, he said, and
some states have no requirement that any tissues be kept.
Having achieved one spectacular success in identifying the virus from
stored samples, the Manchester team is now exploring the possibility of
taking the research a step further, to the most basic level, the molecules
in the virus.
Dr. Gerald Corbitt, a virologist at University of Manchester, said that
by testing the virus identified in the sailor's tissues and comparing it
with the virus from present-day AIDS cases, his team hopes to determine
what variation, if any, has occurred in the molecular structure of the
AIDS virus over the last 30 years.
The findings may be of more than historical interest to those tracking
the evolution of AIDS. Viruses like the one that causes influenza mutate
frequently, making a new vaccine necessary each time such changes occur.
Finding major changes between the old and new AIDS viruses might indicate
the need for similar changes in any AIDS vaccine.
Barbara "helpful, ever helpful" Hamel
--
Barbara Hamel | A "Type A" person is the sort who brushes
ag...@freenet.carleton.ca | his teeth while going to the toilet and
| flushes just before he's finished to save
| time. - Ewan Kirk
Andrew Welsh
: [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
: AIDS in 50s]
:
: Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor out
: of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a hobby
: of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
This is covered in the book "An End to Innocence" by mumble, ISBN mumble-mumble
(I have the book, but it is at home and I am at work - I will provide full
details tomorrow, and also check within for references to any articles about
this case). It's a hardback in a white jacket with a red ribbon pictured on
the cover, published last World AIDS Day (in the UK at least).
Andrew "almost a reference in the above paragraph" Welsh
--
Andrew Welsh (and...@bnr.ca/and...@bnr.co.uk)
- All views in this posting are mine alone
- NBK is actually something that Hollywood produces far too rarely - a film
that genuinely makes no sense on any level (Jonathan Romney, The Guardian)
Lee Rudolph
> In the United States the length of time such tissues are stored varies
>widely and is largely determined by cost and availability of storage space.
>Some teaching hospitals may keep tissues forever
...
Not to mention the Smithsonian.
Lee "how did Dillinger die, again?" Rudolph
Ted Frank
Steve Mayer <sma...@netcom.com> wrote:
> The title was deliberately polemical, of course, but few of its
>detractors have cared to actually address it. The situation is the same
>with Brock's "The Real Anita Hill", which isn't cited even once in the
>most recent puff piece on St. Anita.
I've looked for Fumento refutations but haven't found any. The same can't
be said for Brock, whose book was dissected in the _New Yorker_ (I believe
by the authors of the recent tract).
--
ted frank
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <Z+1592B...@delphi.com>,
>John Ayala <pad...@delphi.com> wrote:
>>inconvenient scientific fact spoil their theory. For example "YOU say the
>>structure of DNA was unknown in the 1940's, but what about the Smith
>>report?" I would agree with this (slight) amendment of your statement:
>>A case of AIDS in the 1950's would conclusively refute the "AIDS is manmade"
>>UL for all rational people.
>
>But that's exactly the point. A "rational" person would never believe
>it in the first place.
>
>BTW, I trust Mr. Hatunen really does understand the difference between
>questioning the logic of an argument and asserting the falsehood of the
>conclusion reached.
You really don't have the hang of how this works, do you? You must
learn how to quote properly. I mean, what's the sense of flaming me
gratuitously like that? At least let people know what you're talking
about by quoting me first. Read your manuals to know how to do that.
DaveHatunen
Chip Armstrong <chi...@netcom.com> wrote:
> ... and they came back positive for the AIDS virus (or HIV, I really
>don't understand this stuff enough to make the distinction).
Although many think it is a distinction without a difference, the
distinction is very important for those who either have AIDS or are
HIV-infected.
HIV is the retrovirus. One may be infected with HIV, but one would not
normally be considered to "have HIV", as if it were itself a disease.
It is possible to be HIV-infected for many years without any
disease-like symptoms. Furthermore, there is no specific disease
realted to HIV.
AIDS is a syndrome, a cluster of syptoms. By definition, one of the
symptoms is to be HIV-infected (not meaning to get into any Duesberg
discussions here). There are a number of diseases listed as AIDS
indicators, such as Kaposi's Sarcoma (the purple spots Tom Hanks has in
<Philadlephia>). These diseases are not new, but in the past were quite
rare except in cases of suppressed immune systems, which was itself a
fairly rare condition.
Thus, a tissue sample cannnot have AIDS, but can be HIV-infected.
There are many reasons the distinction is important to those who are
HIV-infected. At a very basic level, it avoids having to tell anyone
you have AIDS, because until the symptoms develop, you don't. And, at a
more legal level, I don't believe the requirements of the Americans
with Disabilities Act kick in until you do have AIDS.
Gerald A Belton
: I've now heard this one twice, once from an acquaintance in the
: late 1980s, then again last fall, on a radio station that kept fading in
: out as I drove through south-west Oregon. I'm hoping someone can tell me
: if this is a true story or not.
: It begins in the 1950s (or maybe 1960s) when a man has some
: mysterious illness and the doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong
OK, here's a pointer for everyone who is interested. The abstract
doesn't specify dates, but the article (I have a copy) states that the
first patient died in 1952 and the case was reported in medical journals
in 1953. Also of note: the literature review for this article *started*
with 1950. There is a chance that if they went back even further they
might uncover even earlier cases.
Here's the reference, right out of MEDLINE:
YOU ARE NOW CONNECTED TO THE AIDSLINE
1
SI - MED/88099029
AU - Huminer D
AU - Rosenfeld JB
AU - Pitlik SD
TI - AIDS in the pre-AIDS era.
RF - REVIEW ARTICLE: 75 REFS.
AD - Department of Internal Medicine C, Beilinson Medical Center,
Petah Tiqva, Israel.
AB - A search of the medical literature published since 1950 disclosed
19 cases of probable AIDS reported before the start of the
current epidemic. These cases retrospectively met the Centers for
Disease Control's surveillance definition of the syndrome and had
a clinical course suggestive of AIDS. The reports originated from
North America, Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The
mean age of patients was 37 years, and the ratio of male to
female patients was 1.7:1. Sixteen patients had opportunistic
infections(s) without Kaposi's sarcoma. The remainder had
disseminated Kaposi's sarcoma. The commonest opportunistic
infection was Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. Two patients were
reported to be homosexual. Three others had been living in
Africa, and one patient was born in Haiti. In two instances
concurrent or subsequent opportunistic infection occurred in
family members. All patients died 1 month to 6 years after the
initial manifestation of disease. In view of the historical data,
unrecognized cases of AIDS appear to have occurred sporadically
in the pre-AIDS era.
MH - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/COMPLICATIONS/ETIOLOGY/
*HISTORY
MH - History of Medicine, 20th Cent.
MH - Human
MH - Infection/COMPLICATIONS
MH - Sarcoma, Kaposi's/COMPLICATIONS
PT - HISTORICAL ARTICLE
PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE
PT - REVIEW
PT - REVIEW, MULTICASE
LA - Eng
SO - Rev Infect Dis. 1987 Nov-Dec;9(6):1102-8.
--
"In the old days, being crazy meant something. I don't speak
Nowdays, EVERYBODY'S crazy." for Tulane.
-- Charles Manson
Jeremy Mathers
DaveHatunen <hat...@netcom.com> really did write:
>
>You really don't have the hang of how this works, do you? You must
>learn how to quote properly. I mean, what's the sense of flaming me
>gratuitously like that? At least let people know what you're talking
>about by quoting me first. Read your manuals to know how to do that.
You're so funny. Quoting is kind of, oh, how you say, so 80's ish (not to
mention AOLish..).
I knew you'd read this - since I knew you were reading the thread, so
what's the point making a second item out of it? I assume we're all
grownups, we all have reasonably modern newsreaders and we're all
following the threads.
In any case, you knew perfectly well what I was talking about.
(Also [and this is another cross-thread reference], we both seem to be
equally good at hurling around wild, unfounded, assumptions about each
other's competency. It is so much fun.)
************************************************************************
"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
immune to bullets"
-- The Brigader, from Dr. Who
Gerald A Belton
: Now that's not nice ;-) Seriously, I do enough reading that I can't
: recall the source for every shard of data I come across. FWIW, this story
: Steve "If you really wish to prove me wrong, start at the library" Mayer
That's not how it works around here. If you want to make a claim, then
it is up to you to back it up with sources. And "I read it in a magazine
somewhere" is not a source.
But I did the research for you; look earlier in this thread.
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <hatunenD...@netcom.com>,
>DaveHatunen <hat...@netcom.com> really did write:
>>
>>You really don't have the hang of how this works, do you? You must
>>learn how to quote properly. I mean, what's the sense of flaming me
>>gratuitously like that? At least let people know what you're talking
>>about by quoting me first. Read your manuals to know how to do that.
>
>You're so funny. Quoting is kind of, oh, how you say, so 80's ish (not to
>mention AOLish..).
Ah ha. You're a personal friend of Tim Shell, aren't you?
>I knew you'd read this - since I knew you were reading the thread, so
>what's the point making a second item out of it?
Or a third, for that matter.
>I assume we're all
>grownups, we all have reasonably modern newsreaders and we're all
>following the threads.
Hm. Your assumption may not be valid. Of course, college students with
fancy, free accounts may have them, but don't extrapolate from your own
limited experience.
>In any case, you knew perfectly well what I was talking about.
>(Also [and this is another cross-thread reference], we both seem to be
>equally good at hurling around wild, unfounded, assumptions about each
>other's competency. It is so much fun.)
No, I don't know what you are talking about. And perhaps neither do
other people, since you didn't bother to quote it. If the comment was
intended just for me, wouldn't email have been more appropriate?
Please clarify. All I recall saying is that the structure of DNA wasn't
known in the 1940s. Is it your claim that it was?
