User talk:Bob247

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Happy editing!

-- Sango123 17:02, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page if you need help with anything or simply wish to say hello. :)

AIDS article

Thank you so much, not only for the contribution to the article, but also for using references and placing them in the references section. I have taken to keeping up the refs section for AIDS, and it has over 50 cites. People adding things willy-nilly and not using refs/not adding them to the refs section is hell. So, I thank you. :) JoeSmack (talk) 21:20, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Arab culture

Thank you for your substantial improvement to the rag state of the current article. Would you agree the dump of names should be removed? lots of issues | leave me a message 16:33, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am moving the names to the "discussion" workspace so whatever can be used later can be picked out. lots of issues | leave me a message 16:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AIDS/HIV

Your depth of knowledge surrounding HIV/AIDS is quite impressive. Do you happen to work in the field? JoeSmack (talk) 20:20, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I do work in the field of HIV. --Grcampbell 20:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No, it certainly isn't too drastic. We need more expertise like yours around HIV/AIDS. I am only a undergrad student and as far as I can tell there are only a 2-3 people who are associated with the HIV sector on wikipedia at all. Lately creationist challenges have called out a sort of source war on all 'facts' about HIV - even the most basic scientific concepts need empirical data...so I'm glad to see someone bust out with the hard science. So by all means, be drastic! :) ... JoeSmack (talk) 20:56, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

...and enter scene left: User:Sci guy. He's got quite a history with distorting information. He doesn't have many fans. He'll demand proof for which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Just revert him - his strats revolve around keeping people looking for journal articles that proove every intricacy of medical science that make them give up and accept his changes. So easiest thing to do: just revert. JoeSmack (talk) 17:22, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

That's what I've done. I think both him and Fred2005 are either the same person, or come from the same egg... What I put here is the official line from WHO, the CDC, UNAIDS supplemented with data from the respected scietific community. -Grcampbell 17:25, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Im pretty sure Fred2005 is a sockpuppet too. Keep it up. JoeSmack (talk) 17:30, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

The current focus of Wikipedia is the UNAIDS official line: AIDS occurs in people infected with HIV, about 40 million people world wide would be expected to test positive to an HIV antibody test based on studies of preganant women in sentinal hospitals. Specifically, Wikipedia editors have consistently rejected "Bangui" style definitons of AIDS and studies based on these definitons, because such studies typically include many people who would not test positve on an HIV antibody test. Sci guy 15:32, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good, lets keep it that way. --Grcampbell 22:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surrogate markers

I think this article honestly presents the facts in an unbiased way:

"An ideal surrogate marker still does not exist for HIV/AIDS. In fact, after two decades of looking, only two assays, CD4+ T-lymphocyte count and HIV RNA viral load, have been widely adopted as imperfect surrogates for monitoring and predicting the course of disease in people with HIV. These markers have been fairly well correlated with the natural history of HIV infection and progression to AIDS, but each has limitations." [1]

A more recent article, July 2005, is suprisingly frank about the fact that "we honestly don't know when and how to best treat HIV infection." [2]

It is not the task of Wikipedia editors to create certanty where none exists! Sci guy 15:40, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why, if we post the CDC/WHO/UNAIDS/NIH line, then the article will be good. --Grcampbell 22:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your scientific approach

I can see the logic in your idea that the HIV article is about the virus, its structure and function, genome etc and the variations in these that influence infectivity or progression to AIDS - and the AIDS article is about what you call the severe manifestations of HIV infection whether defined by the CDC, WHO or others.

I also see your point that as most of the people with HIV or AIDS are in Africa, it is logical to focus on scientific evidence from Africa.

But is we look at documented HIV or AIDS cases rather than UNAIDS estimates, where are the majority of cases? How do we compare a million cases of HIV infection in the USA based on HIV antibody tests and Western blot confirmation, with an estimated 25 million HIV infections in Africa based on a small number of tests on pregnant women.

Also where do we put issues like, HAART, condoms, safe sex, and antibody tests?

As you know, Africa has been slow to introduce HIV screening of blood transfusion and the debate continues about how many peole have been infected in this way. And needle sharing remains and issue in many parts of Africa.

As a scientist, you must find it ironic, that twenty years ago the press in the US was entranched by the idea of a gay plague while Mother Theresa was spreading HIV in health clinics around the world through unsafe medical injections.

The HIV/AIDS articles have developed around the social and political interests of Wikipedia editors. These include a gay male who has been circumcised to reduced his risk of getting AIDS and a few editors who like argue about the safety of oral sex! Then there are the mass of reverters who remove anything that does not agree with the safe sex course in the US mid west. They consistently remove statements by UNAIDS, WHO, Fauci, Gallo and others. They also believe that hetrosexuals cannot get AIDS unless bleeding occurs during sex! They consistently rejected any reference to T cells as too technical. 203.123.69.213 08:00, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This IP is a sockpuppet for Sci guy. JoeSmack (talk)

Treatment guidelines

The 2003 WHO guidelines are not an update of the 2005 guidelines Sci guy 16:46, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Accodring to WHO, it is their most current guidelines, they have not issued guidelines for 2005 as yet - see their website. --Grcampbell 17:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

AIDS reversion

If you check the edit history of the article, you should see that I am anything but an apologist for AIDS denialists. The reason why I did such a big revert is simple; I have been trying to deal with Sci Guy and his cronies/sockpuppets for months on and off, and after a while you get to the point where there is no point debating with them; the only way to deal with their perpetual rubbish reinsertion was to simply revert to a known good version. The easiest way to identify a known good version was the last version of an editor I know and trust; that happened to be Raul's version. If I blew away a more accurate version in the process, I'm sorry.

That being said, while you may be happy with the scientific accuracy of the present version I have some concerns about its readability. What's wrong with calling AIDS a disease caused by HIV, at least for an introductory paragraph? --Robert Merkel 16:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

read the newest version, it states just that!

"AIDS is an acronym for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and is defined as a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the depletion of the immune system caused by infection with HIV." --Grcampbell 17:06, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

HIV

I see you have been busy, but there are several aspects of Wikipedia you need to understand. First you are making articles too long. 32K is the suggested size. Longer articles are difficult to edit, slow to load, and difficult for most people to read. Secondly, multiple large images simply prevent most people from accessing the page - I counted over 200K on the HIV page. Thirldy, other editors need to be able to see the source of the material you are adding - I know it is tedious to reference "facts" that "everyone knows" - but there are very few of these in HIV/AIDS. Finally, I do not know if is you who is removing other editors sources. Finding good sources is slow work and it is not helpful to the article to remove them. Sci guy 02:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]