I forgot to mention this before it aired, but earlier this week PBS aired a two-part documentary on HIV, The Age of AIDS. It's very good, and according to the website, you can watch it online beginning at 5PM EST today. There's also a lot of information, interviews, etc. on the PBS website linked above.
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Tara C. Smith is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology. Her research involves a number of pathogens at the animal-human nexus. She also writes for The Panda's Thumb and previously for WIRED SCIENCE's Correlations. Please note the views expressed on this site are Dr. Smith's alone and may not be representative of the groups mentioned above.
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Infectious Disease Series
« Microbes, obesity, and you III--the human superorganism | Main | Saturday roundup »
PBS special on AIDS
Category: AIDS/HIV • Infectious disease • Various viruses
Posted on: June 2, 2006 3:45 PM, by Tara C. Smith
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Comments
I have watched most of it. Its interesting to put faces to the names I know from "And the Band Played On". Margret Heckler almost made my head explode. I can't believe she can look back and still spout the outrageous lies she was making in the early 80s about the scientists/doctors having all the money they needed. They only showed Francis talking about how he had to beg for lab equipment and mentioned that CDC didn't have any money to travel to do the epidemiology. They didn't mention all the memos that Heckler got asking for more money.
I don't know how that woman sleeps at night.
Ivan
Posted by: Ivan | June 3, 2006 12:02 AM
It was good. They conveyed the historic mood of fear and bigotry.
How did they do with the science? (not rhetorical)
I was disappointd they didn't cover some things from other PBS shows. Secrets of the Dead talked about people with a genetic mutation (associated with ancestors surviving plague) who may be immune to AIDS. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_plague/clues.html
And last year some big production PBS show (that I missed) was supposed to have discussed some small numbers of sex workers in Africa (?) who were able to clear the virus. Unless I missed it they also didn't talk much about vaccines.
To me it looked like they were putting AIDS epidemic/pandemic into historical perspective and trying to raise awareness that it's still not solved.
Posted by: cirya | June 3, 2006 12:39 AM
Oh, come on. They repeated the Ho/Shaw 1995 Nature model as fact!! Even the orthodoxy knows that nonsense. And you give this show ANY CREDENCE AT ALL?? Unbelievable.
Posted by: Darin Brown | June 13, 2006 6:53 PM
Lots of "information and interviews"...from whom?
Robert Gallo -- committed fraud in his 1984 papers?
David Ho -- published incompetent nonsense in 1995 in Nature, now acknowledged as such by the mainstream??
Margaret Fischl -- committed fraud in her 1984 AZT study?
Thanks, I can do without "information and interviews" from frauds, incompetents, and liars.
Posted by: Darin Brown | June 13, 2006 6:56 PM
The Fischl study was in 1987, not 1984. My apologies. The Phase II trials were still fraudulent:
http://www.reviewingaids.org/awiki/index.php/Document:AZT_on_Trial
Posted by: Darin Brown | June 13, 2006 6:59 PM
Darin Brown writes:
What was actually said in the program by Ho was that they discovered at this time that HIV was replicating at all times during infection even during the asymptomatic stage. This is not based on a mathematical model. It is based on the detection of HIV RNA by PCR. Since 1995 this has been supported by other nucleic acid technologies, sensitive HIV antigen tests and HIV culture.
Is this really so difficult to comprehend?
HIV is replicating at all times during the course of the disease. This has been demonstrated in hundreds and thousands of papers.
Why can't "dissidents" even summarise the available data correctly?
The straw-man HIV/AIDS hypothesis
Posted by: Chris Noble | June 14, 2006 12:57 AM
From the Frontline website:
"Independently, Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and Dr. George M. Shaw of the University of Alabama at Birmingham discover that from the moment of infection, the immune system is engaged in a pitched battle with HIV. By giving new drugs called protease inhibitors to AIDS patients, both doctors learn that within two weeks, the virus becomes resistant to the drugs. They then measure virus reproduction rates and find that between 100 million and 1 billion new virus particles are produced daily. They also learn that T-cells are reproducing at a rate of 1 billion per day. This battle between the immune system and HIV could go on for 10 years or more before the virus begins to win and a person experiences the opportunistic infections associated with AIDS."
Seems like they're endorsing the papers, and it sounds like they're parroting the Ho/Shaw MATHEMATICAL MODEL. This is not just the claim that "HIV was replicating at all times during the infection, even the asymptomatic stage."
Posted by: Darin Brown | June 15, 2006 8:27 AM
"Why can't 'dissidents' even summarise the available data correctly?
The straw-man HIV/AIDS hypothesis"
Ah, caught my diff. Glad to see you keep such a close eye on the wiki recent changes.
If a hysterical, delusional guy walked up to you, babbling incoherent nonsense, that changed every 5 minutes, and contradicted itself from moment to moment, and you tried to relate this insane guy's babbling, what would you say if someone asked you, "can't you even summarise this insane guy's babbling correctly?"
Posted by: Darin Brown | June 15, 2006 8:32 AM