December 1, 2015 • 52 mins
AIDS is one of the most well-known and most misunderstood diseases humans are susceptible to. In part one of this two-part series, Josh and Chuck explain how the disease is contracted and how it works.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know friend House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff
you should know the podcast. That's right, treating sir. Two
(00:23):
part podcast. Yeah, today release day, not the day we're recording.
We're not that good. But today's December one, it is
World Aids Day. And we were going to record this
a while ago, and then I noticed it was World
Aids Day coming up. I was like, well, why don't
we wait and record it later and release it then?
And then there was so much stuff right that it
(00:47):
became clear it was a two parter. And I still
don't think we're gonna even well, we'll scratch the surface.
That's selling it short. But you can have an entire
podcast series about HIV and AIDS, for sure. There's so
much information there, really is. It's like daunting, it is,
but it's all luckily because it's such a huge, massive topic. Yeah, um,
(01:10):
an important topic. There's a lot of information out there,
so usually we do pretty well with those that'll be daunted,
is what I'm trying to say. Well, I'm just nervous,
you know, I don't want to mess this one up.
We will mess something up here there, I guarantee it.
But yeah, how about this, then we pledge. We often
read corrections, but we super pledge to correct anything on
(01:31):
this because we're bound to mess something up. It's just
a lot of a lot of stuff. You want to
start from the beginning. Dump be nervous. That's fine. Everybody
tell Chuck, it'll be fine. It'll be fine, Chuck. So
it's a collective sound of our audience, like high pitched
audience voice. Um so chuck. When you think of HIV
(01:53):
AIDS UM, you typically tend to like go back to
the late seventies early eighties when like the real panic
first started. UM. But it later research and that's about
the time it arrived in the United States. But later
research found that UM HIV, the first case of it
(02:14):
came in ninety nine actually, and that they think that um,
it goes back even earlier than that. But this is
the first documented case. They had blood work of this
guy who died mysteriously in conshasa and congo. Right, um
and uh, he had the first documented case of HIV.
That's right, HIV one. Uh. There are two hivs, HIV one,
(02:39):
and HIV two. The one that has been responsible for
the global pandemic is HIV one. And there's been a
lot of debate over the years about where it actually
came from. Uh. Most people agreed that it was primates
in Africa, right, that it started as s I V. Yes, Uh, simeon,
(02:59):
I mean no deficiency virus. HIV. We should say is
human immunodeficiency virus. Yes, and AIDS is acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
They're not separate things. It's actually been very much confused
in the media. We're gonna set the record straight. Yeah,
and uh at the end, boy, how about this for
a tease. At the end of the second episode, there's
(03:20):
a big musical number no three days from now. There
is an argument that we should not even call it
AIDS any longer. So how's that first set up? People
are gonna be waiting where they could just google it
fast forward. Well, but they can't fast forward in time,
my friend. No, but find the time these come out,
they'll have been done and they can fast forward. Yes,
(03:42):
that's true. So what scientists believe, this is the most
current agreed upon theory, is that a type of chimpanzee
and West Africa is the source of HIV one uh,
which was transmitted to humans. They don't know for sure
how because probably are probably be bushed me, undercooked, pushed
me exactly, you know, wanting to eat chimpanzee and there's blood,
(04:05):
and all of a sudden it spreads to humans, and
you tube, chimpanzees fight back, they do, That's what I've heard. Yeah.
But yeah, if you ingest blood that was infected with
s i V and then the SIV virus um evolved
into HIV and humans, that's the likeliest version of what
happened somewhere in West Africa, probably the thirties or forties. Yeah,
(04:29):
and they I saw one article that said that they
think that it could have originally started in primates even
in the nineteen twenties, which is just crazy to think about,
like the Roaring twenties, somewhere in the depths of Africa
s i V was brewing, you know, because it seems
like such a modern thing for sure. Uh. And then uh,
(04:49):
in the late seventies and early eighties is when um,
these normally healthy people in Los Angeles and New York
started getting sick. Didn't make any sense. Uh. They first
started using the term um AIDS right, and before that
they had a really clumsy name for it, um O
(05:12):
for HIV. Yeah. Are you ready? Yea, So just the
abbreviation is clumsy ht l V three slash l a V.
That's just the abbreviation. The full name of what was
originally the term for um was it is it aids
V for HIV human T cell lymphotropic virus type three
(05:34):
slash lymphidano pathy associated virus. Yeah. And I think they
all looked around the room whoever proposed that, and said, guys,
if we want to ever get this in the news,
let's just sweeten that and shorten it to HIV. You
the person who proposed it, you have to go buy
everyone quiz Nos for lunch. Uh. And actually we should say,
(05:57):
chuck that this this definitely just kind of we're giving
the farrest overview of this. But um there's a really
really interesting movie based on what I understand is an
equally interesting book called and the band played On. My
brother worked on that movie. That was a great, great movie.
I watched it again in the last few months and
it's just as good as ever. Yeah, that's where he
(06:18):
got to work with Ellen Aldnei, Tomlin and like some
real legends. So yeah, there's a lot of people in it.
Phil Collins does a great job. Yeah, he plays a
bath house owner who's reluctant to close down. Interesting. Um,
but it's it basically chronicles the early investigation into what
the heck was going on. What was suddenly killing gay
(06:38):
men in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York.
And it seemed like it was just targeting gay men
so much so that early on, like the the non
clinical term for this was gay cancer is what people
called it. And all of a sudden, doctors were reporting
that otherwise healthy men were suddenly getting really really rare cancers,
(06:59):
rare types of ammonia, stuff that people who have like
zero immune systems die from. All of a sudden, they
were just turning up with this stuff, and um, it
was very curious and very scary, especially in the gay community.
And then um, it wasn't until what was eighty three
three where they identified the virus and there was a
(07:21):
there were competing teams, this French team who most likely
did discover the HIV virus on their own, and Alan Alda,
the American team who may or may not have ripped
off their findings and unfairly taken credit for it. But
and I've never seen that movie. Fascinating. It's fascinating, it's moving,
it's got it all. It's really good. It's good. It's
(07:42):
like um uh, epidemiological detective stories threaded throughout a lot
of cultural history. It's really really worth watching. Well in uh.
In episode two, we're also going to get to that
book in the so called patient zero um, which will
be coming up on Thursday. Another tease. Alright, so um,
(08:04):
and we should point out to the reason these men
were dying of cancers and pneumonia and things like that
is because and most people know this by now. A
lot of this we think is just common knowledge, but
you never know. You're you don't die of AIDS. You
die of complications from AIDS, infections, other sicknesses and diseases
(08:24):
because you can't mount any kind of immune response. Okay,
I think that was a good move. Yeah, well, smooth move, excellence.
You never know, Like some of this stuff, I'm like, dude,
really have to say this stuff, but you do well.
The weird thing is you do, especially in is compared
(08:46):
to say, like because Um, there's become this idea that
AIDS has been as being largely conquered, it doesn't have
to be worried about as much and not true. I
think the education on HIV and AIDS is not nearly
as widespread as it once was. Like when we were
like teenagers, you know, like everybody knew everything about AIDS
(09:06):
basically at least had a working knowledge of what AIDS was,
how you got it, how widespread it was. And UM,
it seems like today it's that that kind of public information.
Is it nearly is widespread? Yeah, I think that's one
of the issues now, is that, Um, a large segment
of the public is like, yeah, they have the AIDS cocktail.
Look at Magic Johnson. It's all great, sure, And um
(09:27):
it is great when we're gonna talk about why he's
still with us, but it's it's still a very big problem. Um.
Here's a here's a stat for you. Uh. And these
are the most recent stats I could find. Seventy eight
million HIV infected people worldwide to date, thirty nine million
people dead. Um. Compared to World War Two, which killed
(09:49):
forty million people. That helps put it into perspective a
little bit. Uh. And sub Saharan South Africa, which is
where AIDS is an HIV or most threatening. Um, this
is a scary status, dude. One and twenty people have
HIV what in sub Saharan South Africa and the account
for seventy of all cases worldwide of HIV man a lie,
(10:12):
I know. It's it's a very dire situation over there,
to say the least. Uh, Well, that's that's that's especially
chilling because if you look at the statistics in the
United States, like it's it's slowing and it's it's definitely
if you look at the statistics, it seems like it's
being figured out. Well, yeah, it depends on what demographic
(10:32):
though it's rising in some demos, right, Yeah, for sure.
If you take the United States as a whole, the
picture seems okay. But yeah, if you start to break
it down into specific subgroups, then some are definitely doing
better than others. As far as new infections, death from infections,
that kind of stuff come absolutely. Uh So, HIV is
a scary disease and it was super scary before we
(10:55):
knew much about it because, um, it's still technically incurable.
Although we're going to get to that. There are some
rare cases where it's what do they call it, functionally cured? Yes, Um,
it does seem like there's at least one person who
is widely considered to be fully cured, and he is
(11:16):
a proof of concept that you can cure AIDS, and
that's coming in part two. What are we going to
do in part one? We're just yeah, like we're just talking. Basically,
this is all one big setup for part two. Apparently, No,
it's not. So. One reason AIDS and so deadly is uh,
(11:36):
it's sort of a conundrum because AIDS you can't catch
it through the air. It's not airborne. You can't catch
it from a kitchen counter. You can only catch it
through very specific ways intimate contact, intimate context. You would think, hey,
it's not gonna be that widespread because intimate contact is
something you can avoid and so it should be a
(11:57):
pretty slow spreading disease, right, and not all intimate contact
includes like whips and chains and stuff like that. Intimate
contact is basically any situation where um, you know sure, Uh.
Intimate contact is basically any situation where blood is transferred
or semen is transferred. Um, So it doesn't necessarily just
(12:21):
mean intercourse of any sort. It can also mean sharing needles,
and it definitely does mean sharing needles too. That's a
very high risk UM subgroup for sure. But the reason,
and here's the key, that AIDS has spread an HIV
um so widely and quickly is because it can You
(12:41):
can have HIV for more than ten years without knowing it.
