Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

Greg Pavlov:
Yes, the Great Communicator sure let his unthoughts
be known about HIV, tho I notice that the right wing was
very unhappy that that might be presented on TV: history
is being rewritten as we speak :-)
But otherwise you are grossly generalizing and in the
process blaming the victim. Speaking for the US, large
numbers of people most certainly did change their
sexual practices, reducing the transmission rate among
adults. Teens are another story, but I highly suspect
that you were omnipotent in those days as well.
Remember that HIV can be resident for a number of
years before manifesting itself via AIDS, so by the time
we understood what was going on, it was way too late
for a large number of people. Among them were a good
number of hemophiliacs and survivors of operations:
their "practice" consisted of receiving blood transfusions.
Do you have an idea of what percentage of the hemo-
philiacs in this country died of AIDS ? And let's not forget
that a lot of kids who have AIDS "practiced" nothing more
than making the mistake of being born to someone with HIV.


Reagan was not alone in condemning people to infectious disease. But,
however much I dislike him it wasn't him I had in mind. Mind you I have no
axes to grind in this matter. No one in my immediate family has yet
contracted HIV. But while, as you correctly point out, there was a large
change in the incidences of several STD's that was apparently linked to
behavioral changes in this nation, those markers are sadly creeping upward
again. And so is the incidence of HIV infection. This concerns me at more
than a professional level. It concerns me as a parent.

But there are other places where the disease has already decimated most of a
generation. And one has to ask how many people were infected due to refusal
to follow even the simplest of prevention guidelines by many people.

I'm aware of the risk that hemophiliacs and others dependent upon blood
products incurred. I was actively involved in transfusion medicine in the
'80's and served as a county ARC information coordinator ( or some other
officious title that gave me access to every bit of information ARC had at
the time). I think we probably both know the amount of political and social
infighting that was involved with changing and tightening donor screening
and blood processing regulations. For every Reagan or bible thumper who was
happy to see homosexuals die as a result of their activity, there was also a
member of the gay community trying to prevent being exposed by someone doing
epidemiologic follow-ups. There's sufficient blame to go around.

I can't tell you how many hemophiliacs died of acquired HIV infection. If I
took the time to do a search I could come up with an approximate number.
The answer if too many, and that applies also to transfusion acquired
patients. But I'm also aware of how much effort was put into finding and
fixing the source of infections. No test for infection was perfect then and
none is today. The fact that people then and now would donate blood,
knowing that they were at risk of being infectious rather than answering the
questionaire correctly astounds me.

Teens are a real problem. I was not ommipotent but but since I was already
involved in the clinical lab I had a better idea of VD incidence than most
of my peers. That knowledge served me well.



--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Drowning flies to Darkstar

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/stevglo/i...age92kword.htm

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

"slenon" wrote in message
...
Bizarre? Hm.....malaria, influenza, yellow fever, dengue, typhus,
typhoid,
the plagues, cholera.....pick any two from the (woefully incomplete)
list....add up the numbers, and a LACK of interest is truly bizarre.
Hell,
the first two alone have killed more people in some individual decades
than
all of the patriots in the history of the world combined.
Wolfgang

So what do you suggest we do to arouse public interest?

I don't have any suggestions. Public interest waxes and wanes periodically
for reasons having to do primarily with selfish interest. There was an
extraoridary interest in influenza here in the U.S (among other places) back
in aabout 1918-1919. Each year, about this time, interest spikes......but
there is only one thing that will cause it to return to the levels of those
days. Fortuantely, for those who feel a desire to raise the level of public
awareness, that thing WILL come again.

Having experienced malaria, I'm quite interested in preventing it.

