Countdown to YearlyKos

Busy week for me. I'm preparing a talk for a conference next month with the longest title ever: The International Conference on Diseases in Nature Communicable to Man. (Basically, a conference on zoonotic disease.) I'll be speaking about my research on Streptococcus suis, and hopefully meeting many other colleagues during the conference.

More immediately, however, I'll be busy at Yearly Kos in Chicago, at the McCormick convention center. This Thursday, I'll be moderating the Science bloggers caucus, at 4:30 in room 106a. Friday, I'll moderate the Science panel, featuring fellow science bloggers Chris Mooney and Ed Brayton, along with Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance. This will start at 2:30 on Friday in rooms 403a-b. As an added bonus, Chris will be signing his new book after the panel, and blogger Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise will be on hand snapping pictures. Be sure to stop in if you're heading to YearlyKos...

More like this

Tomorrow I fly to Chicago, where I'll be speaking--for the second year in a row--on the Yearly Kos science panel. This time, my fellow speakers will be ScienceBlogs' Ed Brayton and Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance. Scienceblogs' own Tara Smith will be chairing the panel. Tara is also heading up…
My adventures in NY Chicago, continued: Second day of the month A Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago(Note: This butterfly has nothing to do with the convention or the following post, but it was too lovely a shot to leave out.) The YearlyKos…
Apologies for the silence; as I mentioned, August is a crazy month for me. I hope to get back to some heavier science posts some point here, but those will, unfortunately, have to wait a bit. In the meantime, I did want to say a bit about last week's science discussions at YearlyKos, featuring…
....or, where I impersonate PZ. As PZ noted last month, he was tapped to moderate the science caucus at YearlyKos, featuring fellow Sciencebloggers Chris Mooney and Ed Brayton, along with Cosmic Variance's Sean Carroll. However, PZ had to go and get himself some other plans, and I was fortunate…

I read the article the Streptococcus suis link lead to.

Maybe using nipple drinkers for the pigs laced with a sub-grade
wine/water soution could inhibit the growth of that kind of oral microflora?

Wine May Combat Tooth Decay And Upper Respiratory Tract Disease Bacteria

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070625093118.htm

By Dark Matter (not verified) on 01 Aug 2007 #permalink

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if you are interested,please do contact us.
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ron patterson
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Wow, that's a nice dose of woo you got there.

Tara, speaking of diseases in Nature, certainly brings us to ponder the "non-nature" diseases as well.

This post is not about my usual most favorite subject of HIV, but is about bird flu.

I am wondering why no-one has made any link or even yet attempted to see if there was a link between the melamine that was put in animal feeds in China, and the obviously suspicious "bird flu" that was 97% in China!

Would that be because the virologists who have virtually dominated and controlled our NIH and CDC for the last 30 plus years would then need to give back the 7 billion that was earmarked to investigate bird flu?

I smell rats, and my rat sniffer is almost always right on!

Even the Chinese have admitted that animal food in their country was spiked with melamine!

Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China
CHINA - As American food safety regulators head to China to investigate how a chemical made from coal found its way into pet food that killed dogs and cats in the United States, workers in this heavily polluted northern city of Zhangqiu openly admit that the substance is routinely added to animal feed as a fake protein.

I am surprised that no-one is questioning the link! Obviously melamine was absolutely and unquestionably put into the poultry feed in China as well as in the feed they had shipped throughout Asia where almost ALL of the so-called bird flu epidemic took place.

Tara, you had earlier reported on swine illness outbreak of your favorite bug, Streptococcus suis, that also happened in China:

"And last year in China, the largest outbreak of S. suis ever recorded took place, sickening at least 204 and killing 38 (a 19% mortality rate)".

Could melamine be at the core of this? Could melamine weaken these amimals over time so that their own immune system did not fight off common and usually non-fatal bugs such as Streptococcus suis. Afterall, very few animals exposed to SS get sick. Must be something more going on!

