The Anti-Science Party marches on ...

[loCAtek]

Very well, you drifted off topic

[Scooter]

I responded to some gross overgeneralizations about HIV epidemiology that did not apply to the worldwide epidemic, and I stated as much. Contrary to your later attempts to move the goalposts as well as to misrepresent what I had stated, to the point of inventing quotes out of thin air and attributing them to me, comments that had been made about HIV up to that point had NOT been limited to the state of the HIV epidemic in the U.S. And the thread had drifted away from the specific issues raised in the OP long before I made my comments, so perhaps you could learn to deal with the fact that threads have an evolution of their own which is beyond your power to control.

[loCAtek]

I responded to some gross overgeneralizations about HIV epidemiology that did not apply to the worldwide epidemic, and I stated as much.

Yea, but the topic was about America. meaning you were off-topic by bringing up world stats.

[Scooter]

The comment I was responding to read:

Even today, the population that is at risk of AIDS is miniscule, and AIDS funding is completely out of proportion to the danger to the general public.

Note - it does not say "the population that is at risk in the U.S." or "the danger to the general public in the U.S"

Just because the comment was made in relation to the actions of U.S. politicians doesn't make the worldwide situation irrelevant or off-topic when the poster did not choose to so limit his comments. I respond to posts as they are written, and I don't need your help to interpret them to have a different meaning, thanks very much.

Oh, sorry, there's a law around here that says you are to get the last word, isn't there? My bad, go right ahead.

[rubato]

50,000 new cases of HIV in the US each year.

8,000 are women infected by heterosexual sex.

Not minuscule.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveilla ... vinfection

yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

The full quote in context, is in regards to Reagan and his resonse in the US;

actually, Reagan's often cited "tardiness" about HIV had a lot more to do with the relative populations at risk, as compared with heart disease, cancer, and other diseases that were the focus of NIH work at the time. Even today, the population that is at risk of AIDS is miniscule, and AIDS funding is completely out of proportion to the danger to the general public.

And of course, unlike most diseases, AIDS is principally spread by and to people who are completely aware of the risks, and who could avoid them completely with simple changes of lifestyle.

I'm just sayin...

While that sounds like his comments later, continue to refer to the US; it is up to dgs49, to say whether he meant America or the World.

Oh, sorry, there's a law around here that says you are to get the last word, isn't there? My bad, go right ahead.

There's no law, but that's the second time you've offered it me.

And by all means, go ahead and have the last word,

ThX again

[Scooter]

it is up to dgs49, to say whether he meant America or the World.

It's very big of you to admit that it wasn't your call to reinterpret the words he actually wrote, which were not limited to the U.S. epidemic. Apology accepted.

[loCAtek]

Um, likewise

[Scooter]

Except, um, that I responded to the, um, words on the, um, screen, and you, um, pretended there were, um, words that didn't, um, exist except in your, um, mind.

[loCAtek]

The words came from dgs49, I'm on him chillax

[Scooter]

Obviously he was talking about the state of the epidemic in the U.S., however warped his interpretations may have been. I brought up the global picture because decisions to fund disease research have always taken the global situation into account. There has always been research funding allocated for diseases that pose little or no risk in the U.S. but that are of significance in other parts of the world. To justify the lack of attention by the administration at the time by what he perceives to have been the low numbers in the U.S. therefore falls flat. And furthermore, the numbers were decidedly NOT small for a disease that seemed to appear out of nowhere. (There was a reason why the very few cases that were first identified in 1981 made scientists take notice.) There were 16,000 cases by the time Mr. Reagan first deigned to address the subject (and only then to validate fear-based discrimination against infected schoolchildren), and of course that needed to be multiplied by some as yet unknown factor to account for all those who were infected but not yet sick enough for anyone to take notice,  and then it would take some math to figure out how high that number would get if the number of new cases was left to continue growing exponentially.

And of course the demands for funding were not only or even primarily about research. There were people getting too sick to work, and so they needed Social Security disability to live on and Medicare/Medicaid to pay for their medical care. They had to wait until 1993 before another administration finally developed the criteria needed to assess whether an HIV+ person is disabled enough to qualify for benefits. THAT's the money Mr. Reagan didn't want to start spending, and figuring out a way to get people their entitlement benefits is not dependent on a perceived insufficiency of cases or on whether or not they "deserved" their disease.

Had your first post in the thread gone something like,"hey Scooter, what's up with providing global stats when we're talking about the U.S.," I could have provided this explanation at the time. But no, instead first you claimed that what I said was only true in Africa, then you said that it can't be true for the world because it's true for Africa, then you claimed that global stats that include Africa aren't really global stats, then you felt the need to say that it wasn't true in the U.S. even though I never claimed anything of the sort, then you said it couldn't be true for the world as a whole unless it were true in every country, then you pretend that you convinced me to change my mind and agree with all the nonsense you had posted, then you invented two quotes out of whole cloth and attributed them to me. So instead of being done with this at the top of page two, we are now at the bottom of page four and now you're going to "ask" Dave if he was talking about the world when the person who brought up the global situation was me, for the reasons I have just stated, and regardless of your "opinion", it wasn't irrelevant just because you say so.

[loCAtek]

If you say so.

[Scooter]

You've finally caught up with the program then. Good.

[loCAtek]

The program is yours, not dgs49's?

Beg your pardon, but I'm not that delusional.

[Scooter]

Fine, then you still have not managed to get with the program. Whatever.

[loCAtek]

Your program, no.

[Scooter]

If you were unable to grasp the flow of the thread then perhaps you should not have wasted everyone elses time trying to catch up.

[loCAtek]

Your program was a waste? ThX for saying so.

[Scooter]

No, thank YOU for admitting that attempting to engage you on a serious topic is a waste of time.

[loCAtek]

Um, how you engage your time is not my responsibility, but yours.