Microbiologist traces possible origin of AIDS epidemic to WWI soldier

[+ sniper]

I am not going to blame the AIDS epidemic on gay promiscuity.

There were multiple factors. This was pretty clearly one of them. It's not a moral judgment on non-monogamy, it's a clinical matter of transmission risk. Absent those large numbers of overlapping/repeating partners the virus would not have spread as widely as it did. A large part of the reason that it didn't get a foothold in the straight population is that straight people in aggregate, even when they have a lot of partners, tend not to go back to past ones(with exceptions obviously), meaning less opportunity for spread.

[Monarchy79]

I so envy your verbiage skills.

 

How kind of you!!!

 

With that said....

 

Make sure to ignore any grammatical or spelling errors in my posts (just blame it on Siri ?)

[Monarchy79]

I am not going to blame the AIDS epidemic on gay promiscuity.

 

Good point.

Blaming AIDS on gay promiscuity, is just as ridiculous as blaming overpopulation on heterosexual promiscuity....

 

????

[Monarchy79]

Well, it sure as fuck didn’t help.

 

We must embrace the truth, even when we don’t like it.

 

That’s somewhat of a fact, but it’s not the “truth”.

 

With the psycho-social way the people interact, it’s quite easy to cause a spread of any disease through any form of contact. Many studies have proven this to be effective in just about every group, based on sexual orientation, ethnicity, or geographical background.

 

The truth is that humans are sexual creatures.

Although the media (along with historically damaging stereotypes), depicted gay men as being uncontrollable sexual deviants. The truth is that ALL groups have an innate inability to abstain from sex, even in the midst of a health crisis.

 

Just think about how many children were born from all of the heterosexual sex had during the current pandemic... I’m sure they weren’t vaccinated at the time of conception, and I’m sure they weren’t wearing masks while having sex either.

 

So while the Grindr and other apps were exploding with the gays, the Tinder and Plenty of Fish Apps we’re also exploding for the straights.

 

Now don’t get me wrong... I can be a bit frustrated with the overall sexual irresponsibly I witness in the gay community, but sexual irresponsibility is global.

 

The straights use the “Pill”, just as the gays treat “PrEP” (let’s ditch the condoms and focus on only preventing ONE thing, while the rest of STDs spread)

 

Both the straights and the gays operate with a mindset of sexual “positivity”, without “responsibility”, and will accuse anyone who has a different view of sex as “judgmental”.

 

It’s basically human nature for people to rationalize their bullshit, and defend any of their actions, because their desires and immediate satisfaction, always come first.

[+ Lucky]

Good point.

Blaming AIDS on gay promiscuity, is just as ridiculous as blaming overpopulation on heterosexual promiscuity....

 

????

AIDS is caused by a virus. Period.

[+ sniper]

That there are reasons for particular behavior patterns doesn't mean those behavior patterns in themselves don't have consequences. If you drink because your parents didn't love you or you drink just because you like drinking, and get behind the wheel of a car amd crash it, it was still your drinking that caused the accident.

[marylander1940]

Well, it sure as fuck didn’t help.

 

We must embrace the truth, even when we don’t like it.

 

yes, no slut shaming but accepting facts like you say!

 

HIV is usually transmitted by sex, it's a fact. Our condomless promiscuity (once it became clear condoms were needed for anal sex) made the spread of a preventable disease easier.

 

PrEP has certainly changed reality but other STDs are on the rise.

Edited February 2, 2021 by marylander1940

[+ Charlie]

Well Charlie, it’s a possibility that they weren’t smart enough to realize those facts.

 

Or they possibly considered those facts and thought the collateral damage of just a few outliers that could possibly be exposed, wouldn’t cause much of an impact to human kind.

 

The government could have thought that infecting gay men could be contained in this experiment, as similar experiments with diseases have been successful with containment with targeted groups in the past; hence, The Tuskegee Experiment.....