If it was, Watson and Crick should give back their Nobels.
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
>In any case, you knew perfectly well what I was talking about.
>(Also [and this is another cross-thread reference], we both seem to be
>equally good at hurling around wild, unfounded, assumptions about each
>other's competency. It is so much fun.)
I went back and found the article. I said you had a pretty bad opinion
if it was based on teh premise that they coudl have created the HIV in
the 1940s. I still think so. But I'm surely entitled to my opinion.
Now, what -- specifically -- is it you found fault with?
Jeremy Mathers
DaveHatunen <hat...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>[...] (Yeah, no kidding!)
>
>I went back and found the article. I said you had a pretty bad opinion
>if it was based on teh premise that they coudl have created the HIV in
>the 1940s. I still think so. But I'm surely entitled to my opinion.
Yes you are. Well, here's as best as I can re-construct it:
(Paraphrases are my own)
1) Ted said that early existence of AIDS takes the wind out of
the sails of the conspiratorially minded.
2) I asked 'Why?' - not because I thought that AIDS was man-made
(I really don't - honest!), but simply because I didn't see
the connection. My position is that if you are nuts enough
to believe it was manmade, you're certainly nuts enough to
explain away all that other stuff.
a) N.B. - I am, by nature, moderately conspiratorially
minded; if I had a mind to, I would argue that the
AIDS developed in the 40s and 50s was developed
accidentally/by natural selection - not by genetic
engineering as the term is currently construed.
b) If I were even more conspiratorially minded, I'd
argue that the CIA/etc had developed genetic knowledge
far in excess of that which the public knew about.
3) You posted under the assumption (IMHO) that I was taking the
conspiratorially minded position, when I was only questioning
Ted's logic (i.e., how he got from A to B, not the truth or
falsity of B). I did, afterall, state that I had no opinion
on the matter - you chose to ignore that.
4) I flamed you for doing so, and here we are...
>Now, what -- specifically -- is it you found fault with?
See above.
************************************************************************
You blidderin' dimwit, Olivia!
How can you leadin' a heart after I's makin' Lightner Double?
Barbara Hamel
>
> Ah ha. You're a personal friend of Tim Shell, aren't you?
Is it possible to be an impersonal friend?
Barbara "you misspelled 'personable fiend'" Hamel
Patrick Fine
an illness that is allowed to rampage the body, because of the AIDS
condition. Be it cancer or whatever, that they die from, it is pointed
out they have AIDS. Also, as others have pointed out, immunilogical
conditions can be onset from other then HIV. It is highly unlikely that
there remain any tissue samples from the 50's that would show the HIV.
Patrick
terry
have known WHAT the aids virus looked like. Since it was only recently
discovered, I don't see how this can be true. Remember that AIDS allows
other infections access to the body by destroying its immune system and is not
itself the killer. So, looking at symptomatical data does nothiong to
prove that the HIV virus was present in this "man who died of AIDS in the
50's", only that at *most* his immune system was weakened. There are genetic
reasons for this (ie "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble").
-terry
"The evil SPOILER"
Vicki Robinson
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <hatunenD...@netcom.com>,
>DaveHatunen <hat...@netcom.com> really did write:
>>
>>You really don't have the hang of how this works, do you? You must
>>learn how to quote properly. I mean, what's the sense of flaming me
>>gratuitously like that? At least let people know what you're talking
>>about by quoting me first. Read your manuals to know how to do that.
>
>You're so funny. Quoting is kind of, oh, how you say, so 80's ish (not to
>mention AOLish..).
>
>I knew you'd read this - since I knew you were reading the thread, so
>what's the point making a second item out of it? I assume we're all
>grownups, we all have reasonably modern newsreaders and we're all
>following the threads.
>
BZZT! (Just a short buzzer this time.)
*You* may have known what you were talking about, and Dave may have
known - I did not, not having read the thread up to this point. And,
when I saw Dave's post, I went back, and guess what! Nothing but
expired posts in the thread tree! Not to mention that, given the
vagaries of the newsfeed these days, it is more than possible to see a
reply to a post before the original post arrives. Appropriate quoting
is a courtesy. Of course, you may not think that's important, but lots
of AFU-ers do.
You are also quite grossly wrong about the modernity of our newsreaders. As
well as being wrong about following the threads. Who *could* read all of the
junk being posted to AFU these days, even if s/he *wanted* to?
Please adhere to a minimum standard of courtesy on AFU, or go away.
Intelligent, witty, and humorous discourse is welcome here, but being an
asshole gets you killfiled. If you want to assume we're all grownups,
start with yourself.
Vicki "My week to be the cop." Robinson
--
Vicki Robinson
Odd Physics Professor
National Technical Institute
for the Deaf "No, we don't use Braille."
Stephan Zielinski
>fl...@virginia.edu wrote:
>: sma...@netcom.com writes:
>: > Steve "And if you don't believe me, try spending some time researching in
>: > a library" Mayer
>
>: Motto!
>
> Now that's not nice ;-) Seriously, I do enough reading that I can't
>recall the source for every shard of data I come across.
MOTTO MOTTO!
--
Stephan "GO FOR THREE! GO FOR THREE!" Zielinski
Olav Hungnes
: In article <chiparmD...@netcom.com>,
: Chip Armstrong <chi...@netcom.com> wrote:
: > It begins in the 1950s (or maybe 1960s) when a man has some
: >mysterious illness and the doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong
: >with him. Slowly the man wastes away and dies, and blood and tissue samples
: >are stored away, in the hope that some day medical science can discover
: >what exactly killed him.
: > FF to the early 1980s. A doctor is reading the literature on the
: >newly discovered AIDS virus when he suddenly recalls the case from the
: >1950s. Since many of the symptoms the man with the mysterious disease had
: >are similar to those seen in AIDS cases, he decides to investigate. The
: >blood and tissue samples (or whatever it was they saved) are pulled from
: >deep storage and tested, and it is found that the man from the 1950s had
: >the AIDS virus.
: >
: > Has anyone else heard this one? It's now been reported to me by two
: >different sources, who have no direct connection to one another, so if it
: >isn't true it seems to have spread pretty far.
: I have heard a similar story, except it involved a young boy, and was supposed
: to have been in either the late Sixties, or early Seventies. I heard that
: report some years ago, and I believe it is cited by those who claim that HIV
: is not the infectious agent for AIDS. They claim that HIV is a harmless
: virus that becomes quite prolific in those with an immune system impaired by
: other causes. They cite this case as "proof" of that. I believe current
: theories hold that AIDS was around a lot longer than previously thought, but
: that it simply did not get into the population enough to cause major problems
: until recently.
: --
: +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
: | Tommy Usher No Frills Software | Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: |
: | hac...@ns.secis.com | There's always one more bug. |
: +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
We have such a story here in Norway. A norwegian sailor came down with a
strange immunological disorder in the late sixties. During the next few
years his wife and daughter develops similar symptoms, and they all die
in the year 1976. They all were under treatment by immunologist Stig
Froland (Froeland), who stored samples from these patients. They were
tested for HIV antibodies by Paal Jenum at our institute about 1988
and were found to be positive. A literature search with these two author
names should yield some documentation.
--
_______________________________________________________
Olav Hungnes olav.h...@embnet.uio.no
National Institute Phone (+47)22042200
of Public Health FAX (+47)22353605
Oslo, NORWAY
_______________________________________________________
Christopher Biggs
>> v...@teleport.com moved upon the face of the 'Net, and spake thusly:
> In article <D4MrC...@midway.uchicago.edu> py...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Jeremy Mathers) writes:
>> In article <D4MKH...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>> Why? Not that I have any particular opinion on the subject, but they could
>> just as easily have built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s.
>> Then of course you have to come up with a theory for how they choose
>> exactly when to unleash it (It being in beta until then).
> Really? The US Gov't/KKK/KGB/Knights Templar could have constructed a new
> virus in the 40s or 50s?
That's not what the poster said. They said: "just as easily have
built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s". In my opinion,
this is correct: no chance in the 40s, no chance in the 70s, itty
bitty chance now.
cjb
- --
| Christopher Biggs email:ch...@stallion.oz.au | One of the founding membata,|
| Stallion Technologies, Queensland, Australia | Society for Creative Pluri. |
| 56 Sylvan Rd Toowong 4068. Ph +61-7-270-4266 | Linux: To connect and serve |
| Send mail with "Subject: sendpgpkey" for my PGP public key. MIME mail OK |
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Paul Holloway
> >>For one thing, it would refute the "AIDS is manmade" UL conclusively.
>
> >Why? Not that I have any particular opinion on the subject, but they could
> >just as easily have built it in the 40s and 50s as in the 70s and 80s.
> >Then of course you have to come up with a theory for how they choose
> >exactly when to unleash it (It being in beta until then).
>
> among us...
>
> Really? The US Gov't/KKK/KGB/Knights Templar could have constructed a new
> virus in the 40s or 50s?
>
Wendell Stanley published work in 1935 describing the crystallization of
the tobacco mosaic virus which consisted of protein and RNA only. This was
the first time anyone had managed to show even in a basic way what a virus
was made of. Watson and Crick deduced the three dimensional structure of
DNA in 1953. This was also the time when the three dimensional structure
of other complex organic molecules such as haemoglobin (1959) and collagen
(a couple of years before DNA) were being determined. In 1957 Watson and
Crick were still working on trying to determine the nature of the viral
protien coat.
There were a number of groups working on this sort of research - it was a
highly competitive field and results were published rapidly. It would
therefore seem extremely unlikely that anyone would have been able to
"build" any sort of virus previous to the end of the 50's. I suppose it
would have been possible to screen animal reservoirs of disease for any
likely human pathogens, e.g. take blood etc. out of animals, inject small
amounts into humans, see if they catch any deadly disease but the
technology and information were not available at the time to actually make
or modify a virus.
