Re: "Hysteria, Thy Name is SARS"

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 18:33:53 MDT

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    On Tue, 13 May 2003, John K Clark wrote:

    > "Samantha" <samantha@objectent.com> Wrote:
    >
    > > The same Micahel Fumento who touted the "myth of heterosexual AIDS"?
    > > This man is a joke and I consider him personally culpable for
    > > millions of needless deaths.
    >
    > What on Earth are you talking about? The man said 13 years ago that all the
    > talk about AIDS breaking out in the heterosexual community was nonsense and
    > he explained exactly why with facts and figures. Time has proven him
    > absolutely correct. How can being right cause the death of millions?

    In the interest of having my head ripped off since nobody has done
    so recently, I'll critique both Samantha and John.

    During the late '80s and '90s the primary mode of HIV transmission
    in the U.S. was through unprotected sex between homosexual (primarily
    male) individuals. To cite a "myth" of "heterosexual AIDS" in the
    U.S. is not "unreasonable" because the primary transmission route
    *in the U.S.* was through homosexual contacts. However(!) the
    primary transmission route outside of the U.S., esp. in Africa
    is through heterosexual contacts. The size of the problem in
    Africa currently dwarfs the problem in the U.S. (perhaps by
    an order of magnitude or more).

    So John and Samantha may both be right in their perspectives
    depending on what framework/context one chooses to look at
    the problem from.

    The SARS outbreak may serve to detail how we can get it
    wrong (the China cover-up) and get it right (the Vietnam,
    Singapore, perhaps Toronto -- crank down fast and hard).

    We will be lucky if the SARS genome turns out to be stable
    and we can relatively quickly develop a vaccine against it.
    As the HIV epedemic demonstrates -- we don't want to get
    it wrong -- and that includes not taking narrow-minded views
    of transmission routes that may be significantly different
    in various cultures.

    Remember the *selfish genes*....

    Robert

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