HIV/AIDS notes from Immunology & Microbiology (week 7 spring 08)

FASCINATING FACTOID:
12% of caucasians (Zwickey) are immune to HIV because they are descended from bubonic plague survivors. The Black Death had a 90% death rate and killed 147 million people. It swept Europe 3 times, in the 6th, 14th and 17th centuries. Those who survived (natural selection) don't have a certain chemokine receptor (CCR5) which is necessary for HIV to get into host macrophages. This may explain why some partners of HIV positive people never get the disease even though they do not practice "safe" sex.
( lots of info here )

IV Therapy (week 8)

( notes )

Political Statistics I'd like to see

I want to see a comparison of governmental expenditures or losses due to all forms of personal welfare, including student loans, family planning, housing assistance, medicare and medicaid (etc), relative to all spent/lost due to corporate subsidies, bailouts and tax breaks. The two warring sides in our politics tend to focus on one and are hard pressed to even admit the existence of the other. But both exist. Let's see the numbers from both of those sides, rechecked and compiled into a graph by someone who isn't on one of those sides. And let's tear them apart (lies!!!) and start over with new numbers, different sources. Let's see it at the federal and state level. And then let's talk about why it might be in our collective best interests to prevent both unwanted pregnancies and auto industry crashes. And go from there.