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <hatunenD...@netcom.com>,
>DaveHatunen <hat...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>[...] (Yeah, no kidding!)
>>
>>I went back and found the article. I said you had a pretty bad opinion
>>if it was based on teh premise that they coudl have created the HIV in
>>the 1940s. I still think so. But I'm surely entitled to my opinion.
>
>Yes you are. Well, here's as best as I can re-construct it:
>(Paraphrases are my own)
> 1) Ted said that early existence of AIDS takes the wind out of
> the sails of the conspiratorially minded.
> 2) I asked 'Why?' - not because I thought that AIDS was man-made
> (I really don't - honest!), but simply because I didn't see
> the connection. My position is that if you are nuts enough
> to believe it was manmade, you're certainly nuts enough to
> explain away all that other stuff.
> a) N.B. - I am, by nature, moderately conspiratorially
> minded; if I had a mind to, I would argue that the
> AIDS developed in the 40s and 50s was developed
> accidentally/by natural selection - not by genetic
> engineering as the term is currently construed.
You may need to read my post with a less paranoid outlook. What I said
was that your statement that it was just as easy to create HIV in the
1940s as in the 1980s was a bad opinion. Nothing more, nothing less.
I did not say _you_ were conspiracy minded, or any of those other
things you seem to be accusing me of.
Lighten up.
And why are you telling us all what you would argue if you really were
conspiracy-minded? You leave yourself open to the accusation that you
protesteth too much. Not that I would make such an accusation, of
course.
> b) If I were even more conspiratorially minded, I'd
> argue that the CIA/etc had developed genetic knowledge
> far in excess of that which the public knew about.
You mean the CIA might have found the double helix before Watson and
Crick? (I assume you include the CIA's predecessor, the OSS, for the
1940s, that being the decade I addressed.)
Had you said such a thing I would have responded to you far more
strongly. so would a lot of others, I suspect.
> 3) You posted under the assumption (IMHO) that I was taking the
> conspiratorially minded position, when I was only questioning
> Ted's logic (i.e., how he got from A to B, not the truth or
> falsity of B). I did, afterall, state that I had no opinion
> on the matter - you chose to ignore that.
Please do not try to tell me what I assumed. Or else please cite the
part of my quote where I made such an assumption.
> 4) I flamed you for doing so, and here we are...
>
>>Now, what -- specifically -- is it you found fault with?
>
>See above.
Ditto.
You're a real shoot-from-th-hip-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy,
aren't you?
DaveHatunen
Actually, it appears that in at least one case, there was.
Derek Tearne
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>Two discussion topics:
>
> 1) In _The Hot Zone_, Richard Preston blames it all on the
> paving of the Kinshasa Highway in the middle 70's.
> Something to think about now that we are considering paving
> over the Darrien Gap.
First, Richard Preston is a novelist, although he has indeed done a
lot of research into this topic.
I am not sure whether you got your Kinshasa highway in the '70's from.
While Zaire was under belgian rule, apart from being in the grip of
probably the most repressive colonial regime it had a good
network of paved roads.
After the Belgians left rather rapidly in the 1960's the country has
been going steadily downhill.
The Kinshasa highway was paved before 1970.
The road network in Zaire is not very well paved now.
One interesting point does come from Preston's book. Ebola fever and
other 'really nasty diseases' are not new, and there is no implication
that they are man made (although if there is ever an outbreak in a
major western city I'll lay odds that the conspiracy theorists will
have a field day). If one was going to try and manufacture a
really bad virus why start from a retro-virus?
Until the discovery of HTLV and HIV retro-viruses were merely a curiosity
which had little relavence to people. Why use one of these as a building
block? There was no reason to believe that a retro-virus could be
particularly life threatening. If certainly wouldn't sound like a
good bet to me.
Imagine the bad people who funded this research.
BadGuy "I want some really bad disease which will kill lots of nasty
perverted [insert whoever 'they' were targetting here]"
Scientist "Well, we could try something really intersting with a retro-virus"
BG "Yeah Yeah, that sounds great what sort of bad things do they do!"
S "Well, not a lot, in Parrots they cause a bit of wheezing and in
cats they cause Leukemia after about 10 years"
BG "Shit, that's not very good, I want ooozing pussy sores, I want
really painful bone rotting instant death that I can see on Prime
time TV, are there any viruses like that?"
S "Well, there are things like Ebola fever, I think we could increase
the mortality rate to something like 90% without too much
dificulty"
BG "Yeah, do it, do it! Don't bother with those retro-thingies, not
nearly enough puss or bone rotting".
Incidentally, when they did finally find a human retro-virus it results
in Leukemia about 40 years after becoming infected. Which isn't such
a big deal when most people catch it through sexual activity in their
twenties (where 'not a big deal' equates to 'not species threatening' -
I'm sure the people with HTLV-II think it's a big deal)
Basically a retro-virus would have been a really bad bet from the
point of view of misguided scientists and evil financiers.
Derek "And '70's retro is a really bad idea _now_" Tearne
--
Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
Barbara Hamel
> Who *could* read all of the junk being posted to AFU these days, even if
> s/he *wanted* to?
I do and always have. Then again, I'm eccentric.
Barbara "also easily amused" Hamel
Clay Shirky
> You're so funny. Quoting is kind of, oh, how you say, so 80's ish (not to
> mention AOLish..).
Quoting is not either of those things. As the population of Usenet grows,
quoting becomes more, not less important. Furthermore, AOL was slow to
implement quoting, and may still not include it in their mail software for
all I know. If you are going to be derogatory, at least do your research
first.
> I knew you'd read this - since I knew you were reading the thread, so
> what's the point making a second item out of it?
If your rationale is really that you could safely post here as a message
to Dave becaus you only cared about whether he was going to see it, it
really should have been in email, you know?
However, as Dave is not the only person reading the thread, and issues of
attribution can't reasonably be said to have anything to do with the
ostensible subject line, I have changed it since you lacked the necessary
sense to do so earlier.
> I assume we're all
> grownups, we all have reasonably modern newsreaders and we're all
> following the threads.
We are emphatically _not_ all following the threads, and many of the
various newsreaders out there make taking threads apart in various ways
easy enough that quoting become essential for context. I am not advocating
the wholesale carryover of previous posts, mind, but if you are going to
take exception to some writing of Dave's, by all means include it in your
followup.
> In any case, you knew perfectly well what I was talking about.
Fine. _I_, on the other hand, have no idea what you are talking about.
Dave is right - either quote, or better yet, take it to mail
> (Also [and this is another cross-thread reference], we both seem to be
> equally good at hurling around wild, unfounded, assumptions about each
> other's competency. It is so much fun.)
Clay "Dave's seem pretty well founded from here" Shirky
Jeremy Mathers
Clay Shirky <cl...@panix.com> wrote:
>py...@midway.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>> You're so funny. Quoting is kind of, oh, how you say, so 80's ish (not to
>> mention AOLish..).
>
>Quoting is not either of those things. As the population of Usenet grows,
>quoting becomes more, not less important. Furthermore, AOL was slow to
>implement quoting, and may still not include it in their mail software for
>all I know. If you are going to be derogatory, at least do your research
>first.
Here comes a setup line if there ever was one, but here goes...
You haven't been reading alt.fan.oj-simpson, have you?
Populated heavily by AOL'ers and just about every post contains most of
the previous one. I try to err on the side of underquoting, since I
assume (perhaps incorrectly) that people can follow it.
J. "Everytime I give people credit, I end up regretting it." M.
************************************************************************
You blidderin' dimwit, Olivia!
How can you leadin' a heart after I's makin' Lightner Double?
- py...@quads.uchicago.edu, who is still costing the net
Nathan J. Nagel
in 1950s by DaveH...@netcom.com
> >grownups, we all have reasonably modern newsreaders and we're all
> >following the threads.
>
> Hm. Your assumption may not be valid. Of course, college students with
> fancy, free accounts may have them, but don't extrapolate from your own
> limited experience.
Well, us college students that have life oh so easy with our fancy
free accounts and all do NOT, in fact, all have modern newsreaders that
follow threads, etc. In fact, I'm not at all sure that any of the
newsreaders here at CMU even support killfiles (the one "fancy" feature
that I might appreciate, should I have the free time in between all
those pesky classes and work and such to investigate) One big
difference, though... I appreciate the fact that I have any kind of net
access at all, and don't waste my time bitching about how suckful my
newsreader is.
later,
Nate "besides, getting it raw is so much more fun" Nagel
Jeremy Mathers
Derek Tearne <de...@nezsdc.fujitsu.co.nz> wrote in response to my
quoting of Richard Preston (_The Hot Zone_):
...
>First, Richard Preston is a novelist, although he has indeed done a
>lot of research into this topic.
>
>I am not sure whether you got your Kinshasa highway in the '70's from.
I respect the fact that you have lived in Africa and have first hand
experience. However, the Hot Zone is reportedly a true story (although
I wouldn't be too surprised to hear that by current AFU standards, he and
his book are considered "more vector than reference"). Nevertheless, it
should be noted well that the book tells a true story, "in novel form."
That said, I can only ask that you read pages 265-271 of the book, in
which he describes his own personal experiences in Zaire, both as a
child and in the present (Auguest 1993). On pages 265 appears the
following:
BEGIN
The road [the Kinshasa Highway] was once a dirt track that
wondered through the heart of Africa, almost impossible to traverse
along its complete length. Long sections of it were paved in the 1970s,
and the trucks began rolling through, and soon afterward the AIDS virus
appeared in towns along the highway.
END
and on page 270-271, appears:
BEGIN
... The paving of the Kinshasa Highway affected every person on
earth, and turned out to be one of the most important events of the 20th
century. It has already cost at least 10 million lives, with the
likelihood that the ultimate number of human casualties will vastly
exceed the deaths in the Second World War.