And if you are a promiscuous individual. I did a
little math. Let's say you have let's say you're considered
highly promiscuous. What what what do you rate that as
hundred partners a year, which apparently also so. I want
(13:03):
to say this to UM, but AIDS being associated with
gay people, gay man especially UM is it hit at
precisely the worst possible time in the history of homosexuality
in the world because it came right after, right after Stonewall,
when men were just starting to be like, it's all
(13:25):
about gay pride and we are love and life and
having more sex than we've ever had ever as a community,
and having a hundred or a couple hundred sexual partners
in the late seventies among gay men was pretty standard. Yeah,
I don't know it definitely. I don't think it made
you an outlier, you know, continue so and a caveat
(13:48):
all this with I'm assuming, Well, let me just get
into it. Let's say a hundred partners in a year.
Let's say of those partners are promiscuous. Man, this is so,
then they have a mathematic. Then they have a hundred partners.
So that's people. And and this is not people who
(14:08):
are infected. This is assuming. Let's say that there's a
smaller percentage that don't use condoms. And even if you
don't use a condom, it's not like every time you
have sex you're going to transmit aids um. But this
is a possibility, is what I'm saying. Let's say that
group are promiscuous. You end up from that one single
(14:30):
person people who could possibly potentially be exposed if nobody
wore condoms at all. And of course that number goes
way down because people are smarter now and use condoms.
But in the late seventies, I mean that number could
be accurate, you know, oh yeah easily. So I mean,
(14:50):
what are you gonna wear a condom back then? For
nobody's getting pregnant, you know, yeah, I mean there was
no reason to. Uh, so you can see how can
spread so quickly, and that is also the reason why
it stays latent, or the reason the fact that it
stays latent for so long, that's the single reason why
you need to get tested. Yeah, regularly, gay, straight, black, brown,
(15:14):
candy striped. It doesn't matter, get tested because you may
have it and not know it. And HIV eighth is
an outlier as far as diseases go, in that there's
no there's no vaccine against it, um, there is no
way to easily treat it. It spreads quickly, and because
it has what's called late onset symptoms, like you said,
(15:36):
people go ten years after being infected before they realize
they're sick, especially if they're not getting tested in the meantime.
And so it just keeps spreading and spreading and spreading
among people who think they're healthy but who actually have
the virus. Yeah, and if you're promiscuous, it's not like
you can name the partners you've had over the last
decade to tell them maybe you want to get tested,
(15:58):
you know. And then even more than that, and again, well,
so with the gay community, it's such an at risk
UM subgroup. We'll explain why in a second, but one
of the reasons why it spreads quickly in the gay
community because it's a relatively small community. So that means
that the pool you have to draw from for sexual partners,
(16:20):
statistically speaking, you're at higher risk. Yeah, because it's smaller,
because it is a smaller community. But even beyond that,
biologically speaking, they're at higher risk as well. Gay men are. Yeah,
well we should just go ahead talk about that. The
main reason is it's easier to get HIV from anal
sex and that is men and women because um, the well,
(16:44):
there's a few reasons for that. One, the lining of
the rectum is very fragile, it tears very easily. UM,
and intercourse lots of blood vessels, lots of blood vessels. Um.
The cells that line the rectum are more susceptible to
HIV than cells of the vagina. Right and then uh
semen and rectal mucosa, which is the lining of the rectum,
(17:06):
carry more HIV than vaginal fluid. So boom, right there,
you're I think eighteen percent eighteen eighteen times more risky
with anal intercourse than just regular vaginal inter course. Right,
and saying that right, you are, yes, and um, gay
men and straight women are equal risk of AIDS through
(17:29):
um through unprotected sex anally, because it doesn't it doesn't
matter that you're a man or not. No, a man's
rectum is the same as a woman's right exactly as
far as I know. I'm pretty sure you're right about that. Yeah,
I mean it says in here, uh the risk. Yeah,
that's exactly right. Another reason is a role versatility is
(17:50):
what they call it. Whether or not you're a top
or a bottom, you can get it either way by
giving anal sex or receiving anal sex. So you're kind
of in a lose lose situation precisely. Uh. So that
and I never knew that until I've studied this, that switching,
(18:10):
like why why do gay men get a HIV more
than uh, straight people if it's passed through intercourse? And
now it all makes sense, all right? Going back to
why AIDS is so scary and HIV, I feel like
we're interchanging those and we shouldn't be. No, let's let's
(18:31):
lay this out right here right now, you're ready, because
I didn't realize this fully until we started researching this episode.
So HIV is a it's called the progressive disease in
that it goes through stages. So technically UM and HIV
infection has zero stage zero to stage three UH and
(18:54):
all of this is based on the number of T
helper cells you have in a milli leader of blood.
Normal healthy person has about a million T helper cells
called CD plus four cells in one milli leader of
their blood. As you um, as the the HIV infection progresses,
(19:14):
it diminishes the number of these helper cells. And as
it goes down you go to certain stages, so like
stage three HIV is um I think five hundred thousand
per milli leader or blood or less. And then once
you reach two hundred thousand uh c D plus four
cells in your blood UH, you have AIDS. So AIDS
(19:38):
is not a separate disease. It's not a it's not
a new condition that that arises out of HIV. It's
all it's just part of a classification system. Yeah, it's
basically ND stage HIV. It's stage four HIV, and it's
really bizarre that they have a whole different name for
it if you think about it. But a this is
(20:00):
just basically the end category of HIV. And it used
to be that was a death sentence. Once you had AIDS,
you were basically dead. And in the eighties and nineties,
especially before I think the AIDS cocktail, which we'll talk
about came out, it was, um, you basically were diagnosed
(20:21):
and you were dead in twelve to eighteen months. That
was that. Now it can keep going you, I mean,
people just live for decades now with AIDS. But once
you have AIDS, once you have that designation, UM, you
have that for the rest of your life, unless you're cured,
which has only happened a handful of times. Yeah, and
there's a guy named Todd Heywood that wrote this great
(20:42):
article uh saying it's time to retire the medical category
of AIDS, and he makes a lot of good reasons
why we should just call it HIV disease like you
would say heart disease. Right, So we're not gonna say
HIV disease in this show. We're not that big as friends. Well,
I just wanna go with traditional terms because some people learn.
(21:02):
But I think there is a good case to be
made for that is what I'm saying. I mean, this
is also another UM. Another mark in that guy's in
favor of that argument is that AIDS was named in
and we've learned so much about this disease since then,
(21:23):
and one of the things we've learned is this is
a progressive disease that goes through stages. AIDS is just
the end stage of it. Why have a different name
for it? And there's no, it's not the same in
any two people. Uh, And HIV disease is just more
all encompassing. I think, yeah, so we're not going to
use it, are we. That's gonna be tough. What to
not say HIV disease? Oh, AIDS, I thought you were
(21:45):
saying yeah. Uh. And the final reason, boy, this took
like twenty minutes to get back to us. Wait what
are we talking about? The final reason that HIV is
uh super scary is because of its very unique way
it manifests itself, which is um it invades and destroys
the immune system. The very system that is supposed to
protect you from disease is ruined. It's yeah, it's HIV
(22:10):
is a virus, so it behaves like a virus. But
other viruses attacks, say like you're fat cell that you
could care less about, So who cares? AIDS or HIV
attacks your immune system directly. The cells, a specific type
of cell of your immune system and that's what eventually
leads to your death or used to definitely lead to
your death. You know, I'm back in my day, all right.
(22:33):
I think we should take a break and we will
talk a little bit about how it is and is
not transmitted right after this, all right, Josh, it's uh,
(23:02):
George Orwell is in charge. I'm in elementary school, and
AIDS is a scary thing, and you can get it
from toilet seats and mosquitoes and kissing and shaking hands.
Shaking hands, Yeah, being too near to somebody. It was
very scary as far as times go to be a kid.
None of that stuff is true. Think about it, man.
(23:22):
We were raised during that horrible little ven diagram where
the Cold War and the AID scare overlapped. Like we
just basically didn't want to leave our houses. We missed
out on the days where free secs and and drugs
was like, didn't hurt anybody, and just sprinkle in a
little stranger danger in there too, why not? Yeah, a
little satanic panics sure. And the eighties what a crazy
(23:44):
time now that you know we've got a little distance
from it. Parachute pants is that all about culture? Club
was actually great? That's the only good thing about the eighties.
UM the ways that you can get HIV sexual contact,
sharing needles interview in his needles, breastfeeding, mother to baby,
UM infected mother to fetus during pregnancy, at birth, and
(24:08):
blood transfusions, which used to happen a lot and doesn't
happen that much anymore. No, and there was It's another
thing for me in the band played on, was this
big to do about whether or not UM Blood Donation
Center say like the Red Cross should have to test
blood for this new disease. They were like, do you
know how much this is gonna cost. It's gonna completely
(24:30):
dent the blood supply. People are gonna die because we
have to do this. But then as it became very
obvious that you this stuff spread really easily through blood transfusions,
they definitely started to check it. They came up with
a I think a fairly cheap test for it in UM. Yeah,
the FDA approved something in to test it. But I
(24:52):
mean without these tests suck. You have a nine thousand,
two hundred and fifty chants out of ten thousand of
of acquiring HIV from a blood transfusion. That's yeah, man, Yeah,
that those are pretty high chances because think about it,
and for unprotected anal sex, if you are receiving, you
(25:16):
have a hundred and thirty eight out of ten thousand chance. Okay,
this is nine thousand, two hundred and fifty out of
ten thousand chants from a blood transfusion. I tried to
find those stats. Actually I couldn't find that one. Oh
I got some more for you, buddy, if you want them. Well,
I was trying to find when I was doing my
my stupid mathematical equation earlier, I was trying to find
out the possibility or percentage rate of having unprotected anal sex,
(25:41):
Like what are your chances of getting if you're if
you're giving, you have an eleven out of ten thousand chance,
so one point one out of every thousand encounters. So
even if my yeah, that's sixty two, number goes way
way down, thankfully, but I think it's still you know
this is this is based on and I should say
(26:02):
this is based on the distribution of HIV infected people
across the United States as of like I think two
thousand ten, so, um, I mean, it's all statistics, man,
It depends on where you are, who you're hanging out
with UM. I mean, if you're like sharing needles with
with like UM addicts in the street, your risk is
(26:25):
probably going to be a little higher than the national
average across the United States, you know what I mean.
