This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
I am very concerned about the way this article tilts away from what I understand the scientific consensus to be. Specific areas of concerns include:
The clear implication is that this is the primary source of the high infection rates, a claim further amplified in this sentence:
Firstly, the source of the 30% figure is based on a quote from a researcher, Yvan Hutin, in a US State Department press release. The relevant paragraph is as follows:
To go from that, from a popular press source, to the phraseology currently in the article is inappropriate.
The second link goes to a report by a group called "Physicians for Human Rights", which argues for a higher priority to be given to medical transmission. I haven't had time to assess this report. I haven't heard of this group myself and have no idea of its credibility (one way or another; it's just that some organisations have established a reputation for getting it right over the years, and I don't know if this one has), and b) just because a report is clearly-written and has references doesn't make it credible. I've seen clearly-written, referenced reports by advocacy organizations where the references didn't actually support the article.
The article barely mentions the scientific near-consensus that the majority of cases in sub-Saharan Africa are transmitted through heterosexual sex!
Additionally, the article still talks about the "Bangui definition". My earlier concerns, noted earlier on this talk page, have still not been effectively addressed. -- Robert Merkel 07:09, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Robert, I have reinstated the reference that you previuously deleted
There are many other simliar studies, which I am happy to source and add.
If you can find any evidence of HIV testing in diagnosis of AIDS in Africa and other "developing" countries please provide it. My understanding is that few countries diagnose AIDS as thoroughly as the US - although I have read that most of the AIDS patients in Africa would not test as HIV positve in Australia, even many US and Eurpoean AIDS patients would not be considered HIV positive. This is because Australia requires more Western blot spots than any other country. The more stringent standard was required because so many Australians who tested negative on ELISA were postive on Western blot!
I am concerned that you think by adding information from WHO, CDC and UNAIDS, that neutral point of view is threatened! Indeed you have been active in deleting quotes from these sources. Sci guy 13:30, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I have just added link to CDC January 2005 update stating that "According to the World Health Organization, the global burden of disease from unsafe injections worldwide accounts for an estimated 5% of HIV infections." [4] This is recognised as a major current issue by the so called "mainstream scientific consesus" Sci guy 16:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
For a fuller analysis I suggest you read HIV infections in sub-Sahara Africa not explained by sexual or vertical transmission [5] Sci guy 16:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
It is important to note that in 2001 the issue of preventing HIV/AIDS infections in health care settings has been identified by the United Nations as needing immediate attention. [6]
I hope this quote helps you see the diffculties with the WHO simplified algorithms based on sequential screening tests, and in general confirm the lack of laboratory testing on AIDS diagnosis in many countries. The conclusion is essentially that most of the AIDS cases would not be confirmed by standard testing in France. (or any other Western country) Sci guy 04:29, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
This 2002 article details the problems with the World Health Organization testing strategies for alternative HIV confirmation to maximize accuracy while minimizing cost. [8] Almost half of 2,000 samples could have been mislabeled as HIV positive!
What has happened to this article? Suddenly it's very short, and much of the information seems to be missing... Exploding Boy 16:45, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
Well at present we are having a discussion about whether WHO/CDC/UNAIDS information is breaching the NPOV! But apart from that the article is essentially the same as when you last edited. Vaccine has been moved to treatment. Duplicated material has been consoidated and many unreferenced speculations deleted. I have been attempting to restore all the deleted references. Please feel free to add anything you think has been deleted in error. Sci guy 16:59, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
What's happened is that Sci guy has butchered what was a very complete and well-written Wikipedia article. Take a look at his 27 May 2005 edits, if you don't believe me. I've got no idea what his motive is. I'm tempted to take him up on his "feel free to add anything you think has been deleted in error" offer and revert the whole thing back to the 26 May 2005 version. Carl Henderson 02:56, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
I have compared the 26 May 2005 version with the currect one. Main changes are correcting monkey to chimpanzee and adding references. The safer sex was edited to make the main issue clear: "put a condon on the penis to stop AIDS". Ideas about AIDS have changed so much in 20 years. Should this article be about gay men and IV drug users in the United States or pregnant women and children in Africa? Should Africans be given antiretroviral drugs or blood transfusions that have been screened for HIV? Why do different countries use different tests (or even no tests) to diagnose AIDS? What percentage of AIDS cases in the "developing world" would be confirmed by testing this the United States? As most people in the world dianosed with AIDS do not have HIV antibodies, what is causing their AIDS? All of these questions are part of the UNAIDS, WHO, CDC, and RED Cross "medical consensus".