END
(BTW, nothing should be inferred from any of my postings about my own
personal views on AIDS or any other subject. This disclaimer is more or
less standard [and understood if not stated explicitly] in most
technical groups)
************************************************************************
... and we thank you for your support.
Clay Shirky
No.
> Populated heavily by AOL'ers and just about every post contains most of
> the previous one.
Did you read my post? I thought not. I specifically addressed this point.
> I try to err on the side of underquoting, since I
> assume (perhaps incorrectly) that people can follow it.
If you make assumptions about your writing style based on your extensive
readings about OJ, and in such uninspired company to boot, you will find
your assumptions ill serve you in more literate company. Dave takes time
with his posts, and is scrupuloulsy careful about follow-ups and
attributions. You should repay him the same kindness.
Clay "As a service to my country, I live my life as if I may at any moment
be called to be an alternate in OJ's trial, and am thus scrupulously
careful to avoid contamination by the media" Shirky
Dave Wilton
> In article <chiparmD...@netcom.com>,
> Chip Armstrong <chi...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>It begins in the 1950s (or maybe 1960s) when a man has some mysterious
>illness and the doctors have absolutely no idea what's wrong with him.
>Slowly the man wastes away and dies, and blood and tissue samples
> FF to the early 1980s. ...(snip)... blood and tissue samples (or
>and it is found that the man from the 1950s had the AIDS virus.
Thanks to Barbara Hamel, ag...@freenet.carleton.ca...
This one is true. The original citation appears to be the 7 July 1990
edition of The Lancet. A 25-year old Manchester (UK) sailor died in 1959
of what would now be called various AIDs-related diseases. The case was
originally written up in The Lancet in 1960 as an anomaly. In 1983
doctors at the Univ. of Manchester, remembering the case, suspected
AIDS, but polymerase chain reacton techniques to test the samples were
not available until 1989.
Other cases appear to exist. The 24 July 1990 NY Times article that
Barbara posted mentioned other cases from the 1960s. It also mentioned
the testing of a Zairian blood sample from 1959 that was HIV-positive,
but the fate of the anonymous donor is unknown.
Gerald A. Belton, gbe...@rs4.tcs.tulane.edu cited an article by D.
Huminer, J.B. Rosenfeld, and S.D. Pitlik titled "AIDS in the pre-AIDS
era." (Sorry, I don't understand Medline nomenclature and could not
decipher what journal it was in--dw) These researchers conducted a
search of the medical literature published since 1950 finding 19 cases
of probable AIDS reported before the start of the current epidemic. The
reports originated from North America, Western Europe, Africa, and the
Middle East. The researchers concluded that unrecognized cases of AIDS
have occurred sporadically in the pre-AIDS era.
Olav Hungnes, olav.h...@embnet.uio.no, of the National Institute
of Public Health Oslo, Norway reports of a Norwegian sailor, his wife,
and child who all died of AIDS in 1976, confirmed through subsequent
tests.
Others have reported a case of a St. Louis (US) male prostitute who died
in various years in the 1950s and 1960s, but no one has provided
documentation beyond a reference to "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS,"
which does not qualify as an original source.
So chalk this one up as *true.* In addition, since there are numerous
probable cases, some may not consider it to be a UL.
--Dave "I'm not going to touch the question of whether or not HIV was
man-made with a ten-foot pole" Wilton, dwi...@ix.netcom.com
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
>Here comes a setup line if there ever was one, but here goes...
At least you're right about something..
>You haven't been reading alt.fan.oj-simpson, have you?
And you have? Have you no taste at all? How did you ever manage to
blunder into AFU, where even threads about masturbatory songs have more
class than following OJ in Usenet? Isn't it bad enough one can't turn
on the TV or radio without being awash in OJ?
Dave "He asked for it, really he did" Hatunen
Kim Scheinberg
>
>And you have? Have you no taste at all? How did you ever manage to
>blunder into AFU, where even threads about masturbatory songs have more
>class than following OJ in Usenet? Isn't it bad enough one can't turn
>on the TV or radio without being awash in OJ?
ObIt'sABigWorld: OJ is not headline news *everywhere*
I left the US the day the OJ trial began. Coincidence? Well, yeah
actually. But that's not my point
kim "on the other hand, I can't escape the new Tom Petty cut" scheinberg
--
That's just for the job. You can probably manage to get by without
keeping up with alt.sex.bondage because you have a good imagination; I
wouldn't say that to just anyone.
-- Mara Chibnik
Andrew Welsh
: [deletia of previous poster telling how he heard that man had died of
: AIDS in 50s]
:
: Mark this one as true. The fellow in question was an English sailor out
: of Manchester who died in '59. "Earliest AIDS death" isn't really a hobby
: of mine, but this one seems to be pretty well-documented.
Right, I promised references in my earlier posting (which this Supercedes:),
some details of this case can be found in "The End Of Innocence (Britain in
the time of AIDS)" by Simon Garfield, pub. Faber, ISBN 0-571-15353-4. This
book is quite a good read and shows that with hindsight some Tory ministers
were trying to do a good job, but it has all been too little too late
regarding health education in the UK.
There are 2 references to actual papers written by the doctors involved in
this case:
"Cytomegalic inclusion disease and Pneumocystis carinii infection in an
adult", G. Williams et al. - Published in The Lancet, 1960, ii pp.951-5
"Could [our patient] have had AIDS?", G. Williams et al. 'AIDS in 1959?" -
Published in The Lancet, 1983, ii pp.1136
The patient in question was David Carr, a 25 year old sailor (as I believe
has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread). Other cases from around that
time, which have be retrospectively diagnosed as AIDS cases are a 48 year old
New York clerk, who had moved from Haiti 30 years earlier, and an anonymous
person from Kinhasa, Zaire, who had serum drawn which was tested for HIV some
25 years later.
Also worth reading for the US angle is, of course, "And The Band Played On",
by the late Randy Shilts, pub. Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011369-X, though personally
I find the "faction" style of this book a bit wearisome at times.
Andrew "Silence=Death" Welsh
--
Andrew Welsh (and...@bnr.ca/and...@bnr.co.uk)
- All views in this posting are mine alone
- NBK is actually something that Hollywood produces far too rarely - a film
that genuinely makes no sense on any level (Jonathan Romney, The Guardian)
Andrew Welsh
[about The Hot Zone by Richard Preston]
: Nevertheless, it
: should be noted well that the book tells a true story, "in novel form."
:
: That said, I can only ask that you read pages 265-271 of the book, in
: which he describes his own personal experiences in Zaire, both as a
: child and in the present (Auguest 1993).
...
: and on page 270-271, appears:
...
: ... The paving of the Kinshasa Highway affected every person on
: earth, and turned out to be one of the most important events of the 20th
: century. It has already cost at least 10 million lives, with the
: likelihood that the ultimate number of human casualties will vastly
: exceed the deaths in the Second World War.
I hate to point this out, but this paragraph is hypothesis rather than fact,
and is the sort of paragraph that in the UK would be termed "Tabloid
Journalism", along with "Freddie Starr ate my Hamster" (and "Chicken fried
Rice" as Paul Merton pointed out on last nights Just A Minute). It is purely
a hook to grab/maintain interest, but bares no detailed examination.
Andrew "Used to work in a bookshop lit-crit section" Welsh
Lee Rudolph
Jeremy Mathers and press the "junk article" key just^H^H^H^Hlong
before I'm finished to save time.
Lee "type B-positive" Rudolph
Ted Frank
>Andrew "Silence=Death" Welsh
Careful -- I think that's the slogan that might best explain the signal/
noise ratio lately.
--
ted frank
Jeremy Mathers
...
>I hate to point this out, but this paragraph is hypothesis rather than fact,
>and is the sort of paragraph that in the UK would be termed "Tabloid
>Journalism", along with "Freddie Starr ate my Hamster" (and "Chicken fried
>Rice" as Paul Merton pointed out on last nights Just A Minute). It is purely
>a hook to grab/maintain interest, but bares no detailed examination.
No argument that it is editorial content only. I included it only
because it is the text behind my original assertion that "Richard
Preston blames it all on ..." - a statement which is clearly true (I.e.,
that RP believes it - or at least claims to).
The first part, however, about when the road was paved, is a matter of
historical fact. Either RP is right or DT is right or they are talking
about different sections of the highway (or different pavings).
It sounds like you joined this thread late. Either that or you have a
need to point out the obvious.
************************************************************************
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Tommy Usher
Gerald A Belton <gbe...@rs6.tcs.tulane.edu> wrote:
>That's not how it works around here. If you want to make a claim, then
>it is up to you to back it up with sources. And "I read it in a magazine
>somewhere" is not a source.
The simple problem is, a lot of us, who read a considerable amount of
material in any given period, often remember things without being able to
recall the exact source. Not having an exact source at hand does not
negate the validity or value of the information. I have encountered this
quite a bit. Without making a claim of proof, I will point out something
during an online dicussion, have someone else demand proof, will explain
that I am merely offering information without a claim of absolute proof,
have that person again demand proof or a retraction, will again explain that
I am merely saying that I recall reading that fact and that my presenting
of it should be taking as nothing more than that, have the person all but
call me a liar, and then I will generally end the thread since I don't care
to spend time on such a wasted effort. Now, if I care enough to actually
try to prove something, I will gladly go do the research. The problem
arises, when someone attempts to claim that failure to "prove" a contrary
point, proves their own point. It doesn't. Suppose someone says, "The sky is
green!" If I then say, "I read somewhere, that the sky is blue," and cannot
offer an exact source, it would not prove some the assertion that the sky
is green. It would merely raise a question to be considered. Now, if I say,
"I read somewhere, I forget exactly, that the sky is blue, and therefore I
have proven you wrong," then one could raise a more legitimate argument.