I don't know about you guys, but certainly two happenstance diseases of animals in China, and there are more than just these two, combined as well with the melamine thing, is beginning to make a pattern of animal AIDS primarily destroying the immune systems of domesticated animals in China, that seems to be based in melamine poisoning!

OH MY GAWD! I UNDERSTAND! ANIMAL AIDS IN CHINA IS CAUSED BY MELAMINE!!!

Obviously we need to all do something to solve ANIMAL AIDS in China!

Now that many HIV positives in the United States are throwing away their lipodystrophy and neuropathy and liver failure causing AIDS drugs, perhaps we could send these drugs over to China to be fed to their melamine poisoned animals and open up a new market for these fine life saving drugs!

This could also be a wonderful new market for high dosage AZT monotherapy and Single Dose Nevirapine for all of the pregnant pigs and given to all chickens before they lay an egg! We simply must protect all of those baby piglets and chickadees from all dying of AIDS!

A wonderful idea, if I say so myself! I don't know why the sales reps at Glaxo and Merck and Gilead have not thought about this yet. It could even help us to restabilize the balance of trade with China as expensive as those drugs are! Think of it, an average of $12,000 per year per Chinese Chicken, and we will get the Chinese government to pay for it all!

AIDS drugs for all Chinese chickens and pigs! What a market! What a wonderful world!

Michael, do you even bother to read any of this? Get back to me when you have even a rudimentary understanding of infectious disease.

Tara, what was fascinating to me, was the link you had on your prior ss piece, that described ss:

"Infection in pigs is usually asymptomatic, but can result in septicaemia (blood poisoning), meningitis, pneumonia and arthritis. Young pigs are most at risk, but the disease can occur in any age group. Predisposing factors are found in pigs reared in "suboptimal" conditions, for example poor housing with inadequate ventilation. This is compounded if pigs are raised under "intensive" conditions that can cause stress and subsequent immune suppression."

The fact that "young pigs are most at risk" makes sense as their immune systems are not yet fully developed or at peak capacity. And I would bet a dollar to a donut that it most effects the young offspring particularly of stressed momma pigs. Stressed adults, particularly during pregnancy seems to lead to weakened or overly stress sensitive offspring, whether they are humans or animals.

Any way you look at s suis, it still bears much in common with human aids in that it is most happening when co-inciding with the obviously very important key factor of "stressed" animals with the stress resulting in immune suppression allowing the ss to be charged with murder, when stress itself was the real and original culprit.

Most assuredly is further evidence of the role that stress plays in illness, whether it be ss in pigs, birdflu in birds, or the aids spectrum of illnesses in human aids.

Seems to back up what I have been saying about human AIDS having its original source as based in various effectors of stress for the last year!

More evidence that it's not the bug that gets to pigs or humans. It is the prior stress that suppresses immune functions thus allowing other bugs to do their damage.

I think that swine SS seems to be a wonderful "animal model" that I should use, for what I have repeatedly said about 10,000 times on your blogsite for the last year plus, regarding stress being the leading factor, and leading directly to illness, with the obvious intense stress of an HIV or AIDS diagnosis, in conjunction with other stresses, as the prime causative factor leading to high susceptibilities to other common and uncommon OI's and thereby being the originating factor that is causing the illness and death that is claimed to be due to the yet unproven hyphothesis of HIV.

I most likely will need to repeat the stress thing about 10,000 more times around here before people understand its importance.

Very strange to me that doctors and those involved in science are unable to have compassion, understanding or even recognition of the stress that others less fortunate than themselves suffer from.

Very strange to me that doctors and those involved in science are unable to have compassion, understanding or even recognition of the stress that others less fortunate than themselves suffer from.

That may well be the height of arrogance. What you seem to miss, Michael, is that stress is only one part of the picture, and that even people under high levels of constant stress alone don't develop these diseases without the microbial factors present as well. That is, it doesn't, as you suggest, lead *directly* to illness at all, as I and others have explained to *you* 10,000 times now.