I do get tired of writers referring to "the government" as "they," as if "the government" were a human being or group of people who all thought alike, which is a logical fallacy. Decisions about government actions have to be made by the responsible individuals or committees, and when one ascribes particular activities to "the government," they ought to be prepared to name names and back it up with evidence, or with at least reasonable deductions. The assumption that "the government" wanted to perform an experiment which they expected would harm or kill a specific group of citizens, and that those who would perform the experiment were capable of inventing the agent and carrying out the execution, undetected at any time by any other members of "the government," is pretty far-fetched, especially at a time when many homosexuals who worked for the government were closeted. They would need at least one willing and able scientist (probably many) to produce the agent, plus the cooperation of those whose responsibility it was to carry out the transmission of the agent to the intended target, and someone capable of monitoring the result. That scientists would be incapable of recognizing the likelihood of serious collateral damage, for which they had no remedy, is also unlikely (they didn't know that gay men had sex with non-gay men and women, or that they might be drug-users who shared needles?!) There is also the matter of finding a medication that was only given to gay men (?), and finding a way to "taint" it with the virus so that it would work to infect the gay men who got it. This whole experiment does not in an way resemble the "Tuskegee Experiment," except in that the subjects did not know that they were being used in a way that the experimenters knew would be harmful to them.

 

Of course, if you can believe in the above conspiracy theory, you can probably believe that Jewish blue lasers caused the California wildfires, which is based on the same kinds of assumptions.

Edited February 2, 2021 by Charlie

[Luv2play]

Right - the Windsors were originally from Haus Hanover. The last Hanoverian Monarch was Queen Victoria. Edward VII, Victoria's oldest son, was the first Saxe-Coburg. They changed their name to Windsor in WWI.

 

The Mountbattens were originally Battenberg.

 

Queen Victoria also married a German prince so that just reinforced the German blood in the family line. Her progeny included Tsar Nicholas of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and George V of Britain, who all looked alike. In World War One, they were on opposite sides, two to one. It was Wilhelm who held Victoria as she lay dying. He certainly became the black sheep within a dozen years.

[Rudynate]

yes, no slut shaming but accepting facts like you say!

 

HIV is usually transmitted by sex, it's a fact. Our condomless promiscuity (once it became clear condoms were needed for anal sex) made the spread of a preventable disease easier.

 

PrEP has certainly changed reality but other STDs are on the rise.

 

 

I never use the word "promiscuity." It's too value-laden. I like "sexually active." Descriptive without judging.

[marylander1940]

I never use the word "promiscuity." It's too value-laden. I like "sexually active." Descriptive without judging.

 

Makes sense.

 

From now on I'll use the words "sexual activity".

 

Thank you!

 

Search results for query: promiscuity | M4M Message Forum (m4m-forum.org)

[Monarchy79]

I do get tired of writers referring to "the government" as "they," as if "the government" were a human being or group of people who all thought alike, which is a logical fallacy.

 

I can understand that.

I’ll admit that I do see “the government” as an entity, comprised of decision makers, who link with critical stakeholders (usually fueled by money, or some other benefit), to make decisions (and create smokescreens), bestowed upon the rest of us.

[Monarchy79]

Decisions about government actions have to be made by the responsible individuals or committees.

"

 

You can’t possibly believe that, especially after experiencing 4 years of “government actions”, being made during the Trump Era....

[+ Charlie]

"

 

You can’t possibly believe that, especially after experiencing 4 years of “government actions”, being made during the Trump Era....

The President is a "responsible individual" in the technical sense, not in the sense of necessarily behaving "responsibly." Likewise, his appointees and other civil servants are "responsible for" their actions. Words can have more than one meaning, which is why I used the wording "the responsible individual or committees" rather than just "responsible individuals."

[Monarchy79]

The President is a "responsible individual" in the technical sense, not in the sense of necessarily behaving "responsibly." Likewise, his appointees and other civil servants are "responsible for" their actions. Words can have more than one meaning, which is why I used the wording "the responsible individual or committees" rather than just "responsible individuals."

 

Ahh.... I totally get it now...☺️??.... thanks for clarifying, as I now see your perspective clearly now.

[liubit]

Queen Victoria also married a German prince so that just reinforced the German blood in the family line. Her progeny included Tsar Nicholas of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and George V of Britain, who all looked alike. In World War One, they were on opposite sides, two to one. It was Wilhelm who held Victoria as she lay dying. He certainly became the black sheep within a dozen years.

Just a small precision. Both King George V and Kaiser Wilhelm were Queen Victoria’s grandsons, but Tsar Nicholas II was not a descendant of hers. His wife, born Alix of Hesse, was Victoria’s maternal granddaughter. And yes, Nicholas and George looked like twins, but that can be explained because their mothers were sisters, from the Danish royal family: Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, and Empress Marie, wife of Tsar Alexander III.