According to the WHO the cumulative number of AIDS cases from 1980 through 1997 for all of Africa was 620,000. For comparison, the cumulative total of AIDS cases in the USA through 1997 was 641,087. But the US cases were all tested for HIV antibodies and confirmed with Western blot! The African cases were not all tested for HIV. A study on Zaire published in 1993 found that of 465 patients with clinical signs of AIDS, 39.4% were seropositive. see Epidemiology and clinical manifestation of HIV infection in northern Zaire. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7957799&dopt=Abstract)Strecker W, Gurtler L, Schilling M, Binibangili M, Strecker K. Eur J Epidemiol. 1994 Feb;10(1):95-8.
Sci guy 03:52, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
This page has unfortunately been infected by one of the types that Wikipedia finds most-difficult to deal with; the well-informed zealot. Essentially, Sci Guy and his ilk are very vocal, well-informed advocates for a view well outside the medical mainstream. That doesn't make them wrong, but it does mean that they have turned this article into advocacy for their position. I'm not an expert on AIDS, but I do know that the article is pushing a very different line to the WHO and the like, and that Sci Guy is consistently misrepresenting the state of the scientific consensus. Hence, in the absence of either the expertise or the patience, I'm reverting to what appears to be one of the last "known-good" versions. -- Robert Merkel 04:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
Fred, I ask you a similar question to what I asked Sci Guy. The stuff about diagnostic criteria not involving antibody testing dates from more than 10 years ago. Is that still the case in 2005? -- Robert Merkel 13:57, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I believe that the current edit-war between Robert Merkel and Sci Guy represents a divergence of opinion which needs to be recognized in a better way than simply reverting Sci Guy's changes. I'm not saying either is right, or wrong, but that fair consideration of disputes be acknowledged. Whig 05:32, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
Quite frankly, I agree with Robert's assment of the situation, that Sci Guy seems to be pushing his particular brand of POV. I'm not expert on the topic of AIDS, but even I can recognize that what he's saying is at odds with the consensus of the scientific community. →Raul654 19:17, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure Wikipedia's encyclopedia article on AIDS should be written by someone who can characterize HAART as a "false start" - it's still current treatment, or who believes that chemokines were ever a "start" of any kind - they never had any significant clinical use. All opinions aren't equal, and the denialists are already more than adequately represented in that article: it doesn't have to be brought here, where it degrades the quality of the article. - Nunh-huh 00:23, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We do have a generally accepted theory that HIV causes AIDS, and it is the basis of almost all current research. The article should represent exactly this, and the minority who disagree should not be given precedence. - Ok, let's take this idea and run with it. Let us compare the opening paragraph's of Sci-guy's version and Robert Merkel's version as they pertain to HIV:
Which one of these more accurately represents the generally held view that HIV causes AIDs? I think the answer is quite obvious - Sci guy's version is an obvious attempt to distance any connection between HIV and AIDs, and this attempt sticks out like a sore thumb. →Raul654 08:01, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that getting the first paragraph right is a good start. It defines the scope of the article.
In 2005, the main issue is the global epidemic claims of WHO and UNAIDS. I assume we agree that WHO and UNAIDS are part of the consesus. I think reporting the range of these estimates is important to give a clear idea of the accuracy claimed for these estimates. Also the 60% in sub-Saharan Africa, as this is claimed to be the most affected area (and also the source of the epidemic, if we accept the chimapanzee theory).
