Political incorrectness & HIV

June 23, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

I recently became aware of a book by  Helen Epstein entitled "The
Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." In good
journalist style Epstein documents the drop in AIDS cases in Uganda during the
mid-80’s and 90’s, and goes to learn for herself if there is an answer to the
world crisis. She finds one, and nobody is talking about it. At a conference a
couple of years ago I met a man recently retired from the CDC in Atlanta. I
asked if he was involved in AIDS research at the CDC, and indeed he was. I then
asked him to comment on the Ugandan phenomenon, and he didn’t know what I was
talking about. He was intrigued to hear that there was a significant drop in
infection for a decade there, but I think also a little incredulous. Why was he
hearing of this for the first time from someone outside the Center? I was asking
myself the same question.

The CDC has good information on AIDS and
transmission of HIV, but you have to read between the lines to get what is
actually happening. It begins with the following:

HIV is spread by sexual contact with an infected person, by
sharing needles and/or syringes (primarily for drug injection) with someone who
is infected, or, less commonly (and now very rarely in countries where blood is
screened for HIV antibodies), through transfusions of infected blood or blood
clotting factors. Babies born to HIV-infected women may become infected before
or during birth or through breast-feeding after birth.

OK, so HIV is spread by sex, needles, blood transfusion,
during pregnancy, delivery, and breast feeding, six basic ways. Research has
documented many ways in which HIV is NOT spread, and these include casual
kissing, skin contact, mosquitoes,
pets , and toilet seats. It has rarely occurred by French kissing or biting,
and that was in the case of blood transfer.

It only spreads through the transfer of infected body
fluids. Which ones?"HIV is found in varying concentrations or amounts in blood,
semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, saliva, and tears." Six body fluids, and the
article later makes clear that they are listed in the order in which
concentration is found. The fluids must be living, human fluids. Once the fluid
dries, it can not infect. It cannot reproduce itself outside of a host human.
(That’s why it’s called HUMAN Immunodeficiency Virus.) Environmental transmission
is "essentially zero." Finding the source of the epidemic requires some
detective work, but is quite logical.

"Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown
to result in transmission of HIV," so we are down to blood, semen, vaginal
fluid, and breast milk. Blood transfusions are quite safe now, because the virus
is relatively large and easy to filter from collected blood. Dirty needles are
used primarily in illegal contexts, so the epidemic is essentially traceable to
sexual contact.

It is a tragedy that some infants are born HIV positive or
catch it from the birth process or nursing. We need to find cures for their
sake, if no other, but this is not the infection responsible for the world-wide
epidemic. How did the mother become HIV positive?

Research
indicates that "women are very unlikely to pass HIV on  to another woman in
any sexual contact." There is minuscule transfer of body fluid, and infected
vaginal fluid is relatively low in concentration. That means that if we are
tracing the epidemic, the transfer is from a male to the female via sexual
penetration. How did the male become HIV positive?

It is possible for a male to catch HIV from a female,
more-so if the male is uncircumcised, but the risk is still low.
That means that in terms of an epidemic the male got it from another male. How
did the male get it from another male? We know that anal penetration is the highest sexual risk. Add to this that one can only catch HIV from someone who has HIV, and we know the culprit of the epidemic is male-male anal sex with multiple partners.

By coming to male-male transfer we complete the
investigation, because the cycle is endless at this juncture: There would be no
epidemic if male-male sex with multiple partners was halted.

The above argument does not condemn homosexual behavior in
general: the logic is not based on religion or morality. Regardless, the
conclusion is politically incorrect, because it lays the blame on a behavioral
"right." I am not so naive as to think we can simply say "stop," and it is done.
Epstein proposes a social solution. But it is not being done. Something is wrong
when a society that gives a "right" to a behavior that hurts the society.

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