Tommy Usher
Okay, in order to have said that in the 1950's, they would have had to have
had knowledge that was not available. BUT, that is not whata is claimed
here. Nor is it claimed that they merely looked at symptoms and made a
diagnosis. Apparently, tissue samples were taken, and preserved. When
someone remembered this case, they went and got out the samples, and used a
very sensitive test that detected HIV as present. At the same time, they
test samples from another patient from that same time, and found no HIV.
There have apparently been several such cases, but this is the earliest.
DaveHatunen
>In article <3it6s0$b...@rs10.tcs.tulane.edu>,
>Gerald A Belton <gbe...@rs6.tcs.tulane.edu> wrote:
>
>>That's not how it works around here. If you want to make a claim, then
>>it is up to you to back it up with sources. And "I read it in a magazine
>>somewhere" is not a source.
>
>The simple problem is, a lot of us, who read a considerable amount of
>material in any given period, often remember things without being able to
>recall the exact source. Not having an exact source at hand does not
>negate the validity or value of the information.
I think most people have had experiences where "remembering" turned out
to be totally unreliable.
> I have encountered this
>quite a bit. Without making a claim of proof, I will point out something
>during an online dicussion, have someone else demand proof, will explain
>that I am merely offering information without a claim of absolute proof,
>have that person again demand proof or a retraction, will again explain that
>I am merely saying that I recall reading that fact and that my presenting
>of it should be taking as nothing more than that, have the person all but
>call me a liar, and then I will generally end the thread since I don't care
>to spend time on such a wasted effort.
I doubt if anyone thinks you are lying. Merely pointing out that memory
is a fallible thing, and a little more is needed in this group, is not
necessarily a flame.
>Now, if I care enough to actually
>try to prove something, I will gladly go do the research. The problem
>arises, when someone attempts to claim that failure to "prove" a contrary
>point, proves their own point. It doesn't. Suppose someone says, "The sky is
>green!" If I then say, "I read somewhere, that the sky is blue," and cannot
>offer an exact source, it would not prove some the assertion that the sky
>is green. It would merely raise a question to be considered. Now, if I say,
>"I read somewhere, I forget exactly, that the sky is blue, and therefore I
>have proven you wrong," then one could raise a more legitimate argument.
Well, I think most of us can figure out how to step outside and look
up. That's not really the same as thinking you remember an article in
some magazine you may or may not have read. For instance, I sometimes
remember reading things that it turns out I only read about, in a book
review or critique.
Although at times the denizens of this grooup can get a little testy
about citations, you have to understand that this group deals in
subjects that a lot of people think are true, but simply aren't.
DaveHatunen
Michele Tepper <mi...@umich.edu> wrote:
[My discussion of what is and isn't AIDS deleted]
>The current definition of AIDS put forward by the USA's Center for
>DIsease Control and Prevention stipulates that anyone who is HIV positive
>and has a T-cell count of less than 200 has AIDS. The T-cell count is
>far from an ideal way to judge where the fine line from HIV-infection to
>AIDS has been crossed, since some people with few enough T-cells to give
>them all names are well enough to go about their daily lives and people
>with more than 200 T-cells fall prey to the opportunistic infections that
>make up the other part of the CDC's definition, but the T-cell count
>definition was added in response to activist concerns that the diseases
>women with HIV often contract were not listed as AIDS markers in the CDC
>definition.
To clarify, lest the gentler reader think you are contradicting me,
that is _one_ of the possible definitions, but not the only one. As I
recollect, you are correct in the reason for the that particular change
in the definition(s). Along with women, it also added in many men who
were HIV+ and had low T-cells, but were not yet manifesting the other
marker disease, permitting them to access several forms of medical aid.
Steven Cherry
>In article <3it6s0$b...@rs10.tcs.tulane.edu>,
>The simple problem is, a lot of us, who read a considerable amount of
>material in any given period, often remember things without being able to
>recall the exact source. Not having an exact source at hand does not
>negate the validity or value of the information. I have encountered this
>quite a bit. Without making a claim of proof, I will point out something
>during an online dicussion, have someone else demand proof, will explain
>that I am merely offering information without a claim of absolute proof,
>have that person again demand proof or a retraction, will again explain that
>I am merely saying that I recall reading that fact and that my presenting
>of it should be taking as nothing more than that, have the person all but
>call me a liar, and then I will generally end the thread since I don't care
You should not be called a liar. You should be called lazy.
>to spend time on such a wasted effort. Now, if I care enough to actually
>try to prove something, I will gladly go do the research. The problem
You still don't get it. The problem is that you cared enough to post, but
not enough to "try to prove" it. In other words, you were being too quick
on the "F" key, and too slow in taking up the intellectual burden it
entails. Now, there are other newsgroups that don't peg that intellectual
burden on posts, but this isn't one of them. Now, we've made that clear
in the faq, we've made it clear in the archives, and we've made it clear
in any number of recent posts including some replies to you.
>arises, when someone attempts to claim that failure to "prove" a contrary
>point, proves their own point. It doesn't. Suppose someone says, "The sky is
>green!" If I then say, "I read somewhere, that the sky is blue," and cannot
>offer an exact source, it would not prove some the assertion that the sky
>is green. It would merely raise a question to be considered. Now, if I say,
>"I read somewhere, I forget exactly, that the sky is blue, and therefore I
>have proven you wrong," then one could raise a more legitimate argument.
As the philosophers say, this is a distinction without a difference.
The latter cashes out to the former, so you can only hide behind this
distinction until someone asks. The one is just as lazy as the other
when the other party isn't so lazy as to not ask for the evidence.
Note the use of the term "evidence". This group doesn't demand proof,
it demands a reasonable bit of evidence for one's assertions.
Note the use of the term "assertions". You needn't have a whit of proof
for your beliefs. You do need to be able to back up, at least somewhat,
your actual statements on the list.
Now that we've once again made clear the social customs of this group,
won't you please accept them and either let your posts reflect them,
or not post?
Steven "Bo, if this doesn't work, we'll need the bad cop" Cherry
--
<s...@panix.com> <s...@acm.org>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The post didn't really deserve this; I just had a minor
epiphany reading it -- Harry Teasley, Solomon of the Net
DaveHatunen
Michele Tepper <mi...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...]
>The lack of female-specific marker diseases was the major "hook" of the
>activist campaign to change the definition. ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition
>To Unleash Power) and several women's health activism groups worked
>together on a campaign to change the definition, and put out posters/
>full-page ads in the newspapers/flyers/etc on the topic with the headline
>"Women Don't Get AIDS -- They Just Die From It." This referred to that
>fact that women were dying and being listed as having died of AIDS but
>while they were alive they were not eligible for the medical aid,
>including disability aid, that people classified by the CDC as having
>AIDS got, nor were they listed in official tallies of people with AIDS
>(I'm not sure about all the details of this since my activism files are
>an unorganized wreck: if you know better, Dave, I'd be glad to hear it).
As I said before, you are quite correct. The women's impetus was
probably the major reason, or at least the most prominent reason, for
the change. Having started out as GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency),
at first it was thought that AIDS was principally a disease of gay men,
and it took a while for the definition to catch up.
Tommy Usher
>I think most people have had experiences where "remembering" turned out
>to be totally unreliable.
It happens, but not that often.
>I doubt if anyone thinks you are lying. Merely pointing out that memory
>is a fallible thing, and a little more is needed in this group, is not
>necessarily a flame.
No, what you mention isn't. On the other hand, some have actually accused
people of lying under those circumstances.
>Well, I think most of us can figure out how to step outside and look
>up. That's not really the same as thinking you remember an article in
>some magazine you may or may not have read. For instance, I sometimes
>remember reading things that it turns out I only read about, in a book
>review or critique.
<Sigh> That was only an example.
>Although at times the denizens of this grooup can get a little testy
>about citations, you have to understand that this group deals in
>subjects that a lot of people think are true, but simply aren't.
Again, they need to realize that there is a difference between offering
something as a point of information, a *possible* fact, that *might* have
some bearing on the discussion, and which might jog another's memory, and
something offered as proof. I guess some are so insecure in their position,
that ANY challenge is too much.
Tommy Usher
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>Yes, I read the Hot Zone, too. Truly cool book.
Yes, but imagine what effect it must have on all the hypochondriacs who read
it. "Doctor, you've got to help me! I will be soup in a few days!"
Tommy Usher
In article <3j0n1p$b...@panix3.panix.com>, Steven Cherry <s...@panix.com> wrote:
>In <3ivdi5$q...@news.cais.com> hac...@ns.secis.com (Tommy Usher) writes:
>
>>In article <3it6s0$b...@rs10.tcs.tulane.edu>,
>
>>The simple problem is, a lot of us, who read a considerable amount of
>>material in any given period, often remember things without being able to
>>recall the exact source. Not having an exact source at hand does not
>>negate the validity or value of the information. I have encountered this
>>quite a bit. Without making a claim of proof, I will point out something
>>during an online dicussion, have someone else demand proof, will explain
>>that I am merely offering information without a claim of absolute proof,
>>have that person again demand proof or a retraction, will again explain that
>>I am merely saying that I recall reading that fact and that my presenting
>>of it should be taking as nothing more than that, have the person all but
>>call me a liar, and then I will generally end the thread since I don't care
>
>You should not be called a liar. You should be called lazy.
Why? Because I don't have sufficient time to track down every last bit of
trivia that someone chooses to challenge? Especially when doing so will only
result in even worse flamage when I do provide evidence which, in effect,
demolishs the poor flamer's argument? If I really care about the issue, I
do the research. But I have only a finite amount of time.