Michael wrote:

Very strange to me that doctors and those involved in science are unable to have compassion, understanding or even recognition of the stress that others less fortunate than themselves suffer from.

I understand I've been pretty stressed out this week...think
I'll treat myself to a ham sandwich.

By Dark Matter (not verified) on 10 Aug 2007 #permalink

Tara,

I realize you are likely far more consumed with interest in bio and bacteria with your eyes pressed up straining into a microscope, but have you not read about how emotional stress, depression, fear, etc., can cause severe immune depression and many other serious syndromes?

Are you really unaware that approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death?

It is frequently written about in the Grief/Death/Dying literature.

I certainly hope you will get sufficient time away from your microscope and bio-studies, and sufficient interest in this phenomenon that you might explore this and expand your horizons a bit. You certainly are not too old to learn something new.

I realize you are quite young and perhaps have even had a very idealistic type of protected and easy life compared to many, but Heaven forbid such things ever happen in your own family or circle or someone close to you and thereby take you or yours completely unaware from the lack of knowledge and understanding and preparedness of this simple stress issue that you yourself or someone you love may one day be dealing with!

And do consider how stressed you or they might be if you yourself or one of your own children one day had an HIV test turn positive! The shame! The guilt! The horror! The panic! Do you really have no clue of how intense this issue can be for many people? My oh my! Surely you are more worldly than that, Tara!

Really?

Michael, do you have any evidence to back up your claim that:

approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death?

It would be of interest to examine the epidemiolgic evidence that you find convincing for this claim, given that you are unconvinced by the evidence that HIV infection is a cause of immune deficiency.

Show us the evidence that convinces you that bereavement is a frequent cause of immune system failure leading to opportunistic infection and death.

Here you go Franklin P. Moore! And this is just a warm-up!

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:7AlAnqwfG2AJ:www.hwbf.org/ota/am/ot…

Notice the conclusion: Patients revealed that unemployment or ability to work was the most significant factor for the long cascade of events which followed. Loss of medical coverage was considered the second most devastating factor relating to their treatment outcome. Loss of spouse or companion was ranked the third. Patients were then graded 1 through 4, depending on how many of these three variables (employment, health insurance coverage, and loss of spouse or companion) remained: grade 1, 5; grade 2, 2; grade 3, 2, and grade 4, 27. Progression from grade 1 to grade 4 occurred characteristically during the first and second years after the onset of osteomyelitis.

Conclusion: The most frequent complications of chronic osteomyelitis are in the social sphere rather than the clinical.

And perhaps J. Franklin, you should check out "Helsing and Szklo, 1981"

However, some bereaved people are at increased risk for illness and even death. Bereavement can exacerbate existing illness and appears to have a role in precipitating new illness. Widowed men up to age 75 are about 1-1/2 times more likely to die than married men of the same age (Helsing and Szklo, 1981).

Michael,

Here is your original claim:

approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death

You have offered this as your supporting evidence:

However, some bereaved people are at increased risk for illness and even death. Bereavement can exacerbate existing illness and appears to have a role in precipitating new illness. Widowed men up to age 75 are about 1-1/2 times more likely to die than married men of the same age (Helsing and Szklo, 1981).

So far I see no evidence that 10% of widows or widowers die "because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on solely by the stress of loss and death".

Have you given up your "skepticism"? Or is this just another of your fantasies?

Franklin, I mean, JP Moore, you silly arrogant AIDS reality Denialist, why are you pretending to be stupid? Why don't you go find it for yourself. Your the one with all the time on your hands while waiting for your Hail Maryed vaginal ring jelled monkeys to fully cook, and you're the one with the access to all the journals, fool! But it is rather sweet of you to pretend you had some interest in the subject.

By the way, you ask me questions but avoid the questions I put to you on several occasions. Don't you think it is Time to for you to come clean?

Now, for the dozenth time, immediately tell us of all of your financial conflicts of interest to the pharmaceutical companies involved in HIV drugs?

