Rare Cancer Seen In 41 Homosexuals (1981)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Johnson#HIV_activism

It is funny that after my two sentence post I am accused of being PC (whatever that even means these days) and wanting to deny that some risky behavior and drugs could lead to problems and that I think all anti-war people were angels.

In Forest Gump everyone who is anti-Vietnam war is presented as bad and the woman who choose not to stay in her home town and make house and goes to protests get aids. It does seem like a message.

Some pointed out LT Dan does get his legs blown off. True but it is from no fault of his own, its a random event not him being punished. His gets on prostitutes (who of course are shown an horrible people) drinks a ton, but yet in the end, his life turns out good and he marries an Asian women (you know 'cause he was fighting against them, so this some how is fitting). No punishment for his reckless behavior unlike that slut Jenny.

Are you actually trying to advance the theory that the "genetics" of a particular minority group is a "determinant", rather than social class?

A lack of socioeconomic resources is linked to the practice of riskier health behaviors, which can lead to the contraction of HIV. These behaviors include earlier initiation of sexual activity and less frequent use of condoms (Adler, 2006).

Unstable housing has been linked to risk for HIV infection, including IV drug use and unsafe sexual behaviors (Aidala, Cross, Stall, Harre, & Sumartojo, 2005).

Individuals who are homeless or in unstable housing arrangements are significantly more likely to be infected with HIV compared to individuals in more stable housing environments (Culhane, Gollub, Kuhn, & Shpaner, 2001).

Lack of socioeconomic resources is also associated with risk factors for neuropsychiatric dysfunction, such as exposure to environmental toxins and injuries. These factors can make persons with HIV more vulnerable to the central nervous system effects of the virus, including more rapid cognitive decline and onset of dementia (Satz, 1993).

HIV status often has a negative impact on socioeconomic status by constraining an individual’s ability to work and earn income. Research indicates that up to 45 percent of people living with HIV are unemployed (Rabkin, McElhiney, Ferrando, Van Gorp, & Lin, 2004).

The effects of HIV on physical and mental functioning can make maintaining regular employment difficult. Patients with HIV infection may also find that their work responsibilities compete with their health care needs. Individuals infected with HIV are often discriminated against in the workplace, leading to their termination or forced resignation (Dray-Spira, Lert, Marimoutou, Bouhnik, & Obadia, 2003; Kass et al., 1994).

Children infected with HIV often exhibit cognitive deficits when compared with their uninfected peers (Martin et al., 2006). These deficits can adversely affect learning and earning ability later in life.

SES status often determines access to HIV treatment. Individuals of low SES have delayed treatment initiation relative to more affluent patients, reducing their chances of survival (Joy et al., 2008).

Patients of lower SES with HIV have increased morbidity and mortality rates. Research suggests a correlation between low SES and earlier death from HIV/AIDS (Cunningham et al., 2005).

Accordingly, individuals of higher SES levels experience slower progression of HIV infection (Schechter et al., 1994).

Decreased access to health insurance and preventive services is a major contributor to health disparities between high- and low-SES individuals. Low-income individuals are not likely to have health coverage or receive optimal treatment and care for HIV/AIDS, such as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) (Wood et al., 2002)

Source: http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-h...

Psueodoscience and outright bigotry is "rarely PC", that's for damned sure.

Forrest Gump had very real characters. Jenny had a shitty life, which continued to be shitty by her choices. This really happens to people from shitty backgrounds because they don't recognize shitty situations as shitty, but as normal. Had she stayed with Forrest, her life wouldn't have been that way, but she still could have been the strong woman that was part of her personality. She just didn't recognize when a good thing came her way.

Lots of people did heroin and hookers before AIDS was everywhere, not all of them contracted HIV. That's the nature of a mystery disease. Lt. Dan also fell into a depression that Forrest helped pull him out of, just by being a good influence. Lt. Dan had the life Jenny could have, Forrest made the lives of people around him better by being a good person. Between that and the rapid changes the world went through from 1950 to ~1985 is what the movie is about.

It's not a propaganda film, despite your strongest wishes that it were.

And John Lennon, with his "Imagine", was a wife beater. Do not confuse political convictions with person's character.

I also thought it was great how they handle the subject in that movie. And what about Forest who loves Jenny regardless anything on her past?

Source, please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubba_Gump_Shrimp_Company

There are many genetic determinants of whether you will develop a cancer, or a particular type of cancer. People with FAP, or HNPCC, or other proto-oncogene mutations such as BRCA2 will have a very high probability of developing a specific cancer in their lifetime.