So it definitely is contextual. It's almost to the point
where it's like these these stats are meaningless, really, but
they do put a I think stats help people put
like a face to things. For sure. The blood transfusion
one is a tad eye open for real um. And
(26:45):
then finally we need to mention And the only reason
we mentioned this is because technically it is possible. There
has been one case of HIV infection through open mouth kissing. Yes,
but I hesitate to even say that because people like
Josh and Chokes said, you get through kissing, So you're
there has to be bloody gums of an HIV infected
(27:08):
person present. I think both people have to have bleeding
gums and one of the people has to have HIV
and they just make out and the the HIV is
transferred that way. That clearly doesn't happen much. Apparently it
happened at least once, which is pretty crazy. But yes,
you're you're very it's extraordinarily unlikely that you're going to
(27:31):
contract HIV through open mouth kissing. It does not transmit um. Well,
here's the good news. This sounds like it's all bad news.
The good news is it is not airborne, does not
transfer through the surface contact. It's very fragile outside the body,
super fragile, which is awesome. Like once saliva or blood
dries up, there's practically zero chance of transmission. Um and yeah,
(27:56):
it just it doesn't live very long outside the body,
which it sounds bad, but it could be a lot worse.
Oh yeah, you know, super hard through um breathing. Yeah,
through the air, it would be bad. Uh. It is
not transmitted through saliva, tears, or sweat. Uh. And saliva
and tears have trace amounts of HIV. They have not
(28:18):
detected HIV and sweat at all, which is good news
for me because I'm a sweaty guys. Yeah, it's good
news for us. I guess you're right, uh, insects. I
guess we need to talk about the whole mosquito thing,
because I think I talked about this in the virus episode.
Um was it virus? There was something? Maybe I remember
it might have been just the mosquitoes. One, Oh yeah,
(28:39):
maybe so. I remember thinking when I was a kid
like and this before I had read anything about it.
I came up with it on my own. It's like, wow, mosquitoes,
those are like little needles. I bet they could transmit
AIDS or HIV, and um, it's not true. So here's why.
There's very very good scientific reasons why you can't catch
HIV from a mosquito. When a mosquito injects its probosis
(29:04):
into your skin, um, it uses its own saliva to
lubricate this, this whole thing right um. And and when
it draws blood out, it can conceivably draw the HIV
virus out of an HIV infected person through their blood. Right.
But there's a couple of things that that um happened
(29:25):
after that. One, the mosquito goes and digests its blood
meal to the so it doesn't just immediately go to
another person and pick up some more blood usually um
to the virus does not replicate within the mosquito. Uh.
And Three, that virus isn't present in the mosquito saliva.
So even if it went and drank the blood of
(29:48):
an HIV infected person got HIV in it and then
went and and and injected you and got some of
your blood and then went back and digestis blood meal.
You still would not catch HIV from that. There would
be no transfer of HIV from that person's blood into
your body. Yeah. And they've even investigated in like parts
of Africa where aids in HIV are rampant and where
(30:09):
mosquitoes are rampant and transmit all kinds of diseases, and
they've still said nope, nope, nope, not happening, thank god. Uh.
And then of course toilet seats, swimming in a pool
with someone eating at the same restaurant sharing a fork.
Even social kissing closed mouth kissing. Did you know there
was a name for that closed mouth kissing? Yeah? I
(30:31):
call it no fun social kissing? What like the French
you do? Like yeah? Or I call that wedding ceremony kissing.
You don't often see people when they say you may
kiss the bride just like go full to its gross.
I think I saw one guy do that once at
(30:51):
a wedding. I was like, oh, man, man, come on,
do like a nice respectful kiss on the lips. You
mean I went to a friend's wedding recently and um,
they had a nice kiss Tony and Wenney. Congratulations. By
the way, guys, what was nice about it? It was
not social kissing, but it was not like you gross
it was. It was a good wedding kiss, a good romantic,
(31:13):
but tasteful kiss, perfectly perfectly put. Well, that's nice. I
hate that. I miss that. Um do you maybe I
can get my hands on video of it or they?
Uh yeah, Virus Talk with Josh and Chuck by the way, October, Yeah,
but I really think it was the Mosquito's episode that
you talked about it. No, no no, no, I mean we're
(31:34):
about to talk about virus is because HIV is a virus, agreed,
And as you learned and Virus Talk, um, viruses require
a host cell because viruses are basically they're not their
own thing, like they they just are carrying information basically
to invade another cell and poop it out in there,
(31:55):
right exactly. I mean, like they are the definition of um.
I guess what Dawkins would have called the selfish gene.
It just the whole purpose, if there is such thing
as a purpose to the universe, the whole purpose of
a virus is to create more viruses. That's it. And
when you think about the effect that a virus like
HIV has on human beings and has had on the
(32:18):
entire population of humanity over the last few decades, to
think that these viruses aren't even thinking that, they're not
that all that, all of that is just a byproduct
of its singular purpose, Yeah, of replicating itself. It's it's
kind of astounding. It's just so, yeah, it is because
it's just like the virus couldn't care less, because the
(32:39):
virus couldn't care literally, it doesn't have feelings. It's just
it's bizarre to think of it like that. Yeah, it's
it truly is uh. So viruses, including HIV, they don't
have cell walls or nucleus. Um. It's just those genetic
instructions and it's got a little protective shell. Um. A
virus HIV particle called a very of irene. I think
(33:02):
both of those are acceptable all uh it is spherical
uh and one ten thousand of a millimeter in diameter,
and it has little buds sticking out of the top
of it where it's basically it docks with the host cell. Yeah.
So um, like you said, it's just some instructions to
replicate itself. It's RNA strands wrapped in like a little
(33:23):
um protective shell made of proteins and lipids, I think,
and um, it enters the body and it goes straight
for your lymph nodes. I believe, yeah, because that's where
the T helper cells like to hang out. And of
course because it wants to recaboc on your body, it
goes straight there. And let's talk a little bit real
quick about T helper cells. So basically you have T
(33:44):
cells and they are like these they're like jaws from
James Bond, Okay, Lurch from the Adams family, UM, and
Jason Vorhees all rolled into one. As far as like
white blood cells in your immune system, they are mindless, bloodthirsty,
(34:05):
just killers. Lurch wasn't a bad guy, no, but he's scary, intimidating,
and you do a pretty good lurch by the way. Um,
I thought it was a great lurch. I appreciate it.
So it's just these things, these things are just kind
of hanging out. These T T cells are just hanging
out waiting to be told what to do. So, okay,
so there's one more character that they're like master blaster,
(34:29):
but they need the master guy a little shrimp. And
the little shrimp comes in the form of the the
c D four plus T cells that the T helper cells.
They go to the T cells and say, hey, get ready,
get all wrapped up and go get those guys, right.
So HIV goes right to the c D four plus
(34:51):
T cells, the T helper cells, and that's its preferred
cell to attack. Those are the ones that it hijacks.
And it goes up and it docks with the CD
four plus T cells and it it basically takes over,
It hijacks it in turns those cells into HIV byrian factories.
That is correct, sir. And more specifically, there are seven
(35:14):
it's a seven part um process and how HIV invades
the T cells. And yeah, because I don't know if
we said that the replication is a really big part
of HIV and why it's so devastating. Yeah, we did.
We mention that we'll talk about a little more. Okay,
let's let's just get to the nitty gritty though. Yeah,
and we should point out to we're gonna talk about
(35:35):
the drug cocktail later. And then each stage there's another
there's a corresponding drug in the drug cocktail that helps
disrupt this process. Yeah, it's like a very smart, multi
pronged approach because the HIV virus is like what the hey, yeah,
exactly going on here. I can't get anything done and
it just leaves all right. So part one binding as
(35:58):
when the HIV actually attaches to the immune cell, the
T helper cell and they actually fused together. Yeah, there's
special proteins. There's proteins on the helper cell that allow
these things to dock with it. That's right. It's like
a receptor's site almost. It's like a couple of rednecks
and boats when they tie their boats together out in
(36:19):
the lake from fourth of July. Right. I was thinking
more like a space capsule in the I S S.
But I guess that's a lower tech version of it,
right next tying their boats. One man's space capsule is
another man's party boat. Uh. Some some redneck boater who
was listening to this and didn't realize he'd be implicated.
It was like, hey, I'm not gay. He just said
(36:40):
that to his his iPhone number two. Reverse transcription, Uh,
reverse transcript days. It's a viral enzyme. It copies. We
said that HIV was RNA initially correct. I don't know
if we said that it's a retrovirus. So the the
genetic instructions that are inside the virus is RNA, not DNA, right.
(37:03):
But it goes through the reverse transcription process where the
virus is RNA becomes DNA, right, And it just when
it docks with the helper sell it does this little
bit of work on its own. It says it's got
this little enzyme. It runs it's RNA through it, and
there's a DNA strand that it just built, right, correct,
(37:23):
number three integration. Now you have your DNA and it
is carried into the cells nucleus by something called viral
integras binds what that sells DNA, and now you are
no longer a retro virus. You writ provirus right. But
then strangely, the cells DNA, the helper cells DNA takes
this new instruction, these new blueprints, and spits out RNA
(37:47):
again m rna correct. Right. It's it's called messenger RNA
and it is instructions on how to build new HIV virans.
It all sounds very sinister, it does, because if you
think about it on A. On a cellular level, it
is like, um, it's like I'm trying to kill this thing, right,
but it's very insidious, and that it's it comes up with.
(38:10):
It translates its own little instruction manual into the language
of the cell, inserts it into the cells like main
section the brain of it, and that makes the brain
spit out new instructions that are taken to the rest
of the cell. So it almost like it it gets
the stamp of approval from the cell to go for
(38:32):
the other parts of the cell to start building these
new parts for the virus. Yeah, we're totally humanizing it
by making it sound like it's nefarious, but it does
seem that way. You know, it's very interesting. So that
last step was called transcription. Then you have translation. You've
got that m r n A at this point is
carried back out of the cell. This is like a
work order, Yeah, exactly, carry back out of the cell
(38:56):
and then basically follows a natural progression where these long
chains of proteins and enzymes are strung together by the
own cells, own functions, and own components. Yeah, it just
starts doing its normal thing, right, but it's not doing
its normal stuff any longer. What it's doing is using
its energy and time to build new HIV viruns rather
(39:16):
than go prime T cells exactly. Uh. Part six assembly
the RNA and viral enzymes they get together at the
edge of the cell, and another enzyme called proteas basically cuts.