I have been asking for quite some time and you keep avoiding and avoiding and avoiding the issue. By the way, did you enjoy your $500,000 gift from SmithKline?

Next of all, why do you have no evidence of HIV causing AIDS on your silly AIDSunTRUTH "science" site that no-one but you and your friends ever look at?

The whole site is just a big "whine fest" for threatened HIV researchers. Don't you think you should offer cheese and crackers to serve with your "whine"?

In other news, the New York Times reports that President Thabo Mbeki fired his incompetent health minister, after she spent $23,000 on a boondoggle trip to Spain with her family.

The revenge of Manto!

By Benson F. (not verified) on 12 Aug 2007 #permalink

Michael,

I have tried to find evidence for your claim, but I find no such evidence in the PubMed Database. Apparently, neither can you.

Your willingness to invent statistics about widows developing "opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death" continues to demonstrate the complete lack of a scientific basis for your denialist position.

Hey Franklin!

Your eagerness to make people believe you've tried to find evidence you've never tried to find at all identifies you as an eminent member of the "We don't want to debate because there's nothing to debate" scientific community imposters. Cheers to that!

By donttakemewrong (not verified) on 13 Aug 2007 #permalink

So Michael,

You still haven't found any papers to back up your claim that:

approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death

Just admit it--You made the whole thing up. Everyone already knows, anyway.

Hello Franklin. Thanks for remembering. I did spend about 3 minutes looking for it, but I kind of figured that if you had any genuine interest in knowing, you would find it yourself.

Quite often, I myself have felt frustrated and drained by all this so many times. It does not seem to be overly helpful to reach out to help or educate people who choose not to be helped or educated. My message has quite often been rejected by those who might most benefit from it. The only thing that gets me beyond this frustration, is my own understanding and experience as a gay man who has lived through all of this, that has shown me how very easy it is to become one of the sheepish followers of the majority, as well as how difficult it can be, to escape from societal and especially from ones own inner false beliefs.

And I do think that only by understanding the extenuating circumstances that created the HIV/AIDS phenomenon, can we go beyond our anger and apathy, to a place of tolerance and acceptance and understanding, and perhaps even to a place of forgiveness and love, where healing on all sides of this issue may be more easily accomplished.

As I have grown from having at one time been one of those sheep, blindly following the wrongheaded beliefs of others, to become more of a shepherd of the flock, I am now able to give a more complete understanding to those interested in obtaining such understanding.

To fully understand the entire issue and source of AIDS, one must look all the way back at some quite ancient human history. Back thousands of years ago, when it had been written in the "Book of Leviticus" that any man who sleeps with another man as he would with a woman is an abomination unto God, and should be stoned to death.

Although society has gotten beyond and ignores most all of the codes of law that were in this ancient book of rules that was meant for the priests of ancient Israel, mankind had very much held on to the belief in the wrongness and "sin" of homosexuality even into recent time, that was originally presented in this book of laws.

Herein lies the ancient beginnings of the programming of society to condemn gays to death, as well as the beginnings of the programming of gays to submit to kill themselves. And do remember that in the early life of most gay men affected by this issue, there was often an earlier child who was programmed to believe that all of the words of the Old Testament Bible are the words of their creator, and therefore are Ultimate Truth. So a child exposed to such religiosity and ancient dogma, who grew up to find himself gay, must therefore condemn himself to death.

Certainly, these ancient societal precursors to the current gay epidemic of death by the "high priests of Science and Medicine", put the fuel to the fire of the last 25 years, and set it alight.

Gays were just beginning to seek equal rights and freedom from persecution in the few short years before the Concept of Death by AIDS began. The religious right and "moral majority" made a huge societal impact in stirring up hatred and loathing for gays, with some even calling for a death penalty for homosexuals. It also further stirred self hatred and self loathing in the gays themselves. Every Sunday morning for many years you could tune in most any of the evangelists on your 3 channels of television that were available at the time, and hear for yourself the condemnation of homosexuals. Being gay and having at times tuned this in, I can only tell you that it was excrutiatingly painful to hear.

