This is getting to be really scary.

First, the number infected implies an infectivity that is much higher than I predicted and probably exceeds what sdstd predicted.

Second, is that the PCR/DNA test is slower about detecting infection than I thought. Miss Arroyo tested negative on April 27 more than 30 days after she is thought to have become infected (and after passing previous tests).

-----------------

My apologies. It seems I skimmed the article too quickly and the article actually says, "Blacc was also on Lara Roxx's first-generation list, and had a negative HIV test on April 27, more than 30 days after he worked with Roxx."

I regret the mistake.


-- Modified on 5/5/2004 9:26:39 PM

In fact, the two reasons that I posited for this
1) Extreme high risk types of sex,  and 2) Higher contagiousness due to elevated viral loads in the first 1-2 months of the infection, seem to combine to elevate the risk factors by closer to TWO orders of magnitude, rather than one.

I should mention that the AVN article states that Miss Arroyo also participated in an unprotected double anal scene with Darren James, which was the same type of extroardinarily risky act that was believed to be responsible for the Lara Roxx infection.  It seems pretty clear that recipient unprotected double anal with a recently infected partner is about the worst combination one could possibly imagine for transmitting HIV, with the only known worse ones being the likelihood of transmission from receiving an HIV infected blood transfusion or an HIV infected transplant organ.

There is always the possibility that a male infected with HIV will be especially efficient in transmitting the virus. This could be either because the male is producing very large titers of the virus (in the blood and semen). Alternatively, there is considerable sequence variation among the various HIV strains (or "clades"), and some of these may be more infectious.

There may be enough scientific interest in these cases to warrant sequencing the viral genome. Such studies would indicate whether this particular HIV is unusual.

So ALL 3 of the known Gen-1 positive infections so far who were infected by Darren James were involved in Double Anal scenes with James.  

That is rather astonishing, but it also is good news for those among us with more pedestrian tastes.  It probably means that the initial estimates used by Mathesar were not off by as much as he and I feared initially, and it indicates that the relative increased risk of the behavior itself (unprotected double anal) is as much of a contributor toward the greater than predicted transmission rates as is the elevated viral loads during the first 1-2 months after infection.

So, the obvious message is:   Don't EVER do double anal.

I was SHOCKED to see a personal recruitment emailed to me, promising me 10-20 thousand dollars a month for doing films along with a number to call now!

So much for a "quarantine".

Elise

According to the AIM Quarantine List (link below), Miss Arroyo
was TESTED on 4/30/2004 but the results were pending.  This is
the result of THAT test.

Is there another source of info other than this list?

thanks,
fr

I've read that a person is most highly infective BEFORE testing
positive because (s)he's loaded with the virus but no antibodies as yet. Sounds reasonable to me, but I ain't no doctor.

Did anyone happen to notice this paragraph buried within the AVN press release:

*** snip snip ***
Jennifer, the transsexual performer who was diagnosed as HIV-positive yesterday, hadn't worked within the adult industry since Feb. 27, well before the current outbreak began. She was in New York, where reportedly she did some work as an escort.
*** snip snip ***

I must admit, this is getting uncomfortably close.  How many hobbiests see TS providers, in addition to the straight ladies?  More than a couple, I'll bet...

Cheers!

My earlier link is to the AVN site, which does have more information. They seem to be up and down a lot. Perhaps their server is getting too many hits. I couldn't access them a few minutes ago but got the page on my latest try.


-- Modified on 5/5/2004 7:03:53 PM

You said she tested negative on 4/27/2004.  That does not seem
true from what the AIM site said.
 
AIM said she was tested on 4/30/2004 and those results were not
in until today.  AVN may have updated their site faster but I
was concerned about your statement on the test coming back negative.  Where did that fact come from?

thanks,
fr

and the article actually says, "Blacc was also on Lara Roxx's first-generation list, and had a negative HIV test on April 27, more than 30 days after he worked with Roxx."

I regret the mistake.

I have added this correction to my original post in the hopes of not causing further confusion. I don't know how I made the mistake but it is clear the article doesn't say what I would have sworn it said.