It is also important to note that while screening of blood transfusions and using clean needles for each injection were adopted 20 years ago in the United States to "stop the spread of AIDS", these precautions have not been widely adopted in Africa. Back in 2001, the UN called for the adoption of these measures to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. So once again this all appears very consesus to me.
Whether or not HIV causes AIDS is red herring. The fact is that since 1985 evidence of HIV antibodies has been required in the United States for an AIDS diagnosis and the WHO/UNAIDS estimates for Africa are based on HIV antibody testing of pregnant women, who had a blood test for syphilis. So by definition there is no AIDS without HIV.
The more difficult question is the thousands of US blood donors and army recruits who have tested positive in HIV antibody tests. In most cases the repeat test was negative or the western blot did not confirm. What caused all these false positive results.
I notice that "HIV carriers" is now the preferred term in RA Weis and RW Wrangham. From Pan to pandemic ( http://faculty.virginia.edu/bio202/weiss%20pan%20to%20pandemic%201999.pdf). Nature 397, 385-6 (1999). Also the scientific consesus is always careful to say "estimated 23 million people with AIDS have died since 1981" rather than dying of or from AIDS. Is this pedantry or precise use of language.
I have no problem with "dumbing down" the facts for Wikipedia, as long as we avoid subtle shifts of meaning. If Sci guy has sinned in this regard, then edit his summaries by all means, but do not simply revert to delete advances in the scientiic consesus that you do not like.
Personally I think both versions need a lot of work! Fred2005 13:43, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've made a pass at editing the first paragraph. Have a look, please edit appropriately if you can improve it, and/or comment here. Whig 21:24, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"In most cases this weakening is progressive"
I still don't like this phrasing. Out of tens of millions of infected people, how many long term survivors are there? Dozens? Maybe a few hundred? I don't think it's unreasonable to say it's a trivial, negligible number. Saying that it is a progressive weakening 'in most cases' falsely implies that long term survivors are a non-trivial portion of AIDS patients. →Raul654 21:50, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
That's my contribution to the opening paragraph, I like Sciguy's caracterization of it being a epidemic, i think it really is a pandemic do to it being over a certain threshold of infections. -- ShaunMacPherson 23:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just went through and did 3 big removals - I removed the "see also" and "related diseases" lists at hte bottom --- see also is depreciated (anything worthy of a see also should be written into the prose of the article and linked; the same applies for related diseases); I removed the bolded from the phrases, because you're only supposed to use bold for the article name and phrases that redirect here; lastly, I removed that horrible section at the end of the intro that looked like links, but weren't properly formatted and didn't seem to be cited by any particular fact (someone can add these back in again if they do it properly). →Raul654 23:53, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
Also - the citation style on this article *sucks* and needs to be improved drastically. →Raul654 23:54, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I think the CDC definiton of AIDS is both widely accepted and NPOV
Also the Global epidemic figures from UNAIDS are both current and NPOV
Can we at least agree on this factual, referenced start to the article? Sci guy 16:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Incorporating all these suggestions could give this version:
This avoids much of the POV unreferenced specualation Sci guy 01:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The methods used to estimate the spread of a disease may be very different for the methods to diagnose that disease. During the recent SARS outbreak in China, sales of vinegar provide useful information about the spread of [[[SARS]] within China, because vinegar is a traditional Chinese remedy for symptoms associated with SARS. This does not mean that eveyone who buys vingar has SARS. World wide sales of vinegar provide no useful information about the global spread of SARS.
