In a message dated 11/26/99 8:17:48 PM Mountain Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< In Africa, HIV affects both sexes equally. >>

It is pretty much an honor to be corrected by my unofficial guru, Kathy D. :)
 Kathy, I hope that you are feeling better soon!  I so enjoyed meeting you
(as well as Karen K. Gromada) and hearing your talks at the Denver Lactation
Consultant Workshop sponsored by LLL.  I never hesitate to tell people that
you held my son, Nash (5 months old at the time).  At any rate, I should know
better than to post things at 4 am when I am reliving Nash's homebirth of a
year ago.

The number that is so lopsided is the number of men who have died of AIDS as
opposed to the number of women (in the US).  It does run somewhere in the 90s
for men with the much smaller number for women.  Similarly to Africa, both
the transmission rates of the sexes and the number of HIV positive men versus
HIV positive women are roughly equal.

This discrepancy in the AIDs deaths is one of the reasons that there is
concern about what the HIV virus exactly is (or not) and how people are
tested for its presence.  Instead of going on at length, I will just list the
references that have intrigued me about this topic.

Primarily, the Mothering magazine article "AZT Roulette:  The Impossible
Choices Facing HIV-Positive Women" by Celia Farber.  No. 90:  Sept/Oct 1998.
This article includes the sidebars "Does HIV Cause AIDs?" and "How Accurate
is the HIV Test?"  The companion article, also by Celia Farber, is "HIV and
Breastfeeding:  The Fears.  The Misconceptions.  The Facts."

Works referenced in the "AZT ..." article:

R. Root-Bernstein, _Rethinking Aids_ (New York:  Free Press, 1993).

P. Duesberg, _Inventing the AIDS Virus_ (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing,
1996).

P. Duesberg and D. Rasnick, "The AIDS Dilemma:  Drug Diseases Blamed on a
Passenger Virus," MS #A461, University of California at Berkeley, Department
of Molecular and Cell Biology, June 25, 1998.

E.P. Papadopoulous-Eleopulos and V. Turner, "Is a Positive Western Blot Proof
of HIV Infection," Bio/Technology 2 (June 1993): 696-707.

"How Accurate is the HIV Test?" additionally raises the possiblity that there
are problems with both of the HIV tests:  the ELISA blood test and the
Western Blot which is used to confirm a positive result on the ELISA.

Once again, my understanding is that a positive on either test (even followed
by a negative and/or inconclusive result) can possibly cause a pregnant mom
to be urged to use AZT while pregnant and reconsider breastfeeding (in the
US).

Jeannine
Lactivist
wandering back to lurkland in Bailey, Colorado

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