This religious condemnation became internalized in gays themselves. Homosexual sex was something to be deeply and painfully ashamed of. The ancient penalty for being shamed is banishment to die at the hands of nature.

Not all succumbed to this. Some threw away all concept of religion and religiosity. Many also threw away all concept of spiritual being. However, that left the sick or dying no chance to pray for healing as well. To them, God was nonexistent, or if such an entity existed, it seemingly certainly hated them. The struggle for self acceptance of gays for their very own selves was exceedingly painful for many. The result was often alcohol, drug and sex addiction as well as suicide or acceptance of the ancient curse of death for many of the most deeply shame based gays.

Notice that no such curse was put upon lesbians. And as such, lesbians, although they too often struggle for self acceptance, they did not succumb to any such inner program of death, for none had been given them.

So there you have it. Many people programmed to kill. Some people programmed to die.

Does it have to be? Only if such remains their belief. Or at least until make another choice, or until they awaken to the highest truth, as we ALL hold these truths to be self-evident, that All Men Are Created Equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And the struggle to attain these truths continues through-out the world to this day. And the struggle is not always so much with others in the external aspects of ones external world, but more often, it is a deeply personal struggle within ones very own soul and within ones very own sense of self and being. But any way you look at it, it is a struggle for a better future for ones own self, as well as for all of mankind.

Michael,

So the short answer is that you lied. You have no evidence to back up your claim spousal death commonly leads to fatal immunodeficiency.

You say you spent "about 3 minutes" looking for the evidence, but of course this is after the fact. You already made the claim nearly a week ago, further claiming that:

It is frequently written about in the Grief/Death/Dying literature."

Yeah, right.

Based upon your last post, I guess you're trying to explain your need to make up scientific-sounding statistics as a result of the self-loathing imposed by a homophobic society.

My advice is stop making up lies, no matter how comforting you find them. Do your best to face reality. I know it'll be frightening, but that is the reality you are living.

Franklin. Suck this:

http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/2_16Christakis.html

BOSTON-February 16, 2006-In the largest study ever to quantify caregiver burden and the widower effect, researchers found that for people aged 65 and older, hospitalization of a spouse can harm the wellbeing of his or her partner and significantly contribute to that partner's death. This risk also varies with the ill spouse's diagnosis. The study appears in the Feb. 16 New England Journal of Medicine.
"Our study shows that people are connected in such a fashion that the health of one person is related to the health of another," reports Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

Franklin. Your ongoing retort of "Your a liar" seems to be your only evidence that HIV is the cause of AIDS. You have yet to show anything more substantial.

By the way, Franklin, I am not sure if I asked you yet, but would you please share with us your conflicts of interest to the HIV issue?

I have been asking for several weeks, and you continue to ignore my question.

Michael,

Thanks for the refernce:

http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/2_16Christakis.html

It provides no support for your claim that:

approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death

Opportunistic infections are not mentioned at all, much less to claim that death of a spouse leads to a 10% risk of death from opportunistic infections within a year.

The more you continue to cite irrelevant studies that provide no evidence for your claim, the more clearly you prove that you have been lying, all along.

Just admit it, Michael. You were lying.

It's not the first time, and sadly, there is no reason to expect that it will be the last.

Just admit it, Michael. You were lying.
It's not the first time, and sadly, there is no reason to expect that it will be the last

Franklin,
tears are streaming down my face as I read your words. Oh, how could Michael be such a liar? It is so very sad!

Ok...I'm slowly composing myself again . Alright.
Umm...yeah. Ok. So, Michael was reaching. Which is nothing compared to being an AIDS propagandist like yourself.

No. Michael was lying. As he frequently does.

The fact that Dan is willing to ignore Michael's lies further exposes the intellectual bankruptcy of the Denialist position.