Good luck. The single best weapon against malaria, DDT, is somewhat out of
favor these days for reasons that are understandable and mostly, but not
quite all, valid. Various other means of controlling the vectors can be
successful, in varying degrees and for finite (sometimes surprisingly short)
periods, but even in the best case experience has shown that any and all
measures dreamed up to date are insufficient for a number of
reasons.....some of them surmountable, should the political will exist, and
others completely intractable. For example, and this is only one of many
(and not necessarily the toughtest), malaria carrying mosquitoes have been
eliminated from many areas in which they were once endemic, but they can
come back. And in the meantime, a population that once had a partial
immunity to malaria due to long exposure becomes the biological equivalent
of a dry hay field in the path of a brush fire on a very windy day in a very
dry season. It doesn't take long.....a few years. Meanwhile, people in
malaria free zones are complacent. Can't really blame them, complacency is
what every person with a heart feels people deserve.....it's just that's
it's a bit premature.

Having been vaccinated for
Yellow Fever, Typhus, Plague, Cholera, and repeatedly for Typhoid and
Influenza, I've subjected my body to preventative mechanisms.

You're rich. It's nice to be rich. Being poor, on the other hand, really
sucks.

Yet public
health funding and practice is not only a back burner item

It varies considerably from place to place and time to time. Public health
funding here in the U.S., for instance, is actually very high. You just
don't see a lot of it because of the purloined letter principle. The
greatest boons to public health in history are an assured supply of clean
drinking water, adequate sewage treatment, and wetland drainage. The first
two, along with other "sanitary" waste disposal (which also ranks high on
the public health list) are taken for granted here largely because they are
ubiquitous, have been in place for generations and are dealt with by an
entrenched, highly efficient, and largely invisible beaurocracy. But it
doesn't come cheap.

but often
willfully resented as intrusive.

Yep. It's a trade-off. Remember the fluoridation debates? You interested
in having someone dressed in a moon suit walk into your house and spray
everything.....and everybody....in sight with things whose names you can't
pronounce?

Even physicians still resist filing the
necessary communcable STD reports that local health departments need to
accurately treat and track these and other diseases.

Some of them are busy. Some of them resent political intrusion into matters
they think (and not necessarily without justification) they understand
better themselves. some of them just don't give a ****....or are lazy....or
ignorant....etc.

Add to this the politics which erupted and delayed the treatment of HIV
infection as a communicable disease, the failure of people everywhere to
practice those actions which might lessen the impact of HIV, and suddenly
a
localized war, or two, becomes a minor reaper.

I'm trying to recall who wrote a book called "Man, Microbes and Morality."
I read it while still in high school. Would be interesting to see how it
reads today.

We'll see how many people this years influenzae outbreak harvests.

Yes, we will........well, those of us who live through it.

Wolfgang

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

"Greg Pavlov" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 16:28:20 GMT, "slenon"
wrote:


Add to this the politics which erupted and delayed the treatment of HIV
infection as a communicable disease, the failure of people everywhere to
practice those actions which might lessen the impact of HIV, and suddenly
a
localized war, or two, becomes a minor reaper.


Yes, the Great Communicator sure let his unthoughts
be known about HIV, tho I notice that the right wing was
very unhappy that that might be presented on TV: history
is being rewritten as we speak :-)
But otherwise you are grossly generalizing and in the
process blaming the victim.

God knows I am no fan of saints in general, and ROFF knows that this one in
particular is not among my favorites, but even I didn't get the sense that
he was blaming the victims. In light of your comments, I see the ambiguity
that I missed when reading St.'s post, but his statement IS, after all,
ambiguous. Myself, I passed over "...the failure of people everywhere to
practice those actions which might lessen the impact of HIV" while pursuing
what I deemed more interesting thoughts and connections. Looking at it now,
I believe he could as well have been damning those with a responsibility for
protecting the public as the hapless victims themselves.

On the other hand....

FWIW, I agree with Wa........um......well, never mind....... :)

Speaking for the US, large
numbers of people most certainly did change their
sexual practices, reducing the transmission rate among
adults. Teens are another story, but I highly suspect
that you were omnipotent in those days as well.
Remember that HIV can be resident for a number of
years before manifesting itself via AIDS, so by the time
we understood what was going on, it was way too late
for a large number of people. Among them were a good
number of hemophiliacs and survivors of operations:
their "practice" consisted of receiving blood transfusions.
Do you have an idea of what percentage of the hemo-
philiacs in this country died of AIDS ? And let's not forget
that a lot of kids who have AIDS "practiced" nothing more
than making the mistake of being born to someone with
HIV.

