[Leica] AIDS and STD's: [WAS: Chernobyl Legacy]

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

At 09:01 PM 4/25/06 -0700, Adam Bridge wrote:

>For a long time I worried that AIDS was a test vector for a biological
>weapon gone astray. I guess they have proved it isn't.

While this is an interesting point, it does bring to mind that the panic
over any given development of technology or mishap of nature does not
necessarily mean the end of humanity.

Almost all of us are naturally immune to sexually transmitted diseases,
including AIDS.  I am NOT suggesting that engaging in the sort of wild sex
you guys seem to enjoy without protection is wise, as who wants to push the
envelope of risk?  But, in the end, epidemiology has concluded that most of
us are not at risk to contract such diseases as, if the reverse were true,
then the human race would have had close to a 100% rate for syphilis and
the like centuries ago, and the same for AIDS.  In other words, the average
human seems to bear some immunity to these diseases and the immunity to
these increases with time.  Those liable to contract it die off, and those
resistant to it survive.  Darwin, and all of that evolution stuff.

The idea that AIDS is a biological weapon run amok is an interesting one
but not likely as it has no ready antidote, and that is the entire idea of
a real biolgoical weapon:  you need something to make the enemy IMMEDIATELY
ill and yet of a nature allowing a ready cure once you have occupied their
country.  An ideal such weapon would be a virus which would afflict the
populace of an enemy state with a heavy stomach flu which results in
retching and cramps and the outhouse-scoots and the like, then the nation
is occupied, and the antidote is applied.  AIDS takes years after infection
to develop, and so is a most unlikely weapon and its transmission vector is
also rather unwieldy.  (Does anyone else on the LUG recall Zappa's
THINGFISH?  Galoot Cologne, indeed!)

Of course, the Christers jumped on the initial syphilis epidemic in France
in the 1600's as a sign of God's wrath on wordly intempereance, precisely
as their successors today swear that AIDS is proof that God condemns
homosexuality.  The logical proof for this escapes me, but, then, I am a
theological amatuer at the best of it.  I spent too many years studying
ancient philosophy and reading the Bible in the original to understand some
of the interpretations given it over the years as these interpretations
both defy logic and offend the text to satisfy me.  But, again, what do I
know?

A cousin of mine died in 1981 of a then-undiagnosed illness which we now
know to be AIDS.  He was not the first, but he was toward the first of the
line to die from AIDS in this nation.  And my sister died of Hodgkin's in
1975.  Had either contracted their illnesses three or four or five years
later than they did, they both would probably be around today, given the
progress in treatment.  As it is, they are among the very few in my family
tree to have reached adulthood and to have died young:  most of us linger
on into our 80's with bad habits such as smoking and drinking and die in a
fit of pique at watching the news.  I might end up as yet another Eternal
Photographer as is Ted Grant.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!