I don't really understand this part, So imagine what's more
like making one cell at a time, having somebody just
(39:39):
spit out a whole bunch of the same parts, and
then assembling them later. One of the steps of assembly
is cutting them into individual bits from these long chains
of polypeptides, and then finally, butting is when it actually
splits off. It pinches out from the cell membrane becomes
its own thing, and one of the key components there
is it doesn't have to destroy the host cell in
(40:01):
the process. No, it doesn't. UM. There's a lot of
viruses out there that just keep building and building and
building until they literally rupture the cell, and that's how
they spread through the body. These like say, hey, thanks
for a little bit of that lipid action, I'm now
a new HIV virus and UM. But you can keep
going on and build some more virans. I don't have
(40:22):
to destroy you to spread. It's really a nasty, nasty disease.
It really is how it works. So eventually the the
helper cell does figure out that there's something terribly wrong
and it it self destructs. But this makes the whole
thing even even worse. So the CD the c D
four plus T helper cell is not out there doing
what it's supposed to be doing, priming T cells to
(40:44):
attack the HIV instead of spending its time making more HIV.
And then when it finally is like, this has messed up.
Something's really wrong. I need to self destruct. It actually
signals other c D four plus he helped ourselves to
come surround it, and then it basically blows up, taking
them with it. Yeah, it's like a mass suicide. It's yeah,
(41:06):
it's like it's like a massacre down there on the
cellular level. Yeah. So this is one of the things
that makes HIV so insidious. All Right, I think we
need to take another break because people's minds are exploding
at this point and hopefully expanding, so we'll be right
back after this. Um chuck. One of the things we
(41:46):
also have to mention about HIV and UM one of
the other aspects that makes it so difficult to cure
or to even treat. Um. In addition to these cells
like being hijacked, some of these irons that are being
produced are just going off and accumulating in other cells,
(42:06):
but they're not hijacking it, right, So as far as
the cells concerned, there's nothing weird going on. There's nothing
worth blowing yourself up over. It's just um, there's just
some extra little virus hanging out on my surface. But
who cares, It's fine. And these start to spread over
that decade from infection to the onset of symptoms, they
start to spread and accumulate throughout the body and the
(42:28):
growing area and your bone marrow and your lymph nodes,
like all over your bodys Yes, they form HIV reservoirs, right,
And since these things can just hide out and they're
not active and then they can become active whenever, it
makes HIV a chronic, lifelong disease, and it makes it
really really difficult to eradicate because the body mounts its
(42:50):
own defense against the HIV infection. Initially, it's those reservoirs
that become more and more widespread and increasing number to
where they finally get to a point where your viral
load is what it's called. There's just so many HIV
viryans infecting so much of your body that when they
do start to finally become active, it just totally overloads
(43:12):
your c D four count and your number just goes down,
and all of a sudden you have the stage three
year four HIV, which is again is AIDS and um
we uh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Um, I
think that one of the also more dangerous parts is
those reservoirs are invisible in that right, like immunologically speaking, Yeah,
(43:35):
and you know, it's just like there's a there's a
virus on the on the protein outside and that's it.
And we're gonna talk about the AIDS cocktail and stuff.
But even though it is effective, I think they said
it's it's um, it's so slow moving that it will
require sixty to eighty years of the cocktail therapy to
completely eradicate the virus. In other words, you can't completely
(43:57):
eradicate the virus. I mean technically good. It depends it
to be very old when you were very young. If
you acquired it at age ten and you lived to
age ninety, then technically you could probably completely rad KHIV.
That's not the way that this goes though, you know. Yeah,
well no, but there have been plenty of kids who
get it through other ways, you know. Yeah, I mean
(44:18):
like you can be infected as a fetus, um and
again through breastfeeding. I think are two of the ways
you said, right, yeah, and you know with I think
Ryan White got it through a blood transfusion, didn't heah is,
Well we'll talk about that too, man. There's so much
future goodness coming. All right, Well, we're gonna close this
episode out with some stats. UM. I went to uh,
(44:41):
and this is for the United States. We've already given
some worldwide stats, but geez, where to start. There's so
many UM. Estimated incidents of HIV has remained stable in
recent years, about fifty thousand new HIV infections per year
in the United States. But like we said, some groups
UM are worse off than others. Uh if you go
(45:05):
by groups UM. And this is where categorizing sexuality gets
so tricky, because you can say homosexual men, bisexual men,
or this term that was invented in the mid nineties
m s M men who have sex with men, which
is meant to be a neutral term. Yeah, that's not
casting any judgment or anything that right. It also takes
(45:26):
into account dudes are into like download stuff who don't
self identify as gay, right, Um, like I'm not gay bisexual,
I just have sex with men exactly every Wednesday, you know,
in the park. Yeah, and those those people would be
counted in this correct Uh. And there's we might as
well say, there's there's the very people who created that
term in the science community. Um, some of them are
(45:48):
now lobbying to have that term removed or used more sparingly,
I think is another interpretation. Yeah, And the thought is
and it makes a lot of sense, is uh. And
there's also women sleeping with women us w Uh, it says,
and I'm gonna read this directly, so don't goof it up,
said ms M and w SW often imply a lack
of lesbian or gay identity and absence of community networks
(46:10):
and relationships in which same gender peerings mean more than
merely sexual behavior. Uh. Plus it's ex sense. They are
also saying that it's overly broad too, that you're really
not taking into account specifically who you're talking about, you know,
like if you're lumping in Wednesday download guys with um,
(46:31):
you know, men who have been openly homosexual since age
sixteen who are now sixty. Those are two totally different
communities and in most ways, absolutely and to lump them
in together, especially if you're if it's an epidemiological paper,
for example, that's that's doing a disservice to the person
you're writing the paper for. So they're there, they propose
(46:52):
to just be more specific, like you don't have to
get do away with MSM. But say you know Wednesday
downlow ms um right, you know, when you're talking about
a specific population and in your study site, the the
type of subgroups that you study that participated in the study,
like you had twenty Wednesday download ms M, you had
(47:14):
uh thirty old gay guys. Surely there's other abbreviations that
could come out of this, but they're saying, just be
more scientific about this show. We yeah, and I think
it started out with a well meaning, well intended thing,
but um there, you know, this whole thing is evolved.
Everyone's learning how the best deal with terminologies, you know,
and we've in ten years there'll be more specific terminology.
(47:35):
You know, what are you about to say he had
a good joke like give everybody a break. We're all
learning as we go. Yeah, we are. We're in this together.
So but risk group wise. Uh. And of course it
says MSM here right after we said all that. Uh.
They represent about four percent of the male population is
all in the United States in two thousand ten, they
accounted for seventy eight of new HIV infections and of
(47:58):
all people living with HIV UH in the United States.
So and you know, we got to the reasons why
that you know is happening earlier. Uh. And then the UM,
let me see here, injection drug users represent eight percent
of new infections in two thousand ten. Women accounted for
twenty of estimated new infections in two thousand ten. And UM,
(48:22):
what's scary there is there's been a rise UH in
HIV infection and women increase from two thousand eight to
two thousand ten. You know that's going in the wrong direction.
I didn't see it in my research anywhere, but I
didn't specifically look for it. UM, so take it with
a grain of salt. But I remember hearing not too
many years ago that UM HIV was on the rise
(48:43):
among the elderly population really thanks to viagra. That there's
been a far greater increase in sexual activity and retirement
communities or nursing homes even sure because of viagra, and
they're there, but they're just not taking precautions because they're like,
I'm you know, I'm eighty. Yeah, that's fine, but apparently
(49:03):
HIV is totally makes on the rise among that population.
We need to do one on viagra. Actually looked at
the article the other day to suggest it and it
was hard. Oh was it? Yes, it was. It was
dense and difficult, So yeah, bad, bad guy. UH. African
Americans and minorities in general. UM Africa. African Americans represent
(49:26):
twelve percent of the population but accounted fort of new
infections in two thousands ten and I wish we had
more recent stats, but we don't. Apparently that's the most
most instantly available, which is surprising. And the same with
Hispanic Latino UH a disproportionate affected by HIV compared to
their population. So then I was like, well, why is
(49:48):
this happening? UM. As far as African Americans and are concerned,
there's a lot of debate on what's going on there. UM,
but they have found more infections, a shorter survival period,
an increased number of deaths, and the most leading theories
are poverty, that they may be more likely to be
(50:08):
uninsured and go to the doctor to begin with. UM,
injection drug use. Uh, the increases increases the spread of HIV.
And I guess what they're saying is there's less safe
injection drug use in the African American community or less
responsible like getting new you know, and stuff like that. Uh,
(50:32):
there's like a heroin epidemic going on right now. I
don't think just with the black community. As a matter
of fact, it's even more popular among like white kids
than Black kids right now. But I wonder how much
of an effect that's having on the spread of HIV
among everybody. Yeah, good point. Uh. And then the last
couple of lack of information, Um, you may not you
may be HIV positive and you don't even know it.
(50:54):
And we I know, we talked before about the Tuskegee
syphilis experiments and how they're that has led to a
general distrust UM and some corners of the African American
community against the medicine and doctors overall. And then finally
a stigma. There's a stigma in the black community. UM
that still is a gay, white disease. And that's why
(51:18):
when Easy got AIDS it was such a big deal.
It was the illuminati who injected him with it. Was
that one of the theories. You're kidding? Uh yeah, I
mean that was why he was a really big deal,
because he put a face to a certain segment of
the black population where they're like, wait a minute, you
know it's easy can get it. Anybody can get it. Yeah,
it's true. Uh so those are the reasons they think
(51:39):
it's spreading more in the in the minority communities. Um,
and are we done with part one? I think so? So.
Do you remember um when they would do like a
very serious two part different strokes at the end. Normally
they would clap at the end, but at the end
of part one, it would just like go quiet, Yeah,
I got no listener mail for this. I think we
(52:00):
should do that. Okay, So how do we set this up?