Hemophiliacs, as well as many others who required transfusions for one
reason or another, were indeed hit hard, and most of them through no fault
of their own. But, once again (and some of you can probably imagine how
painful this is) I have to come to Ste's defense. From a broad public
health perspective, what happened to hemophiliacs in the U.S. and,
presumably, other parts of the developed world, pales to insignificance when
compared to what is going on in Africa and parts of Asia and South America.
I got the impression that the larger picture is what he was addressing.

Wolfgang

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

Snippage
We'll see how many people this years influenzae outbreak harvests.

Yes, we will........well, those of us who live through it.
Wolfgang

No reason to quibble in any of the above.

--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Drowning flies to Darkstar

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/stevglo/i...age92kword.htm

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

I got the impression that the larger picture is what he was addressing.
Wolfgang

In part. I am still unable to understand why someone with a lethal disease
will knowingly engage in behavior guaranteed to transmit that disease to
others. There's plenty of blame to share with regard to failure to prevent
the further spread of HIV infection. Some of it belongs to officialdom and
some rightly belongs to those people who willingly engage in high risk
behaviors.

The recent reports I've read in common press sources indicate that the
accessibility of anti-retroviral agents in the developed countries have, in
part, encouraged a return to higher prevalences of high risk behavior among
gay males as they see infected individuals live longer than previously
thought possible. This is of particular concern and worry to me.

And reports I've read from third world sources seem to indicate that large
segments of the male populace, once infected, have little concern for whom
they subsequently infect. Not that this is particular to the third world.
I've seen GI's in S.E. Asia try to infect prostitutes with gonorrhea in
revenge for acquiring their own infection by ignoring even the most basic
safety precautions. Stupidity knows no geographic boundaries.

--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Drowning flies to Darkstar

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/stevglo/i...age92kword.htm

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

Greg Pavlov:
I am awed by your sacrifice. Slenon is right re the gov't
folks, if that is what he meant, US, South Africa, and China
being prime examples, but there have also been major
exceptions, such as Brazil and Thailand. Brazil took an
interesting tack: the hell with patents, we are going to provide
third-part manufacture drugs because they're cheap and
the alternative is to sit and watch people die.

And I would like to see other regions take the same action instead of
waiting for someone else to provide the medications required for treating
their populations. But we then touch upon how much those governments
actually care for their populaces vs the leaders Swiss bank accounts. China
is a unique problem in that they seem prone to deny any disease in their
population.

I don't think that a large number of people dying
in one place pales to insignificance because a
lot more people are dying somewhere else, but
yes, what is going on elsewhere is on a very large
scale, in some areas comparable to the scope
of the Black Plague. Two hundred babies are
born HIV positive in South Africa each day. The
human toll is tremendous, as is the public health
burden, when you consider how much effort and
money is spent on a single AIDS case in the US each year.

No death is insignificant to every one. But statistically, our transfusion
related deaths, not really preventable by the technology and knowledge we
had at the onset of the AIDS outbreak, are a drop in the bucket compared to
the loss of entire generations in other nations. And despite the impact of
AIDS, it is preventable by rather simple mechanisms if people really wish to
do so. Influenzae is far more deadly, far quicker to kill, and far more
difficult to prevent.

While malaria and the other tropical diseases can be somewhat contained with
outside international help and by treating every inter-continental flight
and ship as a potential reservoir requiring disinfection, AIDS prevention
requires only the most basic of behavior changes, available to even the
poorest of nations.

There is no excuse for not using insecticides on every inter-continental
flight these days. The technology to do the same to shipping containers and
hold cargoes is available. While we can't eliminate those reservoirs which
have already been created by travel and trade, we can certainly decrease the
impact of travel and trade on the future of infectious disease. And
prevention still is usually cheaper than treatment.