-- Modified on 5/5/2004 9:25:24 PM

for a single woman in the first generation would be around 1%. Sdstd argued that because of the acts being performed that the risk for each woman might be as much as 10%.

However, with 3 first generation infections we now have between 20% and 25% of the first generation group known to be infected. This is too high to be consistent with my estimate (at the 95% confidence level) and barely consistent with sdstd's estimate.

2sense for whom I have the greatest respect in these matters says, "There is always the possibility that a male infected with HIV will be especially efficient in transmitting the virus."

He also says, "Alternatively, there is considerable sequence variation among the various HIV strains (or "clades"), and some of these may be more infectious."

It is this second possibility that I find very scary -- even if this particular outbreak is now contained.




-- Modified on 5/5/2004 9:45:20 PM

If I understand correctly, the performers in the adult industry are tested regularly.   The traditional concepts of statistical point and confidence interval estimation are with regard to sampling from large populations.  Well, in this case the population is quite finite and because of the regular testing the adult industry is trying to sample the whole population.  In my opinion, unless you have access to complete data and employ applicable statistical methods (finite sample estimation) it seems to me that one cannot get accurate estimates.  

I feel you can regard the observed statistics (at this time) as population estimates in the sense that these estimates are NOT based on data obtained by only sampling a small fraction of the population but (essentialy) based on the population itself.  Of course, there are many issues such as timing and mode of transmission ... I do not know much, but I do know HIV infection is difficult to estimate.

It reproduces astronomically fast and has no error correction.  It would seem to me, amateur as I am, that talking about a "strain" or clade is mostly absurd referring to it.  In its lifetime in a single human body, it probably hits upon almost every workable permutation of its genome, (and many, many unviable ones)  or it at least does so over several human bodies.  It can develop a strain that's resistant to antivirals in a single human body, but it shouldn't last.  It would be mutated out pretty soon.

The bad news is that this makes the virus incredibly difficult to fight.  The good news is, it probably can't, overall, become anything worse.  What makes it better or worse is our response to it.

OT: It does make me wonder (and, no, this is not paranoid,) what created this?  There is no hypothesis on how viruses evolved.  I've got to believe that some microbes create them to destroy competitive microbes.  If so, then viruses evolved as a microbial WMD's.  But HIV virus seems to be specifically designed, and very well, to sabotage an  animal's immune system.  Obviously, an immune system is an incredibly pesky thing to microbes.  

/Zin

       

textbooks or references nor does search on Google turn up anything useful. Can you point me to a reference or text that will explain?

I am a computer programmer with a background in engineering and physics. I have about the knowledge of statistics that you would expect from such a background. I make some use of Stata and have used SAS in the past.

-- Modified on 5/5/2004 11:56:13 PM

Yesterday a transsexual named Jennifer was found to be HIV-positive, but was believed to be unrelated to the other cases.

Jennifer, the transsexual performer who was diagnosed as HIV-positive yesterday, hadn't worked within the adult industry since Feb. 27, well before the current outbreak began. She was in New York, where reportedly she did some work as an escort.


-- Modified on 5/6/2004 11:15:11 AM

"Jennifer, the transsexual performer who was diagnosed as HIV-positive yesterday, hadn't worked within the adult industry since Feb. 27, well before the current outbreak began. She was in New York, where reportedly she did some work as an escort."



-- Modified on 5/6/2004 6:54:57 AM

Sorry, you find more references under `finite sampling'.  I've attached 1 link that only has a very small amount about this topic.  Most of the work is sparsely spread throughout the statistical literature and is not a mainstream topic.  I believe some decent books may be

Bolfarine, H. and Zacks, S (1992).  Prediction theory for finite populations.  Springer-Verlag, NY.

Gosh, M. and Meeden, G. (1996). Bayesian methods for finite population sampling.  Chapman & Hall, NY.

If you'de like some references to technical reports you can get from the web just let me know (email me and I can try to find some good papers) - I'm sure the mathematics is not difficult for you.

This thread is about Miss Arroyo.

I read that article about JENNIFER too.  

Just trying to make sure the facts are out there.

fr

Indeed. One thing I hear is that the virus is actually BIV with one gene removed. Mutation or engineering? You make the call.

