INTERESTING TIMES

This clip will only make sense to a person who has already studied HIV at least a little bit, as it does not explain things in detail. It does however make the process graphic and therefore memorable.

D and I just watched And the Band Played On. It is the story of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, beginning in the 1970's with the first few odd cases and finishing the story in 1985, when public attention and government efforts finally came to bear on the problem. Not that the problem is anywhere near solved now, mind you. Worldwide there are more new HIV infections each year than there are AIDS patients to die. The epidemic is growing. The populations currently being infected at the highest rate in the US are young African and Hispanic women and teens.
( for extra credit in immunology )

I'm still reading How Doctors Think and it continues to increase my awareness of all the ways and reasons that a doctor can arrive at an incorrect diagnosis. I suppose a jury could come to an incorrect verdict in many of the same ways...

This link tells of six medics who face the death penalty because they gave HIV tainted blood to children. The story is painfully incomplete. Did the medics know that this blood was tainted? Is this terrible effort to punish them simply an attempt by the bereaved to gain justice in the "eye for an eye" sense?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6290112.stm

It is hard for me to imagine any doctor intentionally infecting children with the HIV virus. And so much less likely that six of them would do it....knowingly.

Green tea may keep HIV at bay:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6502399.stm

Green tea blocks cancer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3125469.stm