The Punning Pundit

1) I doubt the graph which displays a constant HIV rate. Testing was limited in the 80's, so they may have producted the graph by projecting the infection rate of a tested high risk populous over the whole, while in the 90's you had a better tested sample. I'm not sure how the graph was produced, but a straight line like that is very suspicious. For HIV infection to remain constant requires that the death and new infection rate be the same, and odd coincidence to claim to me. I'm not a stats person however, nor have I seen how they got the data.

2)"If HIV is the cause of AIDS, and the number of infected individuals is constant, then, other things being unchanged, the number of cases must remain constant."

False, part of the HIV/AIDS theory is that AIDS develops from HIV, so over time you would expect AIDS cases to increase even without increased HIV cases. There are a lot of people who would be HIV possitive for years before developing AIDS.

3)"Although there are reasons why a virus might stop causing a disease (such as immunity, or drugs that confer resistance - although neither apply in this case)"

I question how the chance at immunity and drugs can both be brushed off so easily. HIV drugs have been used during the times of those charts I believe, and possible immunity has been found in some individuals.

4)"... there is no defensible reason in the clear light of these data for thinking that HIV ever began to cause one in the first instance."

False. If all cases of AIDS were proceeded by HIV, one would have reason to believe that HIV causes AIDS, or is a cause should AIDS actually be cause by HIV and something else. Only if AIDS is found without HIV can you show a non-causal relationship between HIV and AIDS. I do admit the possibility that HIV is necessary but not sufficient for AIDS.

This is what we would call Horseshit. It looks to me like Bialy is a paid hack of Mbeki's who is going about spouting this outrageous fantasy to paper over South Africa's inability to treat HIV infection and unwillingness to institute the needed safe sex campaigns.

Without seeing the data that was used to create those graphs... *shakes head*

Personally, I'd be taking that article with a very *large* grain of salt.

This is wrong because he doesn't understand how AIDS develops in people, and how antiretroviral drugs work. The drugs are rarely used to prevent people from getting HIV (though they have been shown some efficacy for this purpose), they are used to keep viral count low and supress the development of HIV. In effect, they are used to keep HIV from developing into AIDS. The Gaussian curve Bialy (read Biasly) sees is actually two exponential curves, one for the growth of HIV infection and another for the spread of AIDS drugs.

HIV is a highly adaptable retrovirus and actually *evolves* to create the AIDS condition during its life cycle. Typically AIDS develops when HIV develops the ability to bind to fusin receptors. Thus you can get more sick by being infected by someone with AIDS than by someone with a less advanced case of HIV. Antiviral coctails for HIV are designed to slow different stages of the life cycle and create less virus copies. Less copies means less evolution, resulting in fewer people with AIDS.