I've stayed out of this discussion for the most part because I do not have the credentials to do so. But I hear what you're saying.

HIV is a retrovirus. Isn't what's being discussed a definition of the same?

I've attached a link to the Berkely electronic press where if you do a search `hiv infection' you will find many papers dealing with statistical models applied to estimating HIV infection rates.  

I suspect that in the context of estimating infection rates within the adult industry that issues regarding sampling from a finite population will need to be considered in order to obtain the most reliable results - I'm not sure if something like this has been addressed in the statistical HIV estimation literature.

Some statistical journals that frequently publish papers on AIDS research are Biometrics, Biometrika and Biostatistics.

Best wishes,
L

Yesterday a transsexual named Jennifer was found to be HIV-positive, but was believed to be unrelated to the other cases.

Jennifer, the transsexual performer who was diagnosed as HIV-positive yesterday, hadn't worked within the adult industry since Feb. 27, well before the current outbreak began. She was in New York, where reportedly she did some work as an escort.

You and Number 6 raise some interesting points and questions about HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

HIV is indeed classified as a retrovirus which carries its genetic information as RNA, surrounded by a protein and lipid envelope. When HIV attacks a target cell, the virus deposits its genetic load and transcribes the RNA into DNA which subsequently incorporates into the host cell's genome. Besides being a retrovirus, however, HIV also belongs to a class of "slow" animal retroviruses, called lentiviruses. These viruses include maedi visna virus (attacks sheep lung and central nervous system), equine infectious anemia virus (attacks horse blood-producing cells, brain), caprine arthritis-encephalitis virus (attacks goat CNS), and those which primarily strike the immune systems of cows (BIV), cats (FIV) and monkeys (SIV).

Since lentiviruses of the HIV class are ubiquitous in mammals, I think it would be rather surprising if there wasn't a lentivirus just like it infecting humans.

Still, HIV is not a well-behaved, human-adapted virus, exhibiting the bad manners of (eventually) killing virtually everyone infected. The most likely explanation is that there was a fairly recent species-jump from monkeys or chimps, as early as the 1600's or as late as the 1930's (see below website).

This interpretation is supported by the finding of HIV-2 (~50% genetic diversity from the most common HIV type-1, present in the U.S.) in wild sooty mangabeys. In mangabeys, this virus is called "simian immunodeficiency virus" or SIV. It turns out to have also infected a number of West Africans, and here it is called HIV-2. However, the genomic sequencing data confirms that HIV-2 and SIV are one and the same, so it very likely jumped from mangabeys to humans in the recent past.

So I don't think it's necessary to invoke some "mad" Dr. Frankenstein 'inventing' this virus.

... double anal?  Do anybody got 2 butts?

I'm sorry-  I don't see much porn...

There is no hypothesis in biology, that I know of, (and I am studied in biology) on the evolutionary origins of viruses.  Yes, we could see what virus evolved from another, the Immuno-deficiency viruses, lentiviruses share are different versions of the same original virus.  But I'm not talking about the recent evolution of these virus.  

What I mean is, I don't think they've evolved as living organisms have, I think they evolved as weapons used by living organism against eachother.  And I think it's a very old weapon, in evolutionary terms.  Similar to the way a fungus uses penicillan to kill its bacterial competitors.  With AIDS, it's similar to the toxins strep bacteria will dump into the human bloodstream during infection. Except AIDS has resulted from this virus "going wild" long after it's original purpose.  Whatever the original virus was to AIDS, perhaps it was contrived by a bacteria infecting an animal, and compromised the animal's immune system enough so the bacteria could feed on it.  After the virus was "in the wild" it continued to mutate to infect other animals.

Scientists haven't caught them in the act yet, but I think bacteria will sometimes contrive viruses, usually against each other.  This is supported by the recent observation that bacteriophagic viruses are by far the most common, with 50 billion of them per cubic centimeter of seawater, and that these kill perhaps 40 percent of all bacteria every day.  

/Zin

There's no question if you go "back" far enough, you can see some mighty strange lifeforms on Earth. Just envisioning that long ago day when the first eukaryotic cell swallowed a proto-mitochondria, and decided to coexist instead of eating it, must be one of the signal events in all biological evolution.

