Are HIV and AIDS real?

I’m not sure why, but it just kind of hit me the other day that…well, that there was a lot to be suspicious about regarding the AIDS pandemic.

What struck me first of all, is that in the 22 years since I’d first learned about AIDS, I haven’t known anyone who has contracted AIDS (or HIV), much less died from it. I mean, through 6 degrees of separation, and in that amount of time, I should know someone who has HIV/AIDS, or at least know someone who knows someone who has it.

In that same amount of time (less, really), I’ve known at least five people who have had cancer. Considering the means by which HIV is acquired, it should be much more ubiquitous. Of course, the means by which HIV is acquired also has negative social implications, which could explain why few of us would catch wind of it. (But even so, since the disease has no cure and is life-threatening, the what-have-you would hit the fan eventually.)

I’m still looking for an article I read some time ago from a scientific study that suggests that people’s sexual behavior (what is considered the high risk variety) hasn’t changed significantly in the time since we’ve first learned of AIDS. I’ll keep trying to look for it. But I did argue in my theory behind STD proliferation that it was futile to try to objectively track peoples’ sexual behavior. It’s just not a topic that can be openly discussed in objective, honest terms.

But the reason I bring that article up is that, if it is true that sexual behavior hasn’t changed significantly over the last 20+ years, then, indeed, HIV/AIDS would be a pandemic by now, and socially acceptable or not, we would most likely know someone firsthand who has it or has died from it.

The timing of when AIDS was discovered is also a bit interesting; the early 1980s (in other words, the post-1960s/70s). Most STDs (like syphilis and gonorrhea) have been with the human race a long time. They co-evolved with humans and found their ecological niche in a demographic that would suit them best; one in which people would frequently change sexual partners (see this article for a good explanation os STD ecological niches). In the mutual exclusion principle of ecological niches, no two organisms can occupy the same niche because they would compete for resources and one species would overcome the other for survival.

Now if the sexual behavior of people in the ‘60s and ‘70s was significantly riskier than previous periods in history (I highly doubt it), then that could have reduced the competition between various STDs and opened a niche for AIDS. That’s kind of what I suggested in my STD proliferation theory. Then the outbreak of AIDS would be a simple cause and effect scenario. A consequence of the behavior in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

It’s possible. But, again, there would need to be more evidence of the presence of HIV and AIDS. So I’m suggesting that there is another possibility to the timing of the discovery of AIDS (and why there would be enthusiasm to educate the world about AIDS over other STDs at that time).

The morality that became part of the social construct in the ‘80s would have shown favor for a disease that has consequences for...Hmm...No. This isn’t adding up. What I was going to say is that in essence, HIV and AIDS was invented to inhibit the behavior that went on in the ‘60s and ‘70s so as to help induce the moral standards of those in power at the time. (After all, the ‘80s was like another ‘50s era.)

But the amount of people that would have to be a part of that kind of conspiracy (the worldwide medical community) is just not fathomable. Also, since AIDS is seen to have originated in Africa, it would be no consequence of the ‘60’s and ‘70s (here in the US).

I don’t know. It just seems that the demographic that AIDS affected would have been an ideal leveraging tool to create a social construct in the ‘80s. Perhaps HIV and AIDS are real, but it was blown out of proportion by our leaders to modify our behavior through fear.

That angle aside, even the medical community seems to be having a difficult time agreeing on whether HIV and AIDS are real, or, if they are real, whether they are as fatal as originally thought.

Perhaps HIV and AIDS are real but something the medical community doesn’t have a full grasp on... not unlike consumption (TB) in the past.

Well, that’s all I’ll write for now. I may add more later. For now, I’ll leave a few websites on this topic.

AIDS a Myth? (H-Africa)

AIDS threat: myth or reality? (Wall Street Journal)