>>to spend time on such a wasted effort. Now, if I care enough to actually
>>try to prove something, I will gladly go do the research. The problem
>You still don't get it. The problem is that you cared enough to post, but
>not enough to "try to prove" it. In other words, you were being too quick
>on the "F" key, and too slow in taking up the intellectual burden it
>entails. Now, there are other newsgroups that don't peg that intellectual
>burden on posts, but this isn't one of them. Now, we've made that clear
>in the faq, we've made it clear in the archives, and we've made it clear
>in any number of recent posts including some replies to you.
Actually, I do get it. I read, and post here, as a form of recreation. I do
not believe that alt.folklore.urban deals with issues that are of major
political, social, scientific, religious, or economic importance. At least
not at a serious level. You see, I still have something of a life. Quite
frankly, I consider this to be something of an amusing group, not one I take
seriously. If I am mistaken, and the majority here takes themselves that
seriously, then I can only say, it does add to the entertainment potential.
I realize that some urban legends have the potential to cause some problems,
but I hate to break this to you, that is not the major factor here.
>>arises, when someone attempts to claim that failure to "prove" a contrary
>>point, proves their own point. It doesn't. Suppose someone says, "The sky is
>>green!" If I then say, "I read somewhere, that the sky is blue," and cannot
>>offer an exact source, it would not prove some the assertion that the sky
>>is green. It would merely raise a question to be considered. Now, if I say,
>>"I read somewhere, I forget exactly, that the sky is blue, and therefore I
>>have proven you wrong," then one could raise a more legitimate argument.
>As the philosophers say, this is a distinction without a difference.
>The latter cashes out to the former, so you can only hide behind this
>distinction until someone asks. The one is just as lazy as the other
>when the other party isn't so lazy as to not ask for the evidence.
If, and this is a big if, the subject is of sufficient importance that I
feel that it warrants doing the research, and if I feel that others are not
in a position to provide it, I have and will do it. But when someone throws
out a fact, representing it to be nothing more than a bet of anecdotal
evidence at best, and someone else attacks that recollection, focusing on
it, as a means of distracting the discussion away from more serious issues,
it becomes a straw-man. My point is, if I offer it as anecdotal, it should
be accepted as such, given appropriate weight, which would not be much, and
then we should all move on. Actually, I am far more inclined to look
something up, if the request is made in a friendly polite manner, than I am
if someone calls me a liar, or lazy.
>Note the use of the term "evidence". This group doesn't demand proof,
>it demands a reasonable bit of evidence for one's assertions.
Note the use of the term "anecdotal."
>Note the use of the term "assertions". You needn't have a whit of proof
>for your beliefs. You do need to be able to back up, at least somewhat,
>your actual statements on the list.
Again, note the use of the term "anectodal," as well as the phrase, "I have
a life."
>Now that we've once again made clear the social customs of this group,
>won't you please accept them and either let your posts reflect them,
>or not post?
Well, at least you have provided me with a day's worth of amusement.
Do you really take yourself, and all of this, THAT seriously? Or is this
Yet Another Troll?
Jason R. Heimbaugh
>ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
I'm sitting here racking my brains and can't remember andit'sdrivingmecrazy,
but... The first time I saw reference to ACT UP (say '89), the phrase used in
creating the acronym was not "AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power", what was it?
Or am I just an idiot misremembering nonfacts?
--
Jason R. Heimbaugh - j...@uiuc.edu
http://cathouse.org/CathousePeople/JasonHeimbaugh/
"If you're not playing pool, get the fuck out of the way." --Joanie Ellison
Ray Depew
: Sez Dave:
: >
: >And you have? Have you no taste at all? How did you ever manage to
: >blunder into AFU, where even threads about masturbatory songs have more
: >class than following OJ in Usenet? Isn't it bad enough one can't turn
: >on the TV or radio without being awash in OJ?
: ObIt'sABigWorld: OJ is not headline news *everywhere*
Sheesh. As if being smug about the *weather* weren't enough ....
Hugs to Kim
Ray
Richard A. Schumacher
>>In order to say a man died of AIDS in the 1950's, science would have had to
>>have known WHAT the aids virus looked like. Since it was only recently
>>discovered, I don't see how this can be true. Remember that AIDS allows
Frozen stored blood, kept *precisely* in the hope that one day
we would find the cause of death. And we did. Next question.
Derek Tearne
>Nyani-Iisha Martin <nfma...@scws8.harvard.edu> wrote:
>...
>>Try Ebola virus, for
>>instance, which reduces one to soup in two days or so.
>Yes, I read the Hot Zone, too. Truly cool book.
Just as a matter of general interest, why do you assume that, simply
because someone mentions a virus which is pivotal to the plot of
some book or other, that they have read the book?
If I were to say "Velociraptor" would you immediately say "Yeah, I
saw Jurassic Park, truly cool movie"?
>From a political/psycho/sexual point of view (if you are of a certain bent),
>AIDS is neat! Far better than any of the diseases that kill quickly.
>The reasons are so plentiful and obvious that I won't list them here,
>but suffice it to say tha it is so, ooh, <biblical>! Really appeals to the
>televangelist crowd. Like rains of locusts, that's what it is!
>The hand of God smiting the unworthy!
Actually, from the point of view of smiting the unworthy, a plague
of 'super-locusts'<tm> would have been
a) much more perfectly biblical and
b) easily constructed using select breeding methods which has been
available for centuries.
>I think the fact that it is so absolutely perfect, from the point of
>view of the religious right, is what makes a lot of people on the other
>end of the political spectrum suspect complicity.
Actually it's almost completely wrong from the point of view of
any of the purposes a created disease could have. It kill all demographic
groups fairly indiscriminately and it takes a very long time to do it.
Derek "let's face it, shit can happen of it's own accord" Tearne
--
Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
David Gadbois
>Try pointing out on the net that vaginal sex has nowhere near
>the risk of anal sex and watch the flames fly. Nor have I seen *any*
>official AIDS media of shorter than six pages aimed at heterosexuals
>that distinguishes between the two.
The March 1995 issue of "Mademoiselle," a sappy glossy apparently
aimed at women in their twenties (please don't ask why I was reading
it) has a blurb in their "Sex Q&A" section that says "the risk [of HIV
infection] is slightly greater with anal intercourse." They go into
some detail as to why and cite the Centers for Disease Control. The
point is that the information is getting out there.
And the information has been available for a while. Around 1990,
there was a minor flap at UT when the paper reported that 1% of the
student population was HIV positive. (It turned out that it was 1% of
the people specifically going into the student health center for AIDS
tests, and the sample size was such that the margin of error was
large.) It did get me concerned enough to look into the risk factors.
The (<6 pages worth of) informational material the student health
center had at the time did break things down along the lines of
gay/straight, anal/vaginal, condom/no-condom, frequency of contact,
IVDU/non-IVDU, etc. Running the numbers led me to conclude that I
could be having a lot more fun than I was at the time with very little
increase in risk. In fact, I was quite surprised at how low the
probabilities were.
--David Gadbois
Justin D. Bukowski
David Gadbois <gad...@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>Ted Frank <th...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>Try pointing out on the net that vaginal sex has nowhere near
>>the risk of anal sex and watch the flames fly. Nor have I seen *any*
>>official AIDS media of shorter than six pages aimed at heterosexuals
>>that distinguishes between the two.
[stuff]
>And the information has been available for a while. Around 1990,
[student health info distinguishes between risk levels]
I'll add here that our lab has a pamphlet, distributed by
the "American College Health Association" and copyright 1990
which also distinguishes between the two, as well as
distinguishing between "receptive" and "insertive"
intercourse.
Justin "we keep the pamphlet as part of our lab safety literature" Bukowski
Paul Tomblin
>Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>Nyani-Iisha Martin <nfma...@scws8.harvard.edu> wrote:
>>>Try Ebola virus, for
>>>instance, which reduces one to soup in two days or so.
>>
>>Yes, I read the Hot Zone, too. Truly cool book.
>
>Just as a matter of general interest, why do you assume that, simply
>because someone mentions a virus which is pivotal to the plot of
>some book or other, that they have read the book?
[Re: AIDS]
>>I think the fact that it is so absolutely perfect, from the point of
>>view of the religious right, is what makes a lot of people on the other
>>end of the political spectrum suspect complicity.
>
>Actually it's almost completely wrong from the point of view of
>any of the purposes a created disease could have. It kill all demographic
>groups fairly indiscriminately and it takes a very long time to do it.
Yeah, I read "The White Plague" too. Truly cool book.
--
Paul "I couldn't resist" Tomblin
This is my computer, and I speak for me.
<a href=http://watt.oedison.com/~tomblinp/>My home page</a>
Jeremy Mathers
Derek Tearne <de...@nezsdc.fujitsu.co.nz> wrote:
...
>Just as a matter of general interest, why do you assume that, simply
>because someone mentions a virus which is pivotal to the plot of
>some book or other, that they have read the book?
Because making dumb unfounded assumptions about people is the standard
these days in AFU. Just trying to get with the program, you know...
(But, N.B., this is probably a darn good assumption - not 100%, mind
you, but then again, nothing is.)
>If I were to say "Velociraptor" would you immediately say "Yeah, I
>saw Jurassic Park, truly cool movie"?
Actually, yes I would. And I'd expect to be in the 90-100% range.
I don't know how it is where you are, but here in the States, yes, if
someone mentioned a "Velo..." whatever, it'd be very good odds that they
had seen JP pretty recently.
...
(and then you said:)
>Actually, from the point of view of smiting the unworthy, a plague
>of 'super-locusts'<tm> would have been
>
>a) much more perfectly biblical and
>b) easily constructed using select breeding methods which has been
> available for centuries.
Nah. Nowhere near as subtle and scary as HIV. Also, not at all
discriminatory (unless they were very smart locusts...).
...