[Luv2play]

Just a small precision. Both King George V and Kaiser Wilhelm were Queen Victoria’s grandsons, but Tsar Nicholas II was not a descendant of hers. His wife, born Alix of Hesse, was Victoria’s maternal granddaughter. And yes, Nicholas and George looked like twins, but that can be explained because their mothers were sisters, from the Danish royal family: Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, and Empress Marie, wife of Tsar Alexander III.

Thanks for the clarification. I was commenting off the top of my head and forgot about Willy being an in-law.?

[liubit]

Thanks for the clarification. I was commenting off the top of my head and forgot about Willy being an in-law.?

Nicky...

[+ PapaTony]

I would have to read the book to make an informed opinion or judgment but it seems to have taken a long time for the infection to spread beyond Africa from 1921 to 1980. Africa really opened up in the 20th century after the First World War to European and American tourists (like Ernest Hemmingway) so for this virus not to have spread earlier and more widely seems to defy logic.

My initial thought as well

[Rudynate]

My initial thought as well

 

I don't remember where I read it, but I read a proposed timeline for the spread of HIV and it seems plausible. The original zoonotic transmission is postulated to have occurred in about 1925 in a very isolated region. Because the region was so isolated, transmission among humans was initially very slow and limited to the original region for many years. Gradually it spread to larger cities and it is thought to have entered the US in around 1975. One needs to remember that HIV, while extremely virulent, is not that infectious. For it to spread rapidly would require exceptional circumstances - exactly the circumstances that it found when it became established in the gay male population of the 70s in the US - a highly mobile, very sexually active population.

[Luv2play]

I don't remember where I read it, but I read a proposed timeline for the spread of HIV and it seems plausible. The original zoonotic transmission is postulated to have occurred in about 1925 in a very isolated region. Because the region was so isolated, transmission among humans was initially very slow and limited to the original region for many years. Gradually it spread to larger cities and it is thought to have entered the US in around 1975. One needs to remember that HIV, while extremely virulent, is not that infectious. For it to spread rapidly would require exceptional circumstances - exactly the circumstances that it found when it became established in the gay male population of the 70s in the US - a highly mobile, very sexually active population.

That’s always been my thinking on the subject. Since I started thinking about it many years ago. Haven’t seen anything to change that yet.

[+ sync]

I do get tired of writers referring to "the government" as "they," as if "the government" were a human being or group of people who all thought alike, which is a logical fallacy. Decisions about government actions have to be made by the responsible individuals or committees, and when one ascribes particular activities to "the government," they ought to be prepared to name names and back it up with evidence, or with at least reasonable deductions. The assumption that "the government" wanted to perform an experiment which they expected would harm or kill a specific group of citizens, and that those who would perform the experiment were capable of inventing the agent and carrying out the execution, undetected at any time by any other members of "the government," is pretty far-fetched, especially at a time when many homosexuals who worked for the government were closeted. They would need at least one willing and able scientist (probably many) to produce the agent, plus the cooperation of those whose responsibility it was to carry out the transmission of the agent to the intended target, and someone capable of monitoring the result. That scientists would be incapable of recognizing the likelihood of serious collateral damage, for which they had no remedy, is also unlikely (they didn't know that gay men had sex with non-gay men and women, or that they might be drug-users who shared needles?!) There is also the matter of finding a medication that was only given to gay men (?), and finding a way to "taint" it with the virus so that it would work to infect the gay men who got it. This whole experiment does not in an way resemble the "Tuskegee Experiment," except in that the subjects did not know that they were being used in a way that the experimenters knew would be harmful to them.

 

Of course, if you can believe in the above conspiracy theory, you can probably believe that Jewish blue lasers caused the California wildfires, which is based on the same kinds of assumptions.

Remember how Agent Orange backfired?

[+ Charlie]

Remember how Agent Orange backfired?

Yes, but Agent Orange was never intended to be used against American citizens. There is a difference between a government experiment that has unintended consequences and one that is intended to harm the government's own citizens, as your scenario posits for AIDS.

[+ Charlie]

Remember how Agent Orange backfired?

Yes, but Agent Orange was never intended to be used against American citizens. There is a difference between a government experiment that has unintended consequences and one that is intended to harm the government's own citizens, as your scenario posits for AIDS.

[+ sniper]

The idea that it not being curable or having a vaccine yet is evidence of some conspiracy requires believing THOUSANDS of people at various independent research facilities worldwide have all been actively suppressing this cure or vaccine, and that simply makes zero sense whatsoever. Someone would have leaked it out by now.