I think we just stopped talking for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works?
Dot Com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know friend House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff
you should know the podcast. That's right, treating sir. Two
(00:23):
part podcast. Yeah, today release day, not the day we're recording.
We're not that good. But today's December one, it is
World Aids Day. And we were going to record this
a while ago, and then I noticed it was World
Aids Day coming up. I was like, well, why don't
we wait and record it later and release it then?
And then there was so much stuff right that it
(00:47):
became clear it was a two parter. And I still
don't think we're gonna even well, we'll scratch the surface.
That's selling it short. But you can have an entire
podcast series about HIV and AIDS, for sure. There's so
much information there, really is. It's like daunting, it is,
but it's all luckily because it's such a huge, massive topic. Yeah, um,
(01:10):
an important topic. There's a lot of information out there,
so usually we do pretty well with those that'll be daunted,
is what I'm trying to say. Well, I'm just nervous,
you know, I don't want to mess this one up.
We will mess something up here there, I guarantee it.
But yeah, how about this, then we pledge. We often
read corrections, but we super pledge to correct anything on
(01:31):
this because we're bound to mess something up. It's just
a lot of a lot of stuff. You want to
start from the beginning. Dump be nervous. That's fine. Everybody
tell Chuck, it'll be fine. It'll be fine, Chuck. So
it's a collective sound of our audience, like high pitched
audience voice. Um so chuck. When you think of HIV
(01:53):
AIDS UM, you typically tend to like go back to
the late seventies early eighties when like the real panic
first started. UM. But it later research and that's about
the time it arrived in the United States. But later
research found that UM HIV, the first case of it
(02:14):
came in ninety nine actually, and that they think that um,
it goes back even earlier than that. But this is
the first documented case. They had blood work of this
guy who died mysteriously in conshasa and congo. Right, um
and uh, he had the first documented case of HIV.
That's right, HIV one. Uh. There are two hivs, HIV one,
(02:39):
and HIV two. The one that has been responsible for
the global pandemic is HIV one. And there's been a
lot of debate over the years about where it actually
came from. Uh. Most people agreed that it was primates
in Africa, right, that it started as s I V. Yes, Uh, simeon,
(02:59):
I mean no deficiency virus. HIV. We should say is
human immunodeficiency virus. Yes, and AIDS is acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
They're not separate things. It's actually been very much confused
in the media. We're gonna set the record straight. Yeah,
and uh at the end, boy, how about this for
a tease. At the end of the second episode, there's
(03:20):
a big musical number no three days from now. There
is an argument that we should not even call it
AIDS any longer. So how's that first set up? People
are gonna be waiting where they could just google it
fast forward. Well, but they can't fast forward in time,
my friend. No, but find the time these come out,
they'll have been done and they can fast forward. Yes,
(03:42):
that's true. So what scientists believe, this is the most
current agreed upon theory, is that a type of chimpanzee
and West Africa is the source of HIV one uh,
which was transmitted to humans. They don't know for sure
how because probably are probably be bushed me, undercooked, pushed
me exactly, you know, wanting to eat chimpanzee and there's blood,
(04:05):
and all of a sudden it spreads to humans, and
you tube, chimpanzees fight back, they do, That's what I've heard. Yeah.
But yeah, if you ingest blood that was infected with
s i V and then the SIV virus um evolved
into HIV and humans, that's the likeliest version of what
happened somewhere in West Africa, probably the thirties or forties. Yeah,
(04:29):
and they I saw one article that said that they
think that it could have originally started in primates even
in the nineteen twenties, which is just crazy to think about,
like the Roaring twenties, somewhere in the depths of Africa
s i V was brewing, you know, because it seems
like such a modern thing for sure. Uh. And then uh,
(04:49):
in the late seventies and early eighties is when um,
these normally healthy people in Los Angeles and New York
started getting sick. Didn't make any sense. Uh. They first
started using the term um AIDS right, and before that
they had a really clumsy name for it, um O
(05:12):
for HIV. Yeah. Are you ready? Yea, So just the
abbreviation is clumsy ht l V three slash l a V.
That's just the abbreviation. The full name of what was
originally the term for um was it is it aids
V for HIV human T cell lymphotropic virus type three
(05:34):
slash lymphidano pathy associated virus. Yeah. And I think they
all looked around the room whoever proposed that, and said, guys,
if we want to ever get this in the news,
let's just sweeten that and shorten it to HIV. You
the person who proposed it, you have to go buy
everyone quiz Nos for lunch. Uh. And actually we should say,
(05:57):
chuck that this this definitely just kind of we're giving
the farrest overview of this. But um there's a really
really interesting movie based on what I understand is an
equally interesting book called and the band played On. My
brother worked on that movie. That was a great, great movie.
I watched it again in the last few months and
it's just as good as ever. Yeah, that's where he
(06:18):
got to work with Ellen Aldnei, Tomlin and like some
real legends. So yeah, there's a lot of people in it.
Phil Collins does a great job. Yeah, he plays a
bath house owner who's reluctant to close down. Interesting. Um,
but it's it basically chronicles the early investigation into what
the heck was going on. What was suddenly killing gay
(06:38):
men in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York.
And it seemed like it was just targeting gay men
so much so that early on, like the the non
clinical term for this was gay cancer is what people
called it. And all of a sudden, doctors were reporting
that otherwise healthy men were suddenly getting really really rare cancers,
(06:59):
rare types of ammonia, stuff that people who have like
zero immune systems die from. All of a sudden, they
were just turning up with this stuff, and um, it
was very curious and very scary, especially in the gay community.
And then um, it wasn't until what was eighty three
three where they identified the virus and there was a
(07:21):
there were competing teams, this French team who most likely
did discover the HIV virus on their own, and Alan Alda,
the American team who may or may not have ripped
off their findings and unfairly taken credit for it. But
and I've never seen that movie. Fascinating. It's fascinating, it's moving,
it's got it all. It's really good. It's good. It's
(07:42):
like um uh, epidemiological detective stories threaded throughout a lot
of cultural history. It's really really worth watching. Well in uh.
In episode two, we're also going to get to that
book in the so called patient zero um, which will
be coming up on Thursday. Another tease. Alright, so um,
(08:04):
and we should point out to the reason these men
were dying of cancers and pneumonia and things like that
is because and most people know this by now. A
lot of this we think is just common knowledge, but
you never know. You're you don't die of AIDS. You
die of complications from AIDS, infections, other sicknesses and diseases
(08:24):
because you can't mount any kind of immune response. Okay,
I think that was a good move. Yeah, well, smooth move, excellence.
You never know, Like some of this stuff, I'm like, dude,
really have to say this stuff, but you do well.
The weird thing is you do, especially in is compared
(08:46):
to say, like because Um, there's become this idea that
AIDS has been as being largely conquered, it doesn't have
to be worried about as much and not true. I
think the education on HIV and AIDS is not nearly
as widespread as it once was. Like when we were
like teenagers, you know, like everybody knew everything about AIDS
(09:06):
basically at least had a working knowledge of what AIDS was,
how you got it, how widespread it was. And UM,
it seems like today it's that that kind of public information.
Is it nearly is widespread? Yeah, I think that's one
of the issues now, is that, Um, a large segment
of the public is like, yeah, they have the AIDS cocktail.
Look at Magic Johnson. It's all great, sure, And um
(09:27):
it is great when we're gonna talk about why he's
still with us, but it's it's still a very big problem. Um.
Here's a here's a stat for you. Uh. And these
are the most recent stats I could find. Seventy eight
million HIV infected people worldwide to date, thirty nine million
people dead. Um. Compared to World War Two, which killed
(09:49):
forty million people. That helps put it into perspective a
little bit. Uh. And sub Saharan South Africa, which is
where AIDS is an HIV or most threatening. Um, this
is a scary status, dude. One and twenty people have
HIV what in sub Saharan South Africa and the account
for seventy of all cases worldwide of HIV man a lie,
(10:12):
I know. It's it's a very dire situation over there,
to say the least. Uh, Well, that's that's that's especially
chilling because if you look at the statistics in the
United States, like it's it's slowing and it's it's definitely
if you look at the statistics, it seems like it's
being figured out. Well, yeah, it depends on what demographic
(10:32):
though it's rising in some demos, right, Yeah, for sure.
If you take the United States as a whole, the
picture seems okay. But yeah, if you start to break
it down into specific subgroups, then some are definitely doing
better than others. As far as new infections, death from infections,
that kind of stuff come absolutely. Uh So, HIV is
a scary disease and it was super scary before we
(10:55):
knew much about it because, um, it's still technically incurable.
Although we're going to get to that. There are some
rare cases where it's what do they call it, functionally cured? Yes, Um,
it does seem like there's at least one person who
is widely considered to be fully cured, and he is
(11:16):
a proof of concept that you can cure AIDS, and
that's coming in part two. What are we going to
do in part one? We're just yeah, like we're just talking. Basically,
this is all one big setup for part two. Apparently, No,
it's not. So. One reason AIDS and so deadly is uh,
(11:36):
it's sort of a conundrum because AIDS you can't catch
it through the air. It's not airborne. You can't catch
it from a kitchen counter. You can only catch it
through very specific ways intimate contact, intimate context. You would think, hey,
it's not gonna be that widespread because intimate contact is
something you can avoid and so it should be a
(11:57):
pretty slow spreading disease, right, and not all intimate contact
includes like whips and chains and stuff like that. Intimate
contact is basically any situation where um, you know sure, Uh.
Intimate contact is basically any situation where blood is transferred
or semen is transferred. Um, So it doesn't necessarily just
(12:21):
mean intercourse of any sort. It can also mean sharing needles,
and it definitely does mean sharing needles too. That's a
very high risk UM subgroup for sure. But the reason,
and here's the key, that AIDS has spread an HIV
um so widely and quickly is because it can You
(12:41):
can have HIV for more than ten years without knowing it.