But the mutation that leads to cancer is a spontaneous event, that is allowed to occur due to a failure of cellular regulation.

There are many viral causes of cancer, as OP mentions HPV for cervical and penile cancer. Other strains of HPV are linked to SCc (a form of skin cancer) and throat cancer. Hepatitis C will cause liver failure and Hepatocellulr carcinoma in approx 20% of infected patients. Infection with H. Pylori can predispose to gastric carcinoma.

Additionally exposure to various 'environments' can lead to cancer - if you have GORD you can develop Barett's Oesophsgus due to the gastric acid irritating lower oesophageal mucosa, which can predispose to oesophageal cancer. if you are an alcoholic you can develop cirrhosis and later Hepatocellular carcinoma due to prolonged inflammation in the liver. If you are pale skinned and live in a sunny climate you are at higher risk for melanoma and if you eat a poor diet you have an increased risk of colon cancer. Smoking and exposure to smoke can give you lung, oropharynx, stomach and bladder cancer.

As of yet we have no idea what, of any, are associations for many of the Brain, bone or Kidney cancers (excluding some toxins for kidney cancer).

Possibly there is no cause.

But in all of these cases, the mutation still arises 'spontaneously'. That is, we all have a probability of developing a mutation that can cause cancer every time a cell divides in our body. In people with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, who have a mutation of p53, almost everyone will develop cancer by the time they are in their 40s. So we know the rate of gene knockout is quite high over our lives, and if it wasn't for immunosurvielance, we would likely fall prey to cancer much faster than we do anyway..

All having a risk factor or infection does is increase the probability that a cell will 'spontaneously' develop a mutation that will make it cancerous, and having more of these mutated cells arising increases the chance that one will evade immunosurviellance and continue to grow and expand.

Bottom line: as a doctor I see all cancers as spontaneous. You could say that x causes y, and in many cases there is a strong association, but in no case is that association as strong as, say, life leading to death, for which there is a correlation coefficient approaching 1.

The original book criticizes then-president Reagan, but also the media (specifically including the NYT) and elements of the medical establishment.

It also gets into controversies within the gay establishment, such as whether to make a fuss about the problem (which could attract attention and lead to "outing" of people), and whether to close bathhouses as health risks.

From the wikipedia page:

Journalist Brian Montopoli of Columbia Journalism Review in 2005 labeled MRC "just one part of a wider movement by the far right to demonize corporate media" rather than "make the media better." Additionally, Montpoli wrote that "false equivalence is at the very root of MRC’s beliefs."

2 - nor does a record of funding disprove reagan's intentional oversight; by 1992 aids was the #1 cause of death for US men ages 25-44 [1] and by 1994 the #1 cause of death for all americans age 25-44 [1]; the funding was wildly insufficient to mount a proper response. And were it not for reagan's homophobia and bigotry, a more vigorous response could reasonably have saved many more lives

3 - while it is true that federal policy doesn't hinge exclusively on what the president says, nice attempt to change the goals. The point was not that the federal government and medical establishment -- despite reagan -- did both their job and their moral duty, but that he intentionally hampered the response. I repeat: it's indisputable that if a disease affecting, well, reagan supporters had killed 20 thousand americans it would have garned a much more vigorous response, one which could be triggered and pushed by the president himself. For example, see the improvement in response under Clinton. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that AIDS was a priority under a president who isn't a homophobe.

4 - brent bozell is a proud homophobe; what a surprise that he manages to find supposed evidence -- though you shouldn't believe a thing he says without consulting a primary source -- finding that reagan didn't intentionally fail a group of americans reagan despised

[1] http://aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/

edit because i forgot the link

In other words, it's not as if the drug was invented in response to the AIDS crisis. Once the NIH/NCI made AIDS research a priority, it was a rather straightforward matter to start testing known anti-retroviral drugs. One can reasonably argue that if the government had made HIV research a priority in the late 70s and early 80s, the effective treatments would have been found before the epidemic exploded (for example, contrast to SARS or bird flu, where the index patients are chased down and isolated, and immunological research begins before there are even tens of thousands of patients.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On#Subject

That's specific to the early years though, pre-Rock Hudson. Obviously a lot's changed since then.

I'm not an epidemiologist so I can't compare the relative complexity of the SARS virus to HIV. But I'm skeptical that HIV presented a massive and insurmountable biologic challenge compared to other viruses.

I also encourage you to look into the epidemiological and sociological aspects of AIDS. It's horrifying, and it colors my above skepticism. The gay community referred to AIDS as a holocaust back in the early 80s, and I would encourage you to read this article at your leisure to see why: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/23/books/l-aids-and-the-holoc...