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From: hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (Jerry Hollombe)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: re: A Lay question about AIDS?
Message-ID: <182@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 13:56:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.182
Posted: Mon Jan 14 13:56:50 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Jan-85 13:28:57 EST
Organization: TTI, Santa Monica, CA.
Lines: 49

>From: molefeuvre@watarts.UUCP (Michael O LeFeuvre)
>Subject: A Lay question about AIDS?
>Message-ID: <8211@watarts.UUCP>
>
>        1.  Why is it so specific to male homosexuals?  I realize other
>            people do get it, but the dominant group is gays, a very
>            minority goup of the population.


I know of two theories on this  point.  One  seems  reasonable,  the  other
frighteningly paranoid.

Reasonable:

One of the primary vectors of AIDS is anal  intercourse.  This  is  because
the  lining  of  the  rectum isn't built for such treatment and can develop
tears which provide a  direct  path  to  the  bloodstream.  The  virus  (or
whatever) is carried and passed on in semen.

Paranoid:

It is rumored that AIDS may be  part  of  a  biological-warfare  experiment
being performed by our own military.  The rumor contends they are testing a
virus that attacks  only  people  with  certain  specific  body  chemistry.
Ultimate  goal: a bug that kills only Russians (for example).  Legionaire's
Disease is said to have been a prototype.

I would discount these as paranoid  ravings  but  for  the  fact  that  our
military  was actually caught doing something almost as cold-blooded in the
San Francisco Bay area not  so  long  ago.  They  deliberately  released  a
tailored mild flu virus in the Bay area to see how the winds would disperse
it, based on patterns of who  caught  the  flu.  Five  innocent,  unknowing
citizens DIED because of that experiment.  Since then, I don't put ANYTHING
past them.

(If any of this is true, I suppose I'll be quietly abducted,  interrogated,
and disposed of in the next week or so -- all for passing on cocktail party
conversation.  Who says it's 1985?)

-- 
==============================================================================
   ... sitting in a pile of junk on the runway, wondering what happened ...

The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
Citicorp TTI                               If thy CRT offend thee, pluck
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.                      it out and cast it from thee.
Santa Monica, California  90405
(213) 450-9111, ext. 2483
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