And if you are a promiscuous individual. I did a
little math. Let's say you have let's say you're considered
highly promiscuous. What what what do you rate that as
hundred partners a year, which apparently also so. I want
(13:03):
to say this to UM, but AIDS being associated with
gay people, gay man especially UM is it hit at
precisely the worst possible time in the history of homosexuality
in the world because it came right after, right after Stonewall,
when men were just starting to be like, it's all
(13:25):
about gay pride and we are love and life and
having more sex than we've ever had ever as a community,
and having a hundred or a couple hundred sexual partners
in the late seventies among gay men was pretty standard. Yeah,
I don't know it definitely. I don't think it made
you an outlier, you know, continue so and a caveat
(13:48):
all this with I'm assuming, Well, let me just get
into it. Let's say a hundred partners in a year.
Let's say of those partners are promiscuous. Man, this is so,
then they have a mathematic. Then they have a hundred partners.
So that's people. And and this is not people who
(14:08):
are infected. This is assuming. Let's say that there's a
smaller percentage that don't use condoms. And even if you
don't use a condom, it's not like every time you
have sex you're going to transmit aids um. But this
is a possibility, is what I'm saying. Let's say that
group are promiscuous. You end up from that one single
(14:30):
person people who could possibly potentially be exposed if nobody
wore condoms at all. And of course that number goes
way down because people are smarter now and use condoms.
But in the late seventies, I mean that number could
be accurate, you know, oh yeah easily. So I mean,
(14:50):
what are you gonna wear a condom back then? For
nobody's getting pregnant, you know, yeah, I mean there was
no reason to. Uh, so you can see how can
spread so quickly, and that is also the reason why
it stays latent, or the reason the fact that it
stays latent for so long, that's the single reason why
you need to get tested. Yeah, regularly, gay, straight, black, brown,
(15:14):
candy striped. It doesn't matter, get tested because you may
have it and not know it. And HIV eighth is
an outlier as far as diseases go, in that there's
no there's no vaccine against it, um, there is no
way to easily treat it. It spreads quickly, and because
it has what's called late onset symptoms, like you said,
(15:36):
people go ten years after being infected before they realize
they're sick, especially if they're not getting tested in the meantime.
And so it just keeps spreading and spreading and spreading
among people who think they're healthy but who actually have
the virus. Yeah, and if you're promiscuous, it's not like
you can name the partners you've had over the last
decade to tell them maybe you want to get tested,
(15:58):
you know. And then even more than that, and again, well,
so with the gay community, it's such an at risk
UM subgroup. We'll explain why in a second, but one
of the reasons why it spreads quickly in the gay
community because it's a relatively small community. So that means
that the pool you have to draw from for sexual partners,
(16:20):
statistically speaking, you're at higher risk. Yeah, because it's smaller,
because it is a smaller community. But even beyond that,
biologically speaking, they're at higher risk as well. Gay men are. Yeah,
well we should just go ahead talk about that. The
main reason is it's easier to get HIV from anal
sex and that is men and women because um, the well,
(16:44):
there's a few reasons for that. One, the lining of
the rectum is very fragile, it tears very easily. UM,
and intercourse lots of blood vessels, lots of blood vessels. Um.
The cells that line the rectum are more susceptible to
HIV than cells of the vagina. Right and then uh
semen and rectal mucosa, which is the lining of the rectum,
(17:06):
carry more HIV than vaginal fluid. So boom, right there,
you're I think eighteen percent eighteen eighteen times more risky
with anal intercourse than just regular vaginal inter course. Right,
and saying that right, you are, yes, and um, gay
men and straight women are equal risk of AIDS through
(17:29):
um through unprotected sex anally, because it doesn't it doesn't
matter that you're a man or not. No, a man's
rectum is the same as a woman's right exactly as
far as I know. I'm pretty sure you're right about that. Yeah,
I mean it says in here, uh the risk. Yeah,
that's exactly right. Another reason is a role versatility is
(17:50):
what they call it. Whether or not you're a top
or a bottom, you can get it either way by
giving anal sex or receiving anal sex. So you're kind
of in a lose lose situation precisely. Uh. So that
and I never knew that until I've studied this, that switching,
(18:10):
like why why do gay men get a HIV more
than uh, straight people if it's passed through intercourse? And
now it all makes sense, all right? Going back to
why AIDS is so scary and HIV, I feel like
we're interchanging those and we shouldn't be. No, let's let's
(18:31):
lay this out right here right now, you're ready, because
I didn't realize this fully until we started researching this episode.
So HIV is a it's called the progressive disease in
that it goes through stages. So technically UM and HIV
infection has zero stage zero to stage three UH and
(18:54):
all of this is based on the number of T
helper cells you have in a milli leader of blood.
Normal healthy person has about a million T helper cells
called CD plus four cells in one milli leader of
their blood. As you um, as the the HIV infection progresses,
(19:14):
it diminishes the number of these helper cells. And as
it goes down you go to certain stages, so like
stage three HIV is um I think five hundred thousand
per milli leader or blood or less. And then once
you reach two hundred thousand uh c D plus four
cells in your blood UH, you have AIDS. So AIDS
(19:38):
is not a separate disease. It's not a it's not
a new condition that that arises out of HIV. It's
all it's just part of a classification system. Yeah, it's
basically ND stage HIV. It's stage four HIV, and it's
really bizarre that they have a whole different name for
it if you think about it. But a this is
(20:00):
just basically the end category of HIV. And it used
to be that was a death sentence. Once you had AIDS,
you were basically dead. And in the eighties and nineties,
especially before I think the AIDS cocktail, which we'll talk
about came out, it was, um, you basically were diagnosed
(20:21):
and you were dead in twelve to eighteen months. That
was that. Now it can keep going you, I mean,
people just live for decades now with AIDS. But once
you have AIDS, once you have that designation, UM, you
have that for the rest of your life, unless you're cured,
which has only happened a handful of times. Yeah, and
there's a guy named Todd Heywood that wrote this great
(20:42):
article uh saying it's time to retire the medical category
of AIDS, and he makes a lot of good reasons
why we should just call it HIV disease like you
would say heart disease. Right, So we're not gonna say
HIV disease in this show. We're not that big as friends. Well,
I just wanna go with traditional terms because some people learn.
(21:02):
But I think there is a good case to be
made for that is what I'm saying. I mean, this
is also another UM. Another mark in that guy's in
favor of that argument is that AIDS was named in
and we've learned so much about this disease since then,
(21:23):
and one of the things we've learned is this is
a progressive disease that goes through stages. AIDS is just
the end stage of it. Why have a different name
for it? And there's no, it's not the same in
any two people. Uh, And HIV disease is just more
all encompassing. I think, yeah, so we're not going to
use it, are we. That's gonna be tough. What to
not say HIV disease? Oh, AIDS, I thought you were
(21:45):
saying yeah. Uh. And the final reason, boy, this took
like twenty minutes to get back to us. Wait what
are we talking about? The final reason that HIV is
uh super scary is because of its very unique way
it manifests itself, which is um it invades and destroys
the immune system. The very system that is supposed to
protect you from disease is ruined. It's yeah, it's HIV
(22:10):
is a virus, so it behaves like a virus. But
other viruses attacks, say like you're fat cell that you
could care less about, So who cares? AIDS or HIV
attacks your immune system directly. The cells, a specific type
of cell of your immune system and that's what eventually
leads to your death or used to definitely lead to
your death. You know, I'm back in my day, all right.
(22:33):
I think we should take a break and we will
talk a little bit about how it is and is
not transmitted right after this, all right, Josh, it's uh,
(23:02):
George Orwell is in charge. I'm in elementary school, and
AIDS is a scary thing, and you can get it
from toilet seats and mosquitoes and kissing and shaking hands.
Shaking hands, Yeah, being too near to somebody. It was
very scary as far as times go to be a kid.
None of that stuff is true. Think about it, man.
(23:22):
We were raised during that horrible little ven diagram where
the Cold War and the AID scare overlapped. Like we
just basically didn't want to leave our houses. We missed
out on the days where free secs and and drugs
was like, didn't hurt anybody, and just sprinkle in a
little stranger danger in there too, why not? Yeah, a
little satanic panics sure. And the eighties what a crazy
(23:44):
time now that you know we've got a little distance
from it. Parachute pants is that all about culture? Club
was actually great? That's the only good thing about the eighties.
UM the ways that you can get HIV sexual contact,
sharing needles interview in his needles, breastfeeding, mother to baby,
UM infected mother to fetus during pregnancy, at birth, and
(24:08):
blood transfusions, which used to happen a lot and doesn't
happen that much anymore. No, and there was It's another
thing for me in the band played on, was this
big to do about whether or not UM Blood Donation
Center say like the Red Cross should have to test
blood for this new disease. They were like, do you
know how much this is gonna cost. It's gonna completely
(24:30):
dent the blood supply. People are gonna die because we
have to do this. But then as it became very
obvious that you this stuff spread really easily through blood transfusions,
they definitely started to check it. They came up with
a I think a fairly cheap test for it in UM. Yeah,
the FDA approved something in to test it. But I
(24:52):
mean without these tests suck. You have a nine thousand,
two hundred and fifty chants out of ten thousand of
of acquiring HIV from a blood transfusion. That's yeah, man, Yeah,
that those are pretty high chances because think about it,
and for unprotected anal sex, if you are receiving, you
(25:16):
have a hundred and thirty eight out of ten thousand chance. Okay,
this is nine thousand, two hundred and fifty out of
ten thousand chants from a blood transfusion. I tried to
find those stats. Actually I couldn't find that one. Oh
I got some more for you, buddy, if you want them. Well,
I was trying to find when I was doing my
my stupid mathematical equation earlier, I was trying to find
out the possibility or percentage rate of having unprotected anal sex,
(25:41):
Like what are your chances of getting if you're if
you're giving, you have an eleven out of ten thousand chance,
so one point one out of every thousand encounters. So
even if my yeah, that's sixty two, number goes way
way down, thankfully, but I think it's still you know
this is this is based on and I should say
(26:02):
this is based on the distribution of HIV infected people
across the United States as of like I think two
thousand ten, so, um, I mean, it's all statistics, man,
It depends on where you are, who you're hanging out
with UM. I mean, if you're like sharing needles with
with like UM addicts in the street, your risk is
(26:25):
probably going to be a little higher than the national
average across the United States, you know what I mean.