(and then you said:)
>Actually it's almost completely wrong from the point of view of
>any of the purposes a created disease could have. It kill all demographic
>groups fairly indiscriminately and it takes a very long time to do it.
This is just verbiage. As snopes is fond of quoting, "Saying something
a thousand times does not, in and of itself, make it true."
Slow acting is good - that was central to my thesis.
The short summary is that it just doesn't take that much mental prowess
to realize that the following behaviors are best avoided:
1) Indicriminate sex (*)
2) IV drug usage (and drug usage in general)
(*) Note that avoiding this was a Good Idea {tm}, long before there
was HIV or the sexual revolution. Bad things have been with us for
centuries.
>--
>Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
>Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
>consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
>"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
************************************************************************
Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which
lies between 27 and 28. "We don't know why it's there or what it
does," says Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, "we only
know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that
it is divisible by six, though only once."
- On_The_Hour -
Michele Tepper
>In article <3j0ve7$r...@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> mi...@umich.edu (Michele Tepper) writes:
>>ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
>
>I'm sitting here racking my brains and can't remember andit'sdrivingmecrazy,
>but... The first time I saw reference to ACT UP (say '89), the phrase used in
>creating the acronym was not "AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power", what was it?
From its inception in March 1987, ACT UP's acronym has stood for the same
thing. What you may be thinking of is ACT NOW, which was a short-lived
national coalition of various ACT UPs. ACT NOW stands for the AIDS
Coalition to Network, Organize, and Win, and the group was perhaps at its
most prominent in late 1988 with the "Seize Control of the FDA" action.
Michele "knew I was in the Midwest for sure when someone asked me what
my 'Earn Your Attitude -- ACT UP' button meant" Tepper
--
Michele Tepper "No, I have no idea why I posted this, either."
mi...@umich.edu --Paul Tomblin
DaveHatunen
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
[...]
>The short summary is that it just doesn't take that much mental prowess
>to realize that the following behaviors are best avoided:
> 1) Indicriminate sex (*)
> 2) IV drug usage (and drug usage in general)
>
>(*) Note that avoiding this was a Good Idea {tm}, long before there
> was HIV or the sexual revolution. Bad things have been with us for
> centuries.
Given your expressed concern about details in other posts, I gather
from your singling out Item 1) for special emphasis, you do not feel
that the same footnote is true for Item 2).
>>Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
>>Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
>>consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
>>"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
>
>Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
Don't read it. Develop some will power.
>************************************************************************
>Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which
>lies between 27 and 28. "We don't know why it's there or what it
>does," says Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, "we only
>know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that
>it is divisible by six, though only once."
>
> - On_The_Hour -
>
> - py...@quads.uchicago.edu, who is still costing the net
> hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, every time he posts -
>************************************************************************
>rwvpf wpnrrj ibf ijrfer
I've seen that quote before. Either from you, so the same criticsm you
just amde is applicable, or from someone else, in which case you lack
originality.
Same old sig below...
Paul Tomblin
[In response to Derek Tearne]
>
>Because making dumb unfounded assumptions about people is the standard
>these days in AFU. Just trying to get with the program, you know...
You keep talking about 'these days', and the 'good old days' of AFU. I was
here the day it was newgrouped, and I don't remember you. Having read four or
five of your posts, I can see why. Welcome to (or welcome back to) my kill
file.
>>If I were to say "Velociraptor" would you immediately say "Yeah, I
>>saw Jurassic Park, truly cool movie"?
>
>Actually, yes I would. And I'd expect to be in the 90-100% range.
Actually, you're probably right there. After all, based on a vote by fans,
the new Toronto sports team (basketball, I think) is going to be called "The
Raptors", and has a picture of a dinosaur for a logo. (Rather than the Red
Tailed Hawk that I was expecting.)
>
>>--
>>Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
>>Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
>>consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
>>"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
>
>Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
"Get some imagination" he says, and then finished with a sig that is 13 lines
long, consisting almost entirely of bandwidth wasting borders, and a QUOTE
FROM SOMEBODY ELSE! My, that's original!
>************************************************************************
>Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which
>lies between 27 and 28. "We don't know why it's there or what it
>does," says Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, "we only
>know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that
>it is divisible by six, though only once."
>
> - On_The_Hour -
>
> - py...@quads.uchicago.edu, who is still costing the net
> hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, every time he posts -
>************************************************************************
>rwvpf wpnrrj ibf ijrfer
--
Paul Tomblin
Nyani-Iisha Martin
: In article <D4qI0...@midway.uchicago.edu>,
: Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
: >In article <3j053f$4...@decaxp.harvard.edu>,
: >Nyani-Iisha Martin <nfma...@scws8.harvard.edu> wrote:
: >...
: >>Try Ebola virus, for
: >>instance, which reduces one to soup in two days or so.
: >
: >Yes, I read the Hot Zone, too. Truly cool book.
: Just as a matter of general interest, why do you assume that, simply
: because someone mentions a virus which is pivotal to the plot of
: some book or other, that they have read the book?
Thanks, Derek. I didn't read _The Hot Zone_, actually; I got everything I
said from the past year of biochemistry classes.
: >AIDS is neat! Far better than any of the diseases that kill quickly.
: >I think the fact that it is so absolutely perfect, from the point of
: >view of the religious right, is what makes a lot of people on the other
: >end of the political spectrum suspect complicity.
Hmmmmm. I was raised by some of what you might consider "the religious
right", or at least fundamentalists, and they kind of think AIDS is a
tragic epidemic and that they want to work to stop it. At least two people
I know from thence are AIDS prevention counsellors.
: Actually it's almost completely wrong from the point of view of
: any of the purposes a created disease could have. It kill all demographic
: groups fairly indiscriminately and it takes a very long time to do it.
*nod* *nod* *nod*
: Derek "let's face it, shit can happen of it's own accord" Tearne
Ny "Meet Mr Murphy----he's a virologist, too" Martin
--
_________________________________________________
Nyani-Iisha F. Martin nfma...@fas.harvard.edu
"I thought, There goes my Lord, whom I was born
to follow. I have found a King.....And, I said to
myself,.....I will have him, if I die for it."
--------Mary Renault, "The Persian Boy"
V-X
>Developed accidently or by natural selection? That's as fuzzy
>a concept as I've ever heard. Perhaps you meant to say that HIV
>could've been developed by something similar to selective breeding.
>If you this is the case, consider the rate at which HIV progresses
>in humans from infection to death. How long would it take a "breeding"
>program to produce HIV as a result of studying the effects of randomly
>mutating viruses in a lab. My guess is that it'd take a century or two
>since you'd need several cycles of breed-test-isolate improved strain
>and repeat, where the test period for each new strain would take 5-10+
>years.
Which is, of course, where the Illuminati come in...
V-X can draw like nobody's business. Resume and examples available at
http://www.teleport.com/~vx
Home of the Unofficial WWW/FTP Jack Chick Archive!
Stupid Internet...
Steve Wall
< a) N.B. - I am, by nature, moderately conspiratorially
< minded; if I had a mind to, I would argue that the
< AIDS developed in the 40s and 50s was developed
< accidentally/by natural selection - not by genetic
< engineering as the term is currently construed.
Developed accidently or by natural selection? That's as fuzzy
a concept as I've ever heard. Perhaps you meant to say that HIV
could've been developed by something similar to selective breeding.
If you this is the case, consider the rate at which HIV progresses
in humans from infection to death. How long would it take a "breeding"
program to produce HIV as a result of studying the effects of randomly
mutating viruses in a lab. My guess is that it'd take a century or two
since you'd need several cycles of breed-test-isolate improved strain
and repeat, where the test period for each new strain would take 5-10+
years.
--
Steve W.
Ewan Kirk
>
>Because making dumb unfounded assumptions about people is the standard
>these days in AFU. Just trying to get with the program, you know...
Jerry, Jerry, relax. This is nicey nicey week (well, the pre-nicey
week) and I'm not going to get all het up about you. I think you've
been jumping in a little prematurely with your posts and not really
thinking as much as I'm sure you're capable of.
In general, AFUistas are willing to take people at face value without
preconceived notions of their worth. Antagonising people doesn't help
and neither does insulting people. As I become more and more nicey
nicey, I'm finding it unpleasant and unhelpful for people to insult
each other. Just turn the other cheek Jerry.
>The short summary is that it just doesn't take that much mental
>prowess
>to realize that the following behaviors are best avoided:
> 1) Indicriminate sex (*)
> 2) IV drug usage (and drug usage in general)
You have a point here which I think we'll all be willing to take on
board. The human immune system probably isn't set up to handle these
types of things. But, on the other hand, the human immune system isn't
evolved to cope with extremely dense and mobile populations as you have
in the developed world but you can't ban international travel on that
basis.
>> [ snipped derek's sig ]
>
>Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
Rather than flaming off about Derek's sig, isn't it better to get get a
much much better sig yourself? If Derek likes his sig (and he should
because I for one find it funny and thought provoking) then he can use
it. Just as I can use --E and you can use what you like. Impress us
with your sig Jeremy.
Ewan "I'm going to be using **my** sig for long after nicey nicey
week is over" Kirk.
--E.
-- [Ewan Kirk] is eloquent and knowledgable, not to mention an
international Sex God - Len Berlind.
Derek Tearne
Jeremy Mathers <py...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <3j3hd2$j...@nezsdc.fujitsu.co.nz>,
>Derek Tearne <de...@nezsdc.fujitsu.co.nz> wrote:
>...
>>Just as a matter of general interest, why do you assume that, simply
>>because someone mentions a virus which is pivotal to the plot of
>>some book or other, that they have read the book?
>
>someone mentioned a "Velo..." whatever, it'd be very good odds that they
>had seen JP pretty recently.
>
>...