Franklin,

the dissidents are not of one mind. What Michael says about anything is his own.

I won't defend Michael, Gary Null, Duesberg, or any one else that Tara sets her AIDS propaganda beam on. They're all big boys and can take care of themselves.

Dan,

Michael routinely lies about the science, as he did with his claim of fatal immunodeficiency caused by the death of a spouse.

You defended his lying by saying that "So, Michael was reaching."

When you excuse Michael's lies simply because he, like you, denies the relationship between HIV and Immune Deficiency, you reveal the intellectual bankruptcy of your position.

You're a big boy, too. Why dfend the obvious lies of HIV denialists?

Franklin,

it took you all day for that response?

My post wasn't about Michael. It was about your response to Michael (note the sarcasm...directed at you).

Now, try as you will to project (and you will), the only bankruptcy going on is with you and your AIDS propagandist friends.

Franklin is just pissed that I have asked him about 25 times now to tell us what his conflicts of interest are to HIV.

His only response has been to change the subject and lash out with ad homs. Even if he makes himself look moore ignorant then he is by avoiding the stress and illness issues.

But it really is lots of fun for me to poke him about conflicts of interest, because he knows it is true, and his conflicts of interest over the years are quite vast. He is not only involved in the issue solely for money, he is in it mostly for personal ego and glory, but lots of money from pharma companies is wonderful too, now isn't it Mr. Franklin P. Gimme Moore and Moore?

One more time.

To whoever is posting as "FRANKLIN": What are your financial conflicts of interest to HIV?

(hurry Franklin, ignore the question and quickly change the subject again and lash out with another ad hom)

he is in it mostly for personal ego and glory

Oops.

I think he should seriously reconsider!

Dan,

You say that your post wasn't about Michael, yet the post states:

I won't defend Michael

Of course, this post was in defense of your earlier post, the one in which you defended Michael's lie as mere "reaching".

So does that mean that you now realize that Michael is lying? Or do you continue to defend his lies.

Franklin...pumpkin,

we could do this all day!

I don't actually know if Michael is lying. Do you?

It's merely my opinion that he was "reaching".

So, sweetheart, my original post was in response to your response to Michael. Now, do I need to further spoon-feed this to you?

Franklin, the following paper shows me to be more than honest!

http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/2_16Christakis.html

Further analyses also confirmed that the death of a spouse within the past 30 days was harmful. The death of a wife in the previous 30 days increased her husband's risk of death 53 percent, and the death of a husband increased his wife's risk of death by 61 percent.

But Franklin seems to think that the stress of a death diagnosis of HIV is not detrimental to a gay mans immune system.

What really BUGS Franklin to death, is that HE KNOWS I AM ABSOLUTELY CORRECT about something his own ego inflated, glory seeking, financial benefitting ass never even bothered to consider in twenty freaking years!

He also knows quite well that my revalations about mind and body and stress and AIDS put his entire little fragile eggshell world way up on the top a wall right next to Humpty Dumpty!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Humpty_Dumpty_Tenniel.jpg

Future generations will change the poem to:

Franklin Dumpty sat on a wall.
Franklin Dumpty had a big fall.

All of Bob Gallo's whoreses
and all Tony Fauci's NIAIDS men,

couldn't put Franklin together again!

What really BUGS Franklin to death, is that HE KNOWS I AM ABSOLUTELY CORRECT about something his own ego inflated, glory seeking, financial benefitting ass never even bothered to consider in twenty freaking years!

He and his AIDS propagandist friends know a LOT of things, Michael. They're simply in damage control mode these days.

I'm still not getting this glory thing, though. What "glory" is it for Franklin to be mucking around in this AIDS propaganda blog with a couple of homos?

Michael,

Once again, here is your claim:

Are you really unaware that approximately 1/10 of spouses die within a year of their loved one, not because of any pre-existing condition, but because of opportunistic infections due to a failing immune system brought on by the stress of loss and death?

It is frequently written about in the Grief/Death/Dying literature.

