is Dean Esmay. Interesting site I like to visit.
A couple of days ago he had a post about AIDS that apparently got him yelled at by a lot of people, to the point of being accused of being a threat to the public. So today he has a followup that addresses some points. And they're serious points about some serious problems in how AIDS has been addressed.
It's got too much in it to throw a couple of quotes in, so I'm just providing links. I think he raises serious points here that need to be dealt with.
Being somewhat lazy at times, I've mostly gone with what I've heard or read in news articles on the subject, but I think I'll try to find the books he refers to and read them. The idea that the medical profession has chased down a wrong track and out of stupidity/stubbornness/greed/etc. won't come back up to the fork in the road to look around doesn't surprise me; there's been far too many cases of this in the past. For that matter, it was pillars of the medical profession that tried to ruin Louis Pasteur over the germ-theory of disease, and after Jenner began vaccinating for smallpox the same thing happened to him. I guess it's part of the same 'how dare you question our wisdom?' attitude that causes so many doctors to treat their patients with contempt when they ask questions.
I've not known anyone with AIDS; I have known people with friends/relatives who had it. And I have read of problems with some of the drugs tried for treating it. It's a subject that apparently needs someone to start whacking 'accepted' knowledge down like weeds and looking at it afresh, and they'll have a nasty fight on their hands to do it, but God only knows how many lives are involved.
One example of problem fighting it: the idea that just because a lot of people in some regions of Africa are HIV+, what's killing them is assumed to be AIDS. But what if some questioners are right and a lot of is is malaria? Among other things that would cause more people to push for the use of DDT to kill mosquitos, and that would be attacked by both the medical/political people who have decided that it's AIDS, and by the enviro-weenies who get the vapors at the mere mention of DDT. And if a lot of locals die while they're defending their stand? Well, that's just the price they're willing to pay to keep their diagnosis/enviromental stand in place, now isn't it?
Yeah, I'm cynical about a lot of this. There are far too many people who are willing to see a lot of people die(preferably somewhere else) if it will allow them to keep their position going.
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