The original purpose of viruses would probably be shrouded by the very long-time scales that you mention. As far as I know, though, the AIDS virus consists largely of bits and pieces of human-derived genetic information (or more likely, the original simian host-genes). The large genetic diversity for HIV that you cite is due to the virus hijacking largely the same mechanism used by us to generate antibodies; its not surprising then that the HIV genome exhibits numerous permutations. The proteins found in the HIV coat (i.e., gp120 and gp41) have their antecedents in the major histocompatibility antigens that play key roles in the immune system. Even the lipid envelope of HIV is scavenged from the cell-surface of host cells, as the virus buds off from the plasma membrane.

In a real sense, viruses are the most primitive of all lifeforms. Some scientists argue that viruses like HIV are not alive at all, needing a host to carry out its life cycle. I think that's a pretty narrow view - from the plant's perspective, don't animals look pretty much like parasites? Although it's possible that third parties such as bacteria might have played a role in the biogenesis of viruses, present-day viruses are more than competent in looking out for themselves.

If you're looking for the ultimate goal of the AIDS virus, I once heard a very interesting talk by Russell Doolitle of UCSD, in which he posed that HIV genes would eventually be incorporated into the germ cells, and passed on through meiosis to our sons and daughters. Many archaeo-viruses are actually stored in our genes, although dormant.

On your other point that HIV will be resistant to all therapies because of its incredibly high mutation rate, I would have to demure. There are key amino acids in gp41 that are absolutely required for HIV to infect (fuse) with cells, and extremely well conserved. Research is ongoing in a number of laboratories to target these weak points. These would be 2nd generation drugs that would be more effective than T-20/enfuvirtide now marketed in the U.S. by Roche as a salvage therapy.

-- Modified on 5/6/2004 8:12:56 PM

are well understood and easy to handle.  You can count on what the papers are saying about them.  The basic insight is that any sample estimates the mean (point) estimate in the same way and confidence intervals get tighter as sample sizes increase.  Look up references to t statistics and small sample estimation.


-- Modified on 5/6/2004 8:14:15 PM

The anus needs lots of lube and gentleleness for good sex.  A double anal by guys who don't know what they are doing could result in tearing of the skin and a big increase in the chance for infection.  Couple that with NO condom...  How sad...

a "2 in 1" thing. Sort of  a strech (no pun intended, of course)! I don't know about you, but it hurts me just thinking about it!

Hi Harry,

   I agree, that in principle point and confidence interval estimation are well understood.  However, when it comes to complex problems such as AIDS/HIV an investigator must be very careful.  Also, I respectfully hope that you do not just believe what every paper says about the status of the AIDS epidemic.  

Every investigator basis his/her conclusions on his/her sample data - it is whether or not this sample reflects the general population that is mostly important.   For example, suppose two drugs for treatment of AIDS are being studied, drug A and drug B, and that drug B is more toxic but potentially more effective.  The outcome of interest is death.  Well, some patients on drug B may drop out of the study because of the toxicity of the drug.  So, how do you analyze the data.  You can't just omit these people from the study and take sample means, say mean_A vs mean_B and do a 2-sample comparison - those patients that dropped out of the study have something to say.

fuck a girl, they want to slide their dicks together in her ass?

Oh yeah-  that kind of shit goes on all the time!

WTF?  Sounds more like STUPID GAY PORN TRICKS to me.

I though the double in both holes was really more about gay guys getting lots of fun while they could film a chick.  This goes beyond that in stupidity- especially if someone's life is now threatened!

Are we so fuckin Jaded that well shot sex does not get a rise out of the old johnson?  Did straight guys like to watch this?

People need to get out more and get back a zest for real life!  Develop friendships, do drugs, play with your children!  Real life!

I mean fetish is one thing, asking your entertainers to risk life and limb doing unnatural acts- ones that think about it must be so carefully done that any real sense of in the moment sexuality is completley lost--  thats' what we have pro sports for!

I ought to get off the soap box, cuz I have my own hangups, but criminy people-

Can somoeone really tell me how this gets them hot? I'm all ears!?!