You support this claim with the following quote (from a press release):

Further analyses also confirmed that the death of a spouse within the past 30 days was harmful. The death of a wife in the previous 30 days increased her husband's risk of death 53 percent, and the death of a husband increased his wife's risk of death by 61 percent.

Where does it say that they have a severe immune deficiency? Where does it say they die of opportunistic infections? Where does it say that the immune deficiency is not due to any pre-existing condition but "brought on by the stress of loss and death". Where does it say that all of these horrible things happen to 10% of people who lose a spouse?

Keep defending your obvious lies. You only keep illustrating that you will make any claim that suits your rhetorical purpose, despite its lack of any basis in the medical literature or, indeed, in reality.

This is understandable because you are committed to the use of denial as a defense mechanism against the frightening implications of your lover's HIV infection. And for you to admit that even this obvious lie is a mere invention of your imagination becomes an admission that your lover faces a very serious health problem.

Although your need to deny your lies is understandable, it is not helpful. Unfortunatley for you, denying reality does not change reality. You are trying to run away from a very serious and scary situation in your personal life, and you have somehow convinced yourself that publicly denying the causal link between HIV and AIDS will help your lover.

Therefore you make up "staistics" about immune deficiency caused by bereavement, you make up lists of "sulfa-based antibiotics" that have no sulfa groups, you argue that Montagnier has never claimed that HIV causes AIDS or that lack of mosquito-borne transmission of HIV disproves its role in AIDS--In short you argue any false point that occurs to you as long as it helps you build up your pathologic defense mechanisms.

Dan thinks you are a big boy. Well, big boys have to face reality, even a reality that is unfair, frightening, and tragic. Time to stop lying, big boy.

You said: "I'm still not getting this "glory" thing.

You have to understand how his mind works. He seems to have a "shame based" personality, probably due to events as a child that caused him to feel unloved and "not good enough". Read John Bradbury: "Healing the Shame That Binds You".

Likely, as a child, he was either inadvertently shamed into feeling insufficient, or perhaps he lacked the loving attention of his wealthy parents who focused on money and themselves and things, instead of giving him the love and attention and acceptance he needed as a child. Likely, they shipped him off to boarding school quite young, further causing him to feel the pain of believing in his own insufficiency. He was not one of the overly popular kids, but he desparately wanted recognition. He focused on grades and did well. Though, no matter how high is grades, he always felt deep inside that he just was still not good enough, and if he just did more or studied harder, then he would be good enough. But the inner feelings of shame never left him. When he got out of school, he still suffered from this inner feeling of insufficiency. If he could just do something great for the world, then he would be good enough. AIDS came along. If he could find the cure, he would be the hero, and then he would be good enough.

Peter Duesberg came along, and then the HIV dissidents threatened that search for love and recognition. He lashed out at them. And so the focus changed. If he could stop the dissidents, then he would be the hero for stopping them. And he could still find the cure and be the world hero, and then he would be good enough.

Unfortunately, he can't see that his own ego is simply believing a lie that he is not good enough. It is looking externally for relief and can't see that a simple change of beliefs about himself would cure the incessant feelings of inner shame. He can't see that his parents treatment of him was about them, and not about him. That THEY were incapable of being loving and accepting due to the way they were raised. He can't see that he was always good enough, and did not need to get top grades, or save the world to save himself. He can't see that he was always a perfectly good enough, smart enough, and tough enough human being.

So, until he gets to the inner egoic lies that he needs to correct, he will continue to act out in such strange ways as to think he must do or be something more to be good enough or to be deserving of love and respect.

You will notice, Dan, that several top scientists had this same problem. Gallo himself has exactly the same problem. So does Wainberg.

Not much any of us can do, except to beware of what is going on inside these men, and do our best to protect our own selves from the result of their inner difficulties. They have this in common with many gays, as gay men also quite often feel that they too, are not good enough and don't deserve to be loved.