--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Drowning flies to Darkstar

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/stevglo/i...age92kword.htm

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

"slenon" wrote in message
. ..
There is no excuse for not using insecticides on every inter-continental
flight these days.

There are several reasons not to: insect resistance, human health concerns,
origin of the flight (don't need to treat if the flight comes from Europe),
time of year (few tropical Anopheles will survive very long during the
winter in the northern US and Canada), and infected mosquitos really aren't
the way the disease moves around.

Fact is, humans as reservoirs are probably more responsible for moving the
disease around than infected mosquitos. It can happen with mosquitoes, but
is far more likely to happen with people. Canada has several hundred
introduced cases of malaria every year, compared to 0 locally transmitted
cases. The US now shows the same pattern, with a a few locally transmitted
cases of malaria in some areas, but most cases being imported through
infected humans.

Tim Lysyk
timlysyk at telus dot net

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"Tim Lysyk" wrote in message
news:Ykazb.759$d35.229@edtnps84...
"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

Nah, just finished a book about mosquitoes a couple of days ago and am
currently plodding through one inspired by the travels of John
Mandeville.
Don't know who Babel is......little help?

Wolfgang

Which book about mosquitoes??

Bit of an abbreviation....it's actually about mosquitoes as disease
vectors.
"Mosquito; a Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe",
Andrew
Spielman and Michael D'Antonio, Faber and Faber, 2001.

The book is definitely directed at the lay reader.....I'm guessing that
epidemiologists and entomologists the world over will find it lacking.
:)



Hey, I just read that book myself!! I'm happy to say that I now can identify
a C. Pipens from an Anopholes on sight, which in these parts is much more
than just a party trick. In fact, after getting chomped while laying in bed
the other night, my definitive ID that the mossie was not an Anopholes
enabled me to get some sleep, and has left me with considerably less anxiety
about my current flu.

Great book, for the layman.

--riverman
(and yes, I did get tested, and no, its not malaria)

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

There are several reasons not to: insect resistance, human health concerns,
origin of the flight (don't need to treat if the flight comes from Europe),
time of year (few tropical Anopheles will survive very long during the
winter in the northern US and Canada), and infected mosquitos really aren't
the way the disease moves around.

Fact is, humans as reservoirs are probably more responsible for moving the
disease around than infected mosquitos. It can happen with mosquitoes, but
is far more likely to happen with people. Canada has several hundred
introduced cases of malaria every year, compared to 0 locally transmitted
cases. The US now shows the same pattern, with a a few locally transmitted
cases of malaria in some areas, but most cases being imported through
infected humans.
Tim Lysyk

Your arguments are worth consideration. However, a flight may originate in
Africa or Asia, stop in Europe, and continue to the U.S. or Canada.
There are some insecticides that are of relatively low impact upon humans
and seem to maintain efficacy against insects.

While humans are a reservoir for malaria and other insect vectored diseases,
we may discover that they can be transmitted by other than the usual vector
and hosted by unsuspected species. Malaria existed in the U.S. up into the
1930's in areas as far north as lat 37. Recent news in FL indicates that
some of our local mosquito species are now transmitting malaria just as
yours in Canada are doing.

You are arguing based upon known factors and to some degree upon those
factors being stable. I'm arguing based upon probabilities that new vectors
and hosts will emerge as travel and trade allow. I hope you are correct.

It would also be interesting to see the effects of running all aircraft
recirculated air through UV treatment to see if that decreases transmission
of viral disease during flights.

--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Drowning flies to Darkstar

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/stevglo/i...age92kword.htm

Matching reel and line/rod weights. What can one get away with?
 

"slenon" wrote in message
m...

Your arguments are worth consideration.....

Well, ya beat me to it........I was thinking the same thing.......but I'm no
authority......if we could just find an entomologist or something.....maybe
he could help us......I dunno.....whattya think?

Wolfgang