>(and then you said:)
Considering I knew what a velociraptor was long before Jurassic park the
book or the movie. That, after seeing the movie [1] complained
bitterly that they had increased the size of the Velociraptor and given
them a pretty pathetic reptilian head [2]. Although some people believe
that Spielberg made the size mistake by an early description of Velociraptor
as a synonym of Deinonychus (which was still a little smaller than the
'raptors' in the film). I don't hold with that though as the Velociraptors
in the book were pretty much the right size. I think that Spielberg
increased the size of the Raptors because of the old hollywood adage that
the main monster can't be smaller than the leading lady. In fact Spielberg
messed with the sizes of _all_ the dinosaurs except the Triceratops.
There are similarly people who, reading the 'Hot Zone', are laughing at
it's innacuracies. When wandering around the biolab at Thames hospital
recently with my brother there was an Ebola virus joke on the wall.
"That's topical", I replied,
"Dunno", my brother said, "we've been making that joke for years, we've
got better ones about other viruses...".
I wouldn't assume that, simply because Ny mentioned the Ebola Virus, she
has read the 'Hot Zone'. After all I've heard of the 'Ebola Virus' and
I've never read the 'Hot Zone' either. She mentioned another virus too,
one which may well not have been in the 'Hot Zone' - but you conveniently
ignored that.
[Back to AIDS as the ideal virus for the loony right]
>>Actually it's almost completely wrong from the point of view of
>>any of the purposes a created disease could have. It kill all demographic
>>groups fairly indiscriminately and it takes a very long time to do it.
>
>This is just verbiage. As snopes is fond of quoting, "Saying something
>a thousand times does not, in and of itself, make it true."
Your point?
>Slow acting is good - that was central to my thesis.
Your 'thesis'? you flatter yourself.
>>--
>>Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
>>Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
>>consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
>>"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
>Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
Well yes, I am still using that same .sig after all these years.
I don't mention it very often but that tired old .sig is a bit of a
babe magnet.
[1] Yes, I did actually see JP three times, including the NZ charity
premiere - I was the one with the dinosaur in my ear - I've got
some _much_ better earrings for the premiere of the sequel - I
think I'll where the anatomically correct Dilophosaur, which doesn't
have the really pathetic frill. I was also the guy shouting "No,
don't do it, you'll be toast by the time it finishes and fsck on
hard disks those size". OK, so there were technical holes in JP
one could drive through, it was worth it for the shear syumbolism of
the scene where the Brachiosaurs walked out of the lake and onto
the land where they belong. Sure the poor buggers didn't have the
trunks indicated by their nostril position but that is a rather
controversial reconstruction so I'll forgive them that one.
people agree with me on
[2] I apologise to any Komodo dragons reading this, it's a fine head -
really - if you happen to a Komodo dragon. It didn't look right
on a Deinonychus though.
--
Derek Tearne. -- de...@iconz.co.nz
The last wild Black Rhino in Zimbabwe is dead. The dehorning program failed.
The family of Rhino I saw in Zimbabwe are therefore all dead, even the baby.
I have a photograph of a dead family of Rhino. --- Extinction is forever
Gerald A Belton
: So chalk this one up as *true.* In addition, since there are numerous
: probable cases, some may not consider it to be a UL.
I have to disagree with your last sentence. Just because something is
true, that doesn't mean that it is *not* an urban legend. If someone
says, "I read in Lancet yesterday about a man who died of AIDS in 1959,"
then he is not propogating an UL. However, the story as it was
originally presented here definitaley *is* an Urban Legend.
The way the tale was told, with the puzzled doctors and the sudden
realization; with the same doctor deciding to pull the tissue samples and
test them; that has elements of Urban Legend. Then, the way the story
spreads: "I read somewhere." "I heard from a friend..." "I heard a
story about this guy..."
So yes, it is true that cases of AIDS cropped up now and then before the
current epidemic. But it's still an Urban Legend.
--
"In the old days, being crazy meant something. I don't speak
Nowdays, EVERYBODY'S crazy." for Tulane.
-- Charles Manson
Dave Wilton
Belton) writes:
>
>Dave Wilton (dwi...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
>: So chalk this one up as *true.* In addition, since there are numerous
>: probable cases, some may not consider it to be a UL.
>
>I have to disagree with your last sentence. Just because something is
>true, that doesn't mean that it is *not* an urban legend. If someone
What I meant was that this had not just occurred once, but that there
are several documented instances of this occurring. When there are
several discrete and documented instances of something occurring it
becomes fact not folklore. If there was only the story about the
Manchester sailor, I would agree it is a (an?) UL. But we have the
Zairian blood sample, the Norwegian family, the St. Louis prostitute,
all documented (well, maybe not the St. Louis prostitute, still waiting
on proof). Variations in the telling come from confusing various true
instances, not because it has entered the realm of folklore.
I believe that just because the teller does not remember all the details
of a true story, that does not make it a UL. Its your God-given right to
disagree though; that's why I wrote "some may not consider."
--Dave Wilton
dwi...@ix.netcom.com
Ray Depew
: >--
: >Derek Tearne. -- de...@fujitsu.co.nz -- Fujitsu New Zealand --
: >Some of the more environmentally aware dinosaurs were worried about the
: >consequences of an accident with the new Iridium enriched fusion reactor.
: >"If it goes off only the cockroaches and mammals will survive..." they said.
:
: Still using this, I see. Get some imagination!
Jeremy, I quietly like most of what you say. But Derek's .sig is a classic,
a fixture of the Internet. Like warm cookies and cold milk after school,
it's one of those dependable things that *never*, in my estimation, gets
old and tired. Leave it alone.
Besides, I just read it for the ten millionth time, and I still think it's
funny.
Regards
Ray
Ray Depew
Derek Tearne (de...@iconz.co.nz) and Jeremy Mathers are still going at it,
and Derek drifts into a review of JP the movie:
: Considering I knew what a velociraptor was long before Jurassic park the
: book or the movie. That, after seeing the movie [1] complained
: bitterly that they had increased the size of the Velociraptor and given
: them a pretty pathetic reptilian head [2]. Although some people believe
: that Spielberg made the size mistake by an early description of Velociraptor
: as a synonym of Deinonychus (which was still a little smaller than the
: 'raptors' in the film). I don't hold with that though as the Velociraptors
: in the book were pretty much the right size. I think that Spielberg
: increased the size of the Raptors because of the old hollywood adage that
: the main monster can't be smaller than the leading lady.
So I'll drift along, too.
Part of the pre-release publicity about JP the movie included an article
about the size of the V'raptors in the movie.
Spielberg had wanted a bigger V'raptor than what was in the book, but his
paleontological advisors had warned him that V'raptors were only so big.
(What? About five feet high? Not big enough to be scary.) Spielberg
said "We'll fudge on this one" and went into production with the larger
critters. Then, during the shooting, a new, larger species of V'raptor
was discovered, and someone showed Spielberg an article about them.
His reaction was something on the order of "Ha! I toldja they could be
bigger!" His advisors agreed, and so he continued production with the
directive "Let's pretend that these V'raptors are from the bigger
species."
Works for me. It was a good book, and a really funny movie.
Regards
Ray
Derek Stem
> pulled from deep storage and tested, and it is found that the man
> from the 1950s had the AIDS virus.
>
> Has anyone else heard this one? It's now been reported to me by
> two different sources, who have no direct connection to one
> another, so if it isn't true it seems to have spread pretty far.
IÕve heard this one as well, from a friend of mine (gay) who comes up with
all sorts of unsubstantiated claims (did you know 9 out of 10 married men are
gay?!) so I would tend not to count this 50s AIDS story as true.
By the way, I live in Toronto (How far has the story gotten now?)
Cheers,
I myself am Hell
died in 1959. There were two others who died, the doctors did not know what
they had. But now, judging from their symptoms, it may have been AIDS. In the
first case, I read that there were tissue samples taken, but not in the other
two cases.
Matt Davidson
sla...@logica.com (Graham Slapp) wrote:
>In article <jvarleyD...@netcom.com>,
> jva...@netcom.com (J.j. Varley) wrote:
>>Derek...@magic.ca (Derek Stem) writes:
>>As much as I would love to say "It's true, I saw it on PBS," I won't. I
>>did however see some sort of documentary (maybe it was on PBS, maybe the
>>Discovery Channel) on the history of HIV. They found a case of a sailor in
>>1958 who came down with a bunch of really weird symptoms. The doctors at
>>the time assumed it was some sort of tropical disease, but they didn't
>>find any. Then, back in the 80's when HIV had just been isolated by
>>scientists (French and 'Merkin) and it wasn't quite officially known as
>>HIV, they uncovered the case with the sailor in 1958, and found it
>>suspiciously similar. But the samples they had from the sailor were
>>inadequate/too old/unusable/tainted/incomplete, so the scientists stopped
>>short of actually saying this sailor honcho dies of AIDS (or as a result of
>>it). I will locate exactly where I saw this documentary, though of course
>>all of you will have forgotten this by then, and roll over laughing to
>>learn that someone on AFU did something that could be interpreted as
>>research.
>
>This was in The Observer a year or two ago as I remember - much the same
story
>as above. The Hot Zone (book about the Ebola virus, but discusses AIDS too)
>seemed to suggest that AIDS 'started' early seventies - but offered no real
>evidence (the book is full of assumptions). It strikes me that if this is
>true then it is important - so carry on with your research & and if anybody
>from the Observer (Jim McClellan?) is lurking out there, perhaps they could
>find out the reference in their archives.
>
>
>Graham Slapp.
According to 60 Minutes last night (3/19/95) the British sailor in question
has been definitively diagnosed with HIV using some relatively new polymerase
chain reaction test that works on tissues other than blood (no blood had been
preserved).
Why did AIDS exist then, but not break 'til early eighties (late seventies?).
Their answer was, The Sexual Revolution.
--Matt "They didn't mention whether the victim had ever been in a plane crash"
Davidson