Compound From Olive-Pomace Oil Inhibits HIV Spread 266
Researchers in Madrid are claiming that they have discovered that a type of wax found in olive skin can help to slow the spread of HIV. "Their work shows that maslinic acid - a natural product extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills - inhibits serin-protease, an enzyme used by HIV to release itself from the infected cell into the extracellular environment and, consequently, to spread the infection into the whole body. These scientists from Granada determined that the use of olive-pomace oil can produce an 80% slowing down in AIDS spreading in the body."
Re:Please help me understand this. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Please help me understand this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yikes, there are so many problems with this arguments I don't know where to begin. But, whether you're trolling or not, it's a commonly stated one, so I'll answer it (at least in part).
Regardless of how you define "moral behavior," many cases of AIDS are spread through "moral behavior." People get it from their spouse, when neither of them knew the spouse had it. The spouse might have gotten it from a previous partner, or a blood transfusion problem (fortunately rather rare now). What about the child who contracts it from their mother?
Whether sex outside of marriage is moral or not is a matter of personal interpretation. Certainly much of society views it as normal. Many people have a single monogamous relationship at a time, but more than one through their lifetime. Is that so immoral that we should condemn them to die because of it?
There is no evidence of "recruitment" by homosexuals. Rather, there is a mounting body of evidence that people become homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual as a result of factors beyond their control -- both genetic and environmental. This, combined with ample of evidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, would seem to imply that homosexuality is quite natural -- and that therefore the classification of it as immoral is a rather odd invention of mankind.
As to why AIDS gets so much funding -- it's a horrible disease, with a near-100% fatality rate. It infects a staggering number of people. It is currently busy depopulating much of sub-Saharan Africa (where, by the way, the primary mechanism of spreading is between married partners and from mother to child). Diseases that are epidemic in scale, have exceedingly high fatality rates, and which we don't know how to cure should scare anyone. Hopefully all this research will be helpful if another such disease appears.
Here is why (Score:5, Insightful)
When the next viral pandemic hits, we want to make sure we know all about how to quickly and effectively deal with it.
Cancer and heart disease do get more funding than AIDS (as they should). Although it's pretty sad that I have to mention this
PS> Why don't you stop hating? The venom is eating away your rational thoughts.
Re:HIV is not AIDs (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think that a layman's article conflating HIV with AIDS -- not an unfair layman's conflation, considering that there is at least a causal relationship between them even if they are not the same thing -- should inspire such skepticism.
Re:skeptical at best. (Score:0, Insightful)
Trolly trolly troll troll. (Score:2, Insightful)
I just love how so many so-called Christians can be so happy to watch other people die. Whole buncha stone throwing fake christians in the world today.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate all religious people. Just the holier-than-thou hypocrites who talk about god while imposing their narrow-minded world view on everyone else.
Re:OT: E.V.O.O doesn't mean what she thinks it mea (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool, but you know *somebody* will read this as... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:skeptical at best. (Score:3, Insightful)
But this is illogical. Scientific doesn't mean accurately measured, it's a matter of method. A Fermi problem's solution is not unscientific.
Back to the topic, verifying the effectiveness of a cure for AIDS doesn't necessarily involve a pretty color image of a neutralized HIV. Watch for average life expectancy, reaction to infections. So the technical ability needed is a six month course in statistics, and the testing procedure involves being able to count days of survival for a decent sized sample.
If you want to be logical then be skeptical whenever a therapy involving artificial stuff is compared favorably against a natural cure because:
Re:OT: E.V.O.O doesn't mean what she thinks it mea (Score:3, Insightful)
I find the occasionally excessive enthusiasm for pasteurization annoying, but it isn't like there is no reason for it.
Re:OT: E.V.O.O doesn't mean what she thinks it mea (Score:3, Insightful)
NOT published or peer-reviewed! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Please help me understand this. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Quote: Why does AIDS get such a huge amount of funding?
Perhaps because it is a truly horrible disease that brings a boatload of suffering to millions of people around the world?
2) Quote: Other diseases kill far more people every year...
True. Do you think no one is working on them?
3) Quote:
Is AIDS/HIV only caught by immoral behavior? Back in the late '80s, there was a huge story on the news about a kid in Florida (IIRC) who caught AIDS from a blood transfusion (this was before screening blood for HIV was as common as it is now). In what type of immoral behavior did this kid engage? How about EMT's, paramedics, doctors, nurses or other good Samaritans who contract AIDS while attempting to render assistance to someone else who has AIDS? If you are a paramedic or E.R. nurse, can you tell for certain which of your patients is "moral" before supplying medical care? Or would you just prefer to let everyone care for themselves?
4) Quote: The pastor at my church says it's the gays promoting their choices as normal behind all this.
The problem with conspiracy theories is that it requires everyone involved in the conspiracy to carry the secret to the grave. Most people can't keep a secret. Ergo, conspiracies of the magnitude you are describing tend to be very, very rare.
5) Quote: The homosexuals are indoctrinating your children and making them choose their lifestyle. They can't reproduce so they have no choice BUT to recruit. They are forcing the government to back their behavior with laws... Laws against God and Jesus.
Like I said above, I am a Christian, too. I disagree with the homosexual lifestyle for the same reasons that you don't agree with it. But I'm also the first person to say, yeah, I've made mistakes in my life, too. I'm no more or less perfect than the very people you want to turn your back to, and neither are you. You say God gave laws prohibiting homosexuality. He also gave laws prohibiting adultery. Do you remember the story in the New Testament where the Pharisees wanted to stone the woman "caught in the act of adultery"? Do you remember Jesus' answer? "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
Now let's take this one step further. What do you think is a Christian's purpose on earth? Somehow I doubt it's to work hard five days a week, sit in a pew on Sunday morning, buy a big house and a nice car and watch the world turn. I suspect it has a little more to do with telling others that they can be freed from the screwed up lives we tend to live when left to our own devices. If that's the case, then do you think someone is going to listen to you if you start out by telling them that, because of their own immorality, funding to cure the disease that is slowly taking