The problem is egoic, Dan. Pure and simple. Is there a cure for this? Many have found healing in spiritual realms of understanding. Or in reaching out for the highest truth that is usually found in the more "spiritual" realms of understanding, love, acceptance, tolerance, forgiveness, by what could be termed a "divine presence" or "source of all" or "higher power". Call it nature, call it God, call it inner soul, call it life, whatever you call it, whatever ones own inner concept is, it is still the same thing. At any rate, many have found inner peace and growth and healing by reaching out to such.

Dan thinks you are a big boy. Well, big boys have to face reality, even a reality that is unfair, frightening, and tragic. Time to stop lying, big boy.

You're a hoot, Franklin!

But you are right about a reality that is unfair, frightening and tragic. We can thank AIDS propagandists like yourself for that "reality".

Franklin. You said:

"Although your need to deny your lies is understandable, it is not helpful. Unfortunatley for you, denying reality does not change reality. You are trying to run away from a very serious and scary situation in your personal life, and you have somehow convinced yourself that publicly denying the causal link between HIV and AIDS will help your lover."

Well your absolutely right. Just what was I thinking? Was I thinking that he could grow to learn how we all manifest the circumstances of our own realities? Was I thinking I could wake him to understanding the power of his thoughts and mind and beliefs? Was I thinking I could waken him to see that his own shame and guilt and fear driven ego was running his life and creating the havoc he was facing?

Well I must have been completely mad, because no-one wakes up to that reality until they choose it, and not one moment before it is time for them to do so. When the student is ready, the teacher appears! And the very idea that I could ever save him from death? Or that YOU could possibly kill him! How absurd. We all die one day, when it is time. What difference does it make in the grand scheme of things if his time is sooner than later? Or by what means one exits this life. Matters not at all in the scheme of the universe. Not at all!

I kid you not! I certainly was out of my mind!

But I grew a lot from the experience of a lover diagnosed as HIV. It actually helped me to release and free myself of many of my own fears, and my own ego, and helped me to gain more courage, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, and acceptance. Not that I am not still working on all of those issues, and fortunately, I still have you to help me work through some of them with! You have certainly offered me situations to grow from in love and acceptance, and forgiveness and tolerance and patience. And I do thank you for your part in the experiences. So it seems obvious to me at least, that these very issues were and are in my own life for good reason! And there is precious little of any of my past that I would ever want to change. And as such, I can barely wait to see what adventures and excitement the future will hold as long as I am yet alive!

Michael you told us last week AIDS in Africa and TB in Africa and malaria in Africa are all because theres too many Africans in your opinion.

But I showed you death rates increased after 1980 even when you correct for population increase. Not just a little bit like massively in sexually active age groups.

You said TB was always a big problem in AFrica, nothing changed with HIV.

I showed you the numbers, TB was going DOWN until 1986 and TB was NOT a problem in Africa until Europeans showed up to colonize brought the infection with them.

Michael I asked you what you know about AFrica if you've been there if you know about clean water or sanitation or public health ANYWHERE in africa and how its changed in that area better or worse. And why you say African's reproduce too much?

You didn't respond to anything. You just made this stuff up and now your eugenics crap is starting to piss me off.

Michael,

You will know you have grown from the experience when you can address your situation honestly, without making up scientific lies to protect you from reality.

When it no longer makes you feel safer to claim that Montagnier has never claimed that HIV is the cause of AIDS, you will know that you have grown.

When it no longer makes you feel safer to claim that fatal opportunistic infections are commonly the direct result of the death of a spouse, you will know you have grown.

When it no longer makes you feel safe to claim that HIV does not cause AIDS, you will know you have grown.

Michael,

Applying post modernist thinking to science or reality don't change them. It is just denying reality.

It certainly doesn't change the fact that you have no evidence for your claims, or that the totality of scientific evidence and research (something you once said was important) wholeheartedly supports the theory of HIV as the cause of AIDS.

By Robster, FCD (not verified) on 20 Aug 2007 #permalink