So it definitely is contextual. It's almost to the point
where it's like these these stats are meaningless, really, but
they do put a I think stats help people put
like a face to things. For sure. The blood transfusion
one is a tad eye open for real um. And
(26:45):
then finally we need to mention And the only reason
we mentioned this is because technically it is possible. There
has been one case of HIV infection through open mouth kissing. Yes,
but I hesitate to even say that because people like
Josh and Chokes said, you get through kissing, So you're
there has to be bloody gums of an HIV infected
(27:08):
person present. I think both people have to have bleeding
gums and one of the people has to have HIV
and they just make out and the the HIV is
transferred that way. That clearly doesn't happen much. Apparently it
happened at least once, which is pretty crazy. But yes,
you're you're very it's extraordinarily unlikely that you're going to
(27:31):
contract HIV through open mouth kissing. It does not transmit um. Well,
here's the good news. This sounds like it's all bad news.
The good news is it is not airborne, does not
transfer through the surface contact. It's very fragile outside the body,
super fragile, which is awesome. Like once saliva or blood
dries up, there's practically zero chance of transmission. Um and yeah,
(27:56):
it just it doesn't live very long outside the body,
which it sounds bad, but it could be a lot worse.
Oh yeah, you know, super hard through um breathing. Yeah,
through the air, it would be bad. Uh. It is
not transmitted through saliva, tears, or sweat. Uh. And saliva
and tears have trace amounts of HIV. They have not
(28:18):
detected HIV and sweat at all, which is good news
for me because I'm a sweaty guys. Yeah, it's good
news for us. I guess you're right, uh, insects. I
guess we need to talk about the whole mosquito thing,
because I think I talked about this in the virus episode.
Um was it virus? There was something? Maybe I remember
it might have been just the mosquitoes. One, Oh yeah,
(28:39):
maybe so. I remember thinking when I was a kid
like and this before I had read anything about it.
I came up with it on my own. It's like, wow, mosquitoes,
those are like little needles. I bet they could transmit
AIDS or HIV, and um, it's not true. So here's why.
There's very very good scientific reasons why you can't catch
HIV from a mosquito. When a mosquito injects its probosis
(29:04):
into your skin, um, it uses its own saliva to
lubricate this, this whole thing right um. And and when
it draws blood out, it can conceivably draw the HIV
virus out of an HIV infected person through their blood. Right.
But there's a couple of things that that um happened
(29:25):
after that. One, the mosquito goes and digests its blood
meal to the so it doesn't just immediately go to
another person and pick up some more blood usually um
to the virus does not replicate within the mosquito. Uh.
And Three, that virus isn't present in the mosquito saliva.
So even if it went and drank the blood of
(29:48):
an HIV infected person got HIV in it and then
went and and and injected you and got some of
your blood and then went back and digestis blood meal.
You still would not catch HIV from that. There would
be no transfer of HIV from that person's blood into
your body. Yeah. And they've even investigated in like parts
of Africa where aids in HIV are rampant and where
(30:09):
mosquitoes are rampant and transmit all kinds of diseases, and
they've still said nope, nope, nope, not happening, thank god. Uh.
And then of course toilet seats, swimming in a pool
with someone eating at the same restaurant sharing a fork.
Even social kissing closed mouth kissing. Did you know there
was a name for that closed mouth kissing? Yeah? I
(30:31):
call it no fun social kissing? What like the French
you do? Like yeah? Or I call that wedding ceremony kissing.
You don't often see people when they say you may
kiss the bride just like go full to its gross.
I think I saw one guy do that once at
(30:51):
a wedding. I was like, oh, man, man, come on,
do like a nice respectful kiss on the lips. You
mean I went to a friend's wedding recently and um,
they had a nice kiss Tony and Wenney. Congratulations. By
the way, guys, what was nice about it? It was
not social kissing, but it was not like you gross
it was. It was a good wedding kiss, a good romantic,
(31:13):
but tasteful kiss, perfectly perfectly put. Well, that's nice. I
hate that. I miss that. Um do you maybe I
can get my hands on video of it or they?
Uh yeah, Virus Talk with Josh and Chuck by the way, October, Yeah,
but I really think it was the Mosquito's episode that
you talked about it. No, no no, no, I mean we're
(31:34):
about to talk about virus is because HIV is a virus, agreed,
And as you learned and Virus Talk, um, viruses require
a host cell because viruses are basically they're not their
own thing, like they they just are carrying information basically
to invade another cell and poop it out in there,
(31:55):
right exactly. I mean, like they are the definition of um.
I guess what Dawkins would have called the selfish gene.
It just the whole purpose, if there is such thing
as a purpose to the universe, the whole purpose of
a virus is to create more viruses. That's it. And
when you think about the effect that a virus like
HIV has on human beings and has had on the
(32:18):
entire population of humanity over the last few decades, to
think that these viruses aren't even thinking that, they're not
that all that, all of that is just a byproduct
of its singular purpose, Yeah, of replicating itself. It's it's
kind of astounding. It's just so, yeah, it is because
it's just like the virus couldn't care less, because the
(32:39):
virus couldn't care literally, it doesn't have feelings. It's just
it's bizarre to think of it like that. Yeah, it's
it truly is uh. So viruses, including HIV, they don't
have cell walls or nucleus. Um. It's just those genetic
instructions and it's got a little protective shell. Um. A
virus HIV particle called a very of irene. I think
(33:02):
both of those are acceptable all uh it is spherical
uh and one ten thousand of a millimeter in diameter,
and it has little buds sticking out of the top
of it where it's basically it docks with the host cell. Yeah.
So um, like you said, it's just some instructions to
replicate itself. It's RNA strands wrapped in like a little
(33:23):
um protective shell made of proteins and lipids, I think,
and um, it enters the body and it goes straight
for your lymph nodes. I believe, yeah, because that's where
the T helper cells like to hang out. And of
course because it wants to recaboc on your body, it
goes straight there. And let's talk a little bit real
quick about T helper cells. So basically you have T
(33:44):
cells and they are like these they're like jaws from
James Bond, Okay, Lurch from the Adams family, UM, and
Jason Vorhees all rolled into one. As far as like
white blood cells in your immune system, they are mindless, bloodthirsty,
(34:05):
just killers. Lurch wasn't a bad guy, no, but he's scary, intimidating,
and you do a pretty good lurch by the way. Um,
I thought it was a great lurch. I appreciate it.
So it's just these things, these things are just kind
of hanging out. These T T cells are just hanging
out waiting to be told what to do. So, okay,
so there's one more character that they're like master blaster,
(34:29):
but they need the master guy a little shrimp. And
the little shrimp comes in the form of the the
c D four plus T cells that the T helper cells.
They go to the T cells and say, hey, get ready,
get all wrapped up and go get those guys, right.
So HIV goes right to the c D four plus
(34:51):
T cells, the T helper cells, and that's its preferred
cell to attack. Those are the ones that it hijacks.
And it goes up and it docks with the CD
four plus T cells and it it basically takes over,
It hijacks it in turns those cells into HIV byrian factories.
That is correct, sir. And more specifically, there are seven
(35:14):
it's a seven part um process and how HIV invades
the T cells. And yeah, because I don't know if
we said that the replication is a really big part
of HIV and why it's so devastating. Yeah, we did.
We mention that we'll talk about a little more. Okay,
let's let's just get to the nitty gritty though. Yeah,
and we should point out to we're gonna talk about
(35:35):
the drug cocktail later. And then each stage there's another
there's a corresponding drug in the drug cocktail that helps
disrupt this process. Yeah, it's like a very smart, multi
pronged approach because the HIV virus is like what the hey, yeah,
exactly going on here. I can't get anything done and
it just leaves all right. So part one binding as
(35:58):
when the HIV actually attaches to the immune cell, the
T helper cell and they actually fused together. Yeah, there's
special proteins. There's proteins on the helper cell that allow
these things to dock with it. That's right. It's like
a receptor's site almost. It's like a couple of rednecks
and boats when they tie their boats together out in
(36:19):
the lake from fourth of July. Right. I was thinking
more like a space capsule in the I S S.
But I guess that's a lower tech version of it,
right next tying their boats. One man's space capsule is
another man's party boat. Uh. Some some redneck boater who
was listening to this and didn't realize he'd be implicated.
It was like, hey, I'm not gay. He just said
(36:40):
that to his his iPhone number two. Reverse transcription, Uh,
reverse transcript days. It's a viral enzyme. It copies. We
said that HIV was RNA initially correct. I don't know
if we said that it's a retrovirus. So the the
genetic instructions that are inside the virus is RNA, not DNA, right.
(37:03):
But it goes through the reverse transcription process where the
virus is RNA becomes DNA, right, And it just when
it docks with the helper sell it does this little
bit of work on its own. It says it's got
this little enzyme. It runs it's RNA through it, and
there's a DNA strand that it just built, right, correct,
(37:23):
number three integration. Now you have your DNA and it
is carried into the cells nucleus by something called viral
integras binds what that sells DNA, and now you are
no longer a retro virus. You writ provirus right. But
then strangely, the cells DNA, the helper cells DNA takes
this new instruction, these new blueprints, and spits out RNA
(37:47):
again m rna correct. Right. It's it's called messenger RNA
and it is instructions on how to build new HIV virans.
It all sounds very sinister, it does, because if you
think about it on A. On a cellular level, it
is like, um, it's like I'm trying to kill this thing, right,
but it's very insidious, and that it's it comes up with.
(38:10):
It translates its own little instruction manual into the language
of the cell, inserts it into the cells like main
section the brain of it, and that makes the brain
spit out new instructions that are taken to the rest
of the cell. So it almost like it it gets
the stamp of approval from the cell to go for
(38:32):
the other parts of the cell to start building these
new parts for the virus. Yeah, we're totally humanizing it
by making it sound like it's nefarious, but it does
seem that way. You know, it's very interesting. So that
last step was called transcription. Then you have translation. You've
got that m r n A at this point is
carried back out of the cell. This is like a
work order, Yeah, exactly, carry back out of the cell
(38:56):
and then basically follows a natural progression where these long
chains of proteins and enzymes are strung together by the
own cells, own functions, and own components. Yeah, it just
starts doing its normal thing, right, but it's not doing
its normal stuff any longer. What it's doing is using
its energy and time to build new HIV viruns rather
(39:16):
than go prime T cells exactly. Uh. Part six assembly
the RNA and viral enzymes they get together at the
edge of the cell, and another enzyme called proteas basically cuts.
