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6117. thoughtful - 6/9/2004 6:44:42 AM Maybe it's homeopathy...I know it's some kind of pathogen. ;-)
6118. arkymalarky - 6/9/2004 6:48:25 AM I know they do, Robert, but I've truly been plagued with this stuff, knowing I was allergic, but trying to use a prescription and otc stuff to deal with it, to the point I have to try to stop the reactions somehow. I told Bob and my parents the other day that I literally never feel good any more. One thing about being in a small area, I can find out about pretty much any doctor I go to, and I also have a dependable GP who sent me to him. In addition, I itched so badly from the test that I thought I was going to go ape before they put a topical antihistimine on it--thirty minutes later.
The precaution for stings is sensible, because reactions can be deadly so fast. 6119. arkymalarky - 6/9/2004 6:50:24 AM In fact, this allergist told me sinus cavities pretty much keep him in business and that not having developed frontal sinuses just meant I had less problems to deal with than I would if I had them. 6120. robertjayb - 6/9/2004 6:59:23 AM 50 new stem cell lines? (Boston Globe)
A private Chicago fertility clinic is set to announce this week that its scientists have isolated 50 new lines of human embryonic stem cells, part of an ambitious effort to create specialized colonies of cells that could help uncover cures for muscular dystrophy and other genetic diseases.
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The Chicago effort comes about as the president's ban on funding of research using new embryonic stem-cell lines is being subjected to increasing criticism, even from conservative politicians. On Friday, 14 Republicans were among 58 senators who sent a letter to the White House asking the president to relax the restrictions.
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Could be good news but research results announced in this fashion should be regarded as suspect, IMHO. 6121. robertjayb - 6/9/2004 7:03:15 AM did you close your tags? 6122. robertjayb - 6/9/2004 7:03:58 AM No, dummy, you did not. 6123. robertjayb - 6/9/2004 7:05:02 AM and why not? 6124. robertjayb - 6/9/2004 7:07:02 AM because i'm stupid... 6125. KuligintheHooligan - 6/12/2004 1:06:07 AM I would be very interested in comments anyone could make on the articles I am referencing below. I recently had a friend tell me that HIV does not cause AIDS, and he provided some links to that affect. Of course, I thought he was just as nuts to say that as was the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, who said similar things a few years ago. However, the articles below cause me to ponder anew the whole matter.
I am no expert on these things, of course, but anyone who would like to take the time to read the articles and make any substantive comments (particularly if they can spot fallacies in the arguments used in the articles) would be most helpful. Thanks.
http://www.duesberg.com/subject/africa2.html
http://www.duesberg.com/viewpoints/kintro.html
6126. KuligintheHooligan - 6/12/2004 1:09:50 AM If the above piques your interest, take a look at this site:
http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data2/introduction.htm 6127. judithathome - 6/12/2004 1:55:14 AM Kuligan's links from the above posts:
# 1
# 2
# 3
6128. judithathome - 6/12/2004 1:59:15 AM Those are very interesting links, Kuligin, but none seems to be more recent than 2000. 6129. robertjayb - 6/17/2004 9:03:29 AM An epidemic of diabetes? Wot the hell? Diabetes isn't contagious.
FORT DEFIANCE, Ariz. (AP) -- Tyrone Davis already stopped at a gas station near the Arizona-New Mexico state line and again minutes later at a store in Window Rock, but the bathroom breaks didn't help. The next day, the burly Navajo man was in the emergency room -- and among the latest to join the diabetes epidemic sweeping Indian tribes.
Despite years of efforts by federal health officials and millions of dollars for treatment, the number of Indians with diabetes has more than doubled over the past decade to more than 107,000 cases.
6130. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:19:06 PM "epidemic" does not imply contagion. It's accurate to apply it to a health- or lifestyle-related problem. 6131. Ulgine Barrows - 6/17/2004 5:37:38 PM I had to wait in several restrooms, in the time I spent in the Navaho Nation. The way those women washed their hands? Conservationists.
They need water.
Diabetes. Give water. 6132. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:43:19 PM With respect to whether AIDS is caused by a virus, there is no doubt or ambiguity whatsoever. (excepting people who believe the earth is flat, or who do not "believe in" evolution, for example.)
There is however a huge ambiguity, in epidemiological terms, with respect to diagnosis in poor countries. The symptoms of AIDS are many, varied and often non-specific; testing for it is complicated and very expensive. As a result, there is a tendency to categorise any undiagnosed illness as AIDS, therefore undoubtedly to overstate the numbers of HIV-positive people in Africa, simply because there is no way of accurately knowing. However, the fact that there is an AIDS epidemic in Africa, and that there are millions of Africans infected with the HIV virus, is undeniable.
To use the ambiguity about numbers, as some seem to do, to attack public health measures aimed at getting treatment to the millions of Africans who will die without it, strikes me as being most likely ideologically motivated. It reminds me somewhat of those "historians" who quibble about whether the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was nearer to five or six million, in order to deny finally that the Holocaust ever happened. 6133. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 5:44:06 PM Diabetes. Give water.
Bullshit. Diabetes. Stop eating shit food. 6134. Ulgine Barrows - 6/17/2004 6:05:35 PM Baby, did you ever live with someone who had diabetes?
What's your defintion of shit food. 6135. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 6:11:04 PM An epidemic of diabetes among a specific population (as opposed to a particular individual, where the causes might be quite specific and not necessarily diet related) is diet related. I'm willing to bet that the Navajo population in question used to eat better than they do now. Possibly, for example, they are losing their traditional eating habits and foods; possibly they have entered the cash economy and can afford stuff they couldn't before; many reasons are possible, but the direct cause is going to be diet. 6136. alistairConnor - 6/17/2004 6:14:09 PM I actually shared a house for a couple of years with a woman whose parents and sister were obese, and diabetics. She was solidly built to start with; she ate lots of refined foods, absurd amounts of sugar in her tea, etc. and became obese before my eyes. She was lucid about it, and aware that she would become diabetic, partly because of her heredity, partly because of her behaviour.
It made me very sad. I lost contact with her, but I have no doubt that she's a diabetic now. Unless she had a psychoanalysis or something, instead.
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