HIV antibody tests have not been evaluated for use in Africa. Many common tropical diseases are known to cause a false positive. HIV antibody screening of all pregnant women in European coutries has confirmed no increase in positve results since 1985 and about two third of positve results are women from Africa. Also most African children who tested HIV positive have a mother who is HIV negative! The major risk factor for children in Africa appears to be unsafe medical injections. Sci guy 15:52, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fred, while some of the information you've deleted is redundant and belongs elsewhere, some of it isn't, and your opening sentence is less clear than what was there before. Please try to remember that we're writing for a non-expert audience. -- Robert Merkel 15:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) I'm reverting then C&Ping the changes here. While I think a lot of these are good, I see none of the discussion and edit summaries you'd expect. Its not good behavoir, even if you think its good editing-- Tznkai 17:50, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fred2005's changes can be seen here [[
[10]]] A lot of these look like good changes, but I think overall the quality has been reduced. Please discuss here, reach consensus then change article, especially one so contraversial--
Tznkai 17:55, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I found his information much more informative and clear. He seems like he has a good background, I favor his edits, all of them. 207.224.198.170 02:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I restate my point. I am all for improving this article, but massive changes should come with good explanation, and superior support, not just an opinion that its superior. Revert wars are never the answer. The goal here should be comprehensive: Primarly show the majority mainstream view, "facts" and then note the minority views and where they come from-- Tznkai 16:45, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I keep forgetting to sign-- Tznkai 19:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The present article does not even make mention of the fact that there exists any controversy with respect to the cause and definition of AIDS, the accuracy of testing methodologies, the differing definitions in the US, Canada, Europe and Africa, the safety and efficacy of antiretroviral medications, and therefore presents a unitary POV that excludes any and all disagreement. Whether or not this POV is correct or false is not, and has not been, my concern. However, every attempt I have made to give even a suggestion of the existence of dispute has been removed, and there is not even a link now to the (very poorly written) article on AIDS reappraisal. The article now even begins by defining AIDS as infection by HIV. I am becoming increasingly inclined to mark this article totally disputed unless folks are willing to work constructively to work these issues out in a way which gives appropriate precedence to the mainstream view while respecting the existence of diverse views by respectable scientists. Whig 03:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and you were inclined to endorse the 83% false positive rate for Western Blots in the dissenting article, too. One thing this article doesn't need is more disinformation like that. - Nunh-huh 03:43, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
I am very concerned about the way this article tilts away from what I understand the scientific consensus to be. Specific areas of concerns include:
The clear implication is that this is the primary source of the high infection rates, a claim further amplified in this sentence:
Firstly, the source of the 30% figure is based on a quote from a researcher, Yvan Hutin, in a US State Department press release. The relevant paragraph is as follows:
To go from that, from a popular press source, to the phraseology currently in the article is inappropriate.
The second link goes to a report by a group called "Physicians for Human Rights", which argues for a higher priority to be given to medical transmission. I haven't had time to assess this report. I haven't heard of this group myself and have no idea of its credibility (one way or another; it's just that some organisations have established a reputation for getting it right over the years, and I don't know if this one has), and b) just because a report is clearly-written and has references doesn't make it credible. I've seen clearly-written, referenced reports by advocacy organizations where the references didn't actually support the article.
The article barely mentions the scientific near-consensus that the majority of cases in sub-Saharan Africa are transmitted through heterosexual sex!
Additionally, the article still talks about the "Bangui definition". My earlier concerns, noted earlier on this talk page, have still not been effectively addressed. -- Robert Merkel 07:09, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Robert, I have reinstated the reference that you previuously deleted
There are many other simliar studies, which I am happy to source and add.
If you can find any evidence of HIV testing in diagnosis of AIDS in Africa and other "developing" countries please provide it. My understanding is that few countries diagnose AIDS as thoroughly as the US - although I have read that most of the AIDS patients in Africa would not test as HIV positve in Australia, even many US and Eurpoean AIDS patients would not be considered HIV positive. This is because Australia requires more Western blot spots than any other country. The more stringent standard was required because so many Australians who tested negative on ELISA were postive on Western blot!
I am concerned that you think by adding information from WHO, CDC and UNAIDS, that neutral point of view is threatened! Indeed you have been active in deleting quotes from these sources. Sci guy 13:30, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I have just added link to CDC January 2005 update stating that "According to the World Health Organization, the global burden of disease from unsafe injections worldwide accounts for an estimated 5% of HIV infections." [4] This is recognised as a major current issue by the so called "mainstream scientific consesus" Sci guy 16:23, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
For a fuller analysis I suggest you read HIV infections in sub-Sahara Africa not explained by sexual or vertical transmission [5] Sci guy 16:27, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
It is important to note that in 2001 the issue of preventing HIV/AIDS infections in health care settings has been identified by the United Nations as needing immediate attention. [6]
I hope this quote helps you see the diffculties with the WHO simplified algorithms based on sequential screening tests, and in general confirm the lack of laboratory testing on AIDS diagnosis in many countries. The conclusion is essentially that most of the AIDS cases would not be confirmed by standard testing in France. (or any other Western country) Sci guy 04:29, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
This 2002 article details the problems with the World Health Organization testing strategies for alternative HIV confirmation to maximize accuracy while minimizing cost. [8] Almost half of 2,000 samples could have been mislabeled as HIV positive!
What has happened to this article? Suddenly it's very short, and much of the information seems to be missing... Exploding Boy 16:45, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
Well at present we are having a discussion about whether WHO/CDC/UNAIDS information is breaching the NPOV! But apart from that the article is essentially the same as when you last edited. Vaccine has been moved to treatment. Duplicated material has been consoidated and many unreferenced speculations deleted. I have been attempting to restore all the deleted references. Please feel free to add anything you think has been deleted in error. Sci guy 16:59, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
What's happened is that Sci guy has butchered what was a very complete and well-written Wikipedia article. Take a look at his 27 May 2005 edits, if you don't believe me. I've got no idea what his motive is. I'm tempted to take him up on his "feel free to add anything you think has been deleted in error" offer and revert the whole thing back to the 26 May 2005 version. Carl Henderson 02:56, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
I have compared the 26 May 2005 version with the currect one. Main changes are correcting monkey to chimpanzee and adding references. The safer sex was edited to make the main issue clear: "put a condon on the penis to stop AIDS". Ideas about AIDS have changed so much in 20 years. Should this article be about gay men and IV drug users in the United States or pregnant women and children in Africa? Should Africans be given antiretroviral drugs or blood transfusions that have been screened for HIV? Why do different countries use different tests (or even no tests) to diagnose AIDS? What percentage of AIDS cases in the "developing world" would be confirmed by testing this the United States? As most people in the world dianosed with AIDS do not have HIV antibodies, what is causing their AIDS? All of these questions are part of the UNAIDS, WHO, CDC, and RED Cross "medical consensus".
According to the WHO the cumulative number of AIDS cases from 1980 through 1997 for all of Africa was 620,000. For comparison, the cumulative total of AIDS cases in the USA through 1997 was 641,087. But the US cases were all tested for HIV antibodies and confirmed with Western blot! The African cases were not all tested for HIV. A study on Zaire published in 1993 found that of 465 patients with clinical signs of AIDS, 39.4% were seropositive. see Epidemiology and clinical manifestation of HIV infection in northern Zaire. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7957799&dopt=Abstract)Strecker W, Gurtler L, Schilling M, Binibangili M, Strecker K. Eur J Epidemiol. 1994 Feb;10(1):95-8.
Sci guy 03:52, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
This page has unfortunately been infected by one of the types that Wikipedia finds most-difficult to deal with; the well-informed zealot. Essentially, Sci Guy and his ilk are very vocal, well-informed advocates for a view well outside the medical mainstream. That doesn't make them wrong, but it does mean that they have turned this article into advocacy for their position. I'm not an expert on AIDS, but I do know that the article is pushing a very different line to the WHO and the like, and that Sci Guy is consistently misrepresenting the state of the scientific consensus. Hence, in the absence of either the expertise or the patience, I'm reverting to what appears to be one of the last "known-good" versions. -- Robert Merkel 04:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
Fred, I ask you a similar question to what I asked Sci Guy. The stuff about diagnostic criteria not involving antibody testing dates from more than 10 years ago. Is that still the case in 2005? -- Robert Merkel 13:57, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I believe that the current edit-war between Robert Merkel and Sci Guy represents a divergence of opinion which needs to be recognized in a better way than simply reverting Sci Guy's changes. I'm not saying either is right, or wrong, but that fair consideration of disputes be acknowledged. Whig 05:32, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
Quite frankly, I agree with Robert's assment of the situation, that Sci Guy seems to be pushing his particular brand of POV. I'm not expert on the topic of AIDS, but even I can recognize that what he's saying is at odds with the consensus of the scientific community. →Raul654 19:17, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure Wikipedia's encyclopedia article on AIDS should be written by someone who can characterize HAART as a "false start" - it's still current treatment, or who believes that chemokines were ever a "start" of any kind - they never had any significant clinical use. All opinions aren't equal, and the denialists are already more than adequately represented in that article: it doesn't have to be brought here, where it degrades the quality of the article. - Nunh-huh 00:23, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We do have a generally accepted theory that HIV causes AIDS, and it is the basis of almost all current research. The article should represent exactly this, and the minority who disagree should not be given precedence. - Ok, let's take this idea and run with it. Let us compare the opening paragraph's of Sci-guy's version and Robert Merkel's version as they pertain to HIV:
Which one of these more accurately represents the generally held view that HIV causes AIDs? I think the answer is quite obvious - Sci guy's version is an obvious attempt to distance any connection between HIV and AIDs, and this attempt sticks out like a sore thumb. →Raul654 08:01, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that getting the first paragraph right is a good start. It defines the scope of the article.
In 2005, the main issue is the global epidemic claims of WHO and UNAIDS. I assume we agree that WHO and UNAIDS are part of the consesus. I think reporting the range of these estimates is important to give a clear idea of the accuracy claimed for these estimates. Also the 60% in sub-Saharan Africa, as this is claimed to be the most affected area (and also the source of the epidemic, if we accept the chimapanzee theory).
It is also important to note that while screening of blood transfusions and using clean needles for each injection were adopted 20 years ago in the United States to "stop the spread of AIDS", these precautions have not been widely adopted in Africa. Back in 2001, the UN called for the adoption of these measures to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. So once again this all appears very consesus to me.
Whether or not HIV causes AIDS is red herring. The fact is that since 1985 evidence of HIV antibodies has been required in the United States for an AIDS diagnosis and the WHO/UNAIDS estimates for Africa are based on HIV antibody testing of pregnant women, who had a blood test for syphilis. So by definition there is no AIDS without HIV.
The more difficult question is the thousands of US blood donors and army recruits who have tested positive in HIV antibody tests. In most cases the repeat test was negative or the western blot did not confirm. What caused all these false positive results.
I notice that "HIV carriers" is now the preferred term in RA Weis and RW Wrangham. From Pan to pandemic ( http://faculty.virginia.edu/bio202/weiss%20pan%20to%20pandemic%201999.pdf). Nature 397, 385-6 (1999). Also the scientific consesus is always careful to say "estimated 23 million people with AIDS have died since 1981" rather than dying of or from AIDS. Is this pedantry or precise use of language.
I have no problem with "dumbing down" the facts for Wikipedia, as long as we avoid subtle shifts of meaning. If Sci guy has sinned in this regard, then edit his summaries by all means, but do not simply revert to delete advances in the scientiic consesus that you do not like.
Personally I think both versions need a lot of work! Fred2005 13:43, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've made a pass at editing the first paragraph. Have a look, please edit appropriately if you can improve it, and/or comment here. Whig 21:24, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"In most cases this weakening is progressive"
I still don't like this phrasing. Out of tens of millions of infected people, how many long term survivors are there? Dozens? Maybe a few hundred? I don't think it's unreasonable to say it's a trivial, negligible number. Saying that it is a progressive weakening 'in most cases' falsely implies that long term survivors are a non-trivial portion of AIDS patients. →Raul654 21:50, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
That's my contribution to the opening paragraph, I like Sciguy's caracterization of it being a epidemic, i think it really is a pandemic do to it being over a certain threshold of infections. -- ShaunMacPherson 23:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I just went through and did 3 big removals - I removed the "see also" and "related diseases" lists at hte bottom --- see also is depreciated (anything worthy of a see also should be written into the prose of the article and linked; the same applies for related diseases); I removed the bolded from the phrases, because you're only supposed to use bold for the article name and phrases that redirect here; lastly, I removed that horrible section at the end of the intro that looked like links, but weren't properly formatted and didn't seem to be cited by any particular fact (someone can add these back in again if they do it properly). →Raul654 23:53, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
Also - the citation style on this article *sucks* and needs to be improved drastically. →Raul654 23:54, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
I think the CDC definiton of AIDS is both widely accepted and NPOV
Also the Global epidemic figures from UNAIDS are both current and NPOV
Can we at least agree on this factual, referenced start to the article? Sci guy 16:06, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Incorporating all these suggestions could give this version:
This avoids much of the POV unreferenced specualation Sci guy 01:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The methods used to estimate the spread of a disease may be very different for the methods to diagnose that disease. During the recent SARS outbreak in China, sales of vinegar provide useful information about the spread of [[[SARS]] within China, because vinegar is a traditional Chinese remedy for symptoms associated with SARS. This does not mean that eveyone who buys vingar has SARS. World wide sales of vinegar provide no useful information about the global spread of SARS.
HIV antibody tests have not been evaluated for use in Africa. Many common tropical diseases are known to cause a false positive. HIV antibody screening of all pregnant women in European coutries has confirmed no increase in positve results since 1985 and about two third of positve results are women from Africa. Also most African children who tested HIV positive have a mother who is HIV negative! The major risk factor for children in Africa appears to be unsafe medical injections. Sci guy 15:52, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fred, while some of the information you've deleted is redundant and belongs elsewhere, some of it isn't, and your opening sentence is less clear than what was there before. Please try to remember that we're writing for a non-expert audience. -- Robert Merkel 15:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC) I'm reverting then C&Ping the changes here. While I think a lot of these are good, I see none of the discussion and edit summaries you'd expect. Its not good behavoir, even if you think its good editing-- Tznkai 17:50, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Fred2005's changes can be seen here [[
[10]]] A lot of these look like good changes, but I think overall the quality has been reduced. Please discuss here, reach consensus then change article, especially one so contraversial--
Tznkai 17:55, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I found his information much more informative and clear. He seems like he has a good background, I favor his edits, all of them. 207.224.198.170 02:48, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I restate my point. I am all for improving this article, but massive changes should come with good explanation, and superior support, not just an opinion that its superior. Revert wars are never the answer. The goal here should be comprehensive: Primarly show the majority mainstream view, "facts" and then note the minority views and where they come from-- Tznkai 16:45, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I keep forgetting to sign-- Tznkai 19:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The present article does not even make mention of the fact that there exists any controversy with respect to the cause and definition of AIDS, the accuracy of testing methodologies, the differing definitions in the US, Canada, Europe and Africa, the safety and efficacy of antiretroviral medications, and therefore presents a unitary POV that excludes any and all disagreement. Whether or not this POV is correct or false is not, and has not been, my concern. However, every attempt I have made to give even a suggestion of the existence of dispute has been removed, and there is not even a link now to the (very poorly written) article on AIDS reappraisal. The article now even begins by defining AIDS as infection by HIV. I am becoming increasingly inclined to mark this article totally disputed unless folks are willing to work constructively to work these issues out in a way which gives appropriate precedence to the mainstream view while respecting the existence of diverse views by respectable scientists. Whig 03:32, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and you were inclined to endorse the 83% false positive rate for Western Blots in the dissenting article, too. One thing this article doesn't need is more disinformation like that. - Nunh-huh 03:43, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)