I don't really understand this part, So imagine what's more
like making one cell at a time, having somebody just
(39:39):
spit out a whole bunch of the same parts, and
then assembling them later. One of the steps of assembly
is cutting them into individual bits from these long chains
of polypeptides, and then finally, butting is when it actually
splits off. It pinches out from the cell membrane becomes
its own thing, and one of the key components there
is it doesn't have to destroy the host cell in
(40:01):
the process. No, it doesn't. UM. There's a lot of
viruses out there that just keep building and building and
building until they literally rupture the cell, and that's how
they spread through the body. These like say, hey, thanks
for a little bit of that lipid action, I'm now
a new HIV virus and UM. But you can keep
going on and build some more virans. I don't have
(40:22):
to destroy you to spread. It's really a nasty, nasty disease.
It really is how it works. So eventually the the
helper cell does figure out that there's something terribly wrong
and it it self destructs. But this makes the whole
thing even even worse. So the CD the c D
four plus T helper cell is not out there doing
what it's supposed to be doing, priming T cells to
(40:44):
attack the HIV instead of spending its time making more HIV.
And then when it finally is like, this has messed up.
Something's really wrong. I need to self destruct. It actually
signals other c D four plus he helped ourselves to
come surround it, and then it basically blows up, taking
them with it. Yeah, it's like a mass suicide. It's yeah,
(41:06):
it's like it's like a massacre down there on the
cellular level. Yeah. So this is one of the things
that makes HIV so insidious. All Right, I think we
need to take another break because people's minds are exploding
at this point and hopefully expanding, so we'll be right
back after this. Um chuck. One of the things we
(41:46):
also have to mention about HIV and UM one of
the other aspects that makes it so difficult to cure
or to even treat. Um. In addition to these cells
like being hijacked, some of these irons that are being
produced are just going off and accumulating in other cells,
(42:06):
but they're not hijacking it, right, So as far as
the cells concerned, there's nothing weird going on. There's nothing
worth blowing yourself up over. It's just um, there's just
some extra little virus hanging out on my surface. But
who cares, It's fine. And these start to spread over
that decade from infection to the onset of symptoms, they
start to spread and accumulate throughout the body and the
(42:28):
growing area and your bone marrow and your lymph nodes,
like all over your bodys Yes, they form HIV reservoirs, right,
And since these things can just hide out and they're
not active and then they can become active whenever, it
makes HIV a chronic, lifelong disease, and it makes it
really really difficult to eradicate because the body mounts its
(42:50):
own defense against the HIV infection. Initially, it's those reservoirs
that become more and more widespread and increasing number to
where they finally get to a point where your viral
load is what it's called. There's just so many HIV
viryans infecting so much of your body that when they
do start to finally become active, it just totally overloads
(43:12):
your c D four count and your number just goes down,
and all of a sudden you have the stage three
year four HIV, which is again is AIDS and um
we uh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. Um, I
think that one of the also more dangerous parts is
those reservoirs are invisible in that right, like immunologically speaking, Yeah,
(43:35):
and you know, it's just like there's a there's a
virus on the on the protein outside and that's it.
And we're gonna talk about the AIDS cocktail and stuff.
But even though it is effective, I think they said
it's it's um, it's so slow moving that it will
require sixty to eighty years of the cocktail therapy to
completely eradicate the virus. In other words, you can't completely
(43:57):
eradicate the virus. I mean technically good. It depends it
to be very old when you were very young. If
you acquired it at age ten and you lived to
age ninety, then technically you could probably completely rad KHIV.
That's not the way that this goes though, you know. Yeah,
well no, but there have been plenty of kids who
get it through other ways, you know. Yeah, I mean
(44:18):
like you can be infected as a fetus, um and
again through breastfeeding. I think are two of the ways
you said, right, yeah, and you know with I think
Ryan White got it through a blood transfusion, didn't heah is,
Well we'll talk about that too, man. There's so much
future goodness coming. All right, Well, we're gonna close this
episode out with some stats. UM. I went to uh,
(44:41):
and this is for the United States. We've already given
some worldwide stats, but geez, where to start. There's so
many UM. Estimated incidents of HIV has remained stable in
recent years, about fifty thousand new HIV infections per year
in the United States. But like we said, some groups
UM are worse off than others. Uh if you go
(45:05):
by groups UM. And this is where categorizing sexuality gets
so tricky, because you can say homosexual men, bisexual men,
or this term that was invented in the mid nineties
m s M men who have sex with men, which
is meant to be a neutral term. Yeah, that's not
casting any judgment or anything that right. It also takes
(45:26):
into account dudes are into like download stuff who don't
self identify as gay, right, Um, like I'm not gay bisexual,
I just have sex with men exactly every Wednesday, you know,
in the park. Yeah, and those those people would be
counted in this correct Uh. And there's we might as
well say, there's there's the very people who created that
term in the science community. Um, some of them are
(45:48):
now lobbying to have that term removed or used more sparingly,
I think is another interpretation. Yeah, And the thought is
and it makes a lot of sense, is uh. And
there's also women sleeping with women us w Uh, it says,
and I'm gonna read this directly, so don't goof it up,
said ms M and w SW often imply a lack
of lesbian or gay identity and absence of community networks
(46:10):
and relationships in which same gender peerings mean more than
merely sexual behavior. Uh. Plus it's ex sense. They are
also saying that it's overly broad too, that you're really
not taking into account specifically who you're talking about, you know,
like if you're lumping in Wednesday download guys with um,
(46:31):
you know, men who have been openly homosexual since age
sixteen who are now sixty. Those are two totally different
communities and in most ways, absolutely and to lump them
in together, especially if you're if it's an epidemiological paper,
for example, that's that's doing a disservice to the person
you're writing the paper for. So they're there, they propose
(46:52):
to just be more specific, like you don't have to
get do away with MSM. But say you know Wednesday
downlow ms um right, you know, when you're talking about
a specific population and in your study site, the the
type of subgroups that you study that participated in the study,
like you had twenty Wednesday download ms M, you had
(47:14):
uh thirty old gay guys. Surely there's other abbreviations that
could come out of this, but they're saying, just be
more scientific about this show. We yeah, and I think
it started out with a well meaning, well intended thing,
but um there, you know, this whole thing is evolved.
Everyone's learning how the best deal with terminologies, you know,
and we've in ten years there'll be more specific terminology.
(47:35):
You know, what are you about to say he had
a good joke like give everybody a break. We're all
learning as we go. Yeah, we are. We're in this together.
So but risk group wise. Uh. And of course it
says MSM here right after we said all that. Uh.
They represent about four percent of the male population is
all in the United States in two thousand ten, they
accounted for seventy eight of new HIV infections and of
(47:58):
all people living with HIV UH in the United States.
So and you know, we got to the reasons why
that you know is happening earlier. Uh. And then the UM,
let me see here, injection drug users represent eight percent
of new infections in two thousand ten. Women accounted for
twenty of estimated new infections in two thousand ten. And UM,
(48:22):
what's scary there is there's been a rise UH in
HIV infection and women increase from two thousand eight to
two thousand ten. You know that's going in the wrong direction.
I didn't see it in my research anywhere, but I
didn't specifically look for it. UM, so take it with
a grain of salt. But I remember hearing not too
many years ago that UM HIV was on the rise
(48:43):
among the elderly population really thanks to viagra. That there's
been a far greater increase in sexual activity and retirement
communities or nursing homes even sure because of viagra, and
they're there, but they're just not taking precautions because they're like,
I'm you know, I'm eighty. Yeah, that's fine, but apparently
(49:03):
HIV is totally makes on the rise among that population.
We need to do one on viagra. Actually looked at
the article the other day to suggest it and it
was hard. Oh was it? Yes, it was. It was
dense and difficult, So yeah, bad, bad guy. UH. African
Americans and minorities in general. UM Africa. African Americans represent
(49:26):
twelve percent of the population but accounted fort of new
infections in two thousands ten and I wish we had
more recent stats, but we don't. Apparently that's the most
most instantly available, which is surprising. And the same with
Hispanic Latino UH a disproportionate affected by HIV compared to
their population. So then I was like, well, why is
(49:48):
this happening? UM. As far as African Americans and are concerned,
there's a lot of debate on what's going on there. UM,
but they have found more infections, a shorter survival period,
an increased number of deaths, and the most leading theories
are poverty, that they may be more likely to be
(50:08):
uninsured and go to the doctor to begin with. UM,
injection drug use. Uh, the increases increases the spread of HIV.
And I guess what they're saying is there's less safe
injection drug use in the African American community or less
responsible like getting new you know, and stuff like that. Uh,
(50:32):
there's like a heroin epidemic going on right now. I
don't think just with the black community. As a matter
of fact, it's even more popular among like white kids
than Black kids right now. But I wonder how much
of an effect that's having on the spread of HIV
among everybody. Yeah, good point. Uh. And then the last
couple of lack of information, Um, you may not you
may be HIV positive and you don't even know it.
(50:54):
And we I know, we talked before about the Tuskegee
syphilis experiments and how they're that has led to a
general distrust UM and some corners of the African American
community against the medicine and doctors overall. And then finally
a stigma. There's a stigma in the black community. UM
that still is a gay, white disease. And that's why
(51:18):
when Easy got AIDS it was such a big deal.
It was the illuminati who injected him with it. Was
that one of the theories. You're kidding? Uh yeah, I
mean that was why he was a really big deal,
because he put a face to a certain segment of
the black population where they're like, wait a minute, you
know it's easy can get it. Anybody can get it. Yeah,
it's true. Uh so those are the reasons they think
(51:39):
it's spreading more in the in the minority communities. Um,
and are we done with part one? I think so? So.
Do you remember um when they would do like a
very serious two part different strokes at the end. Normally
they would clap at the end, but at the end
of part one, it would just like go quiet, Yeah,
I got no listener mail for this. I think we
(52:00):
should do that. Okay, So how do we set this up?
I think we just stopped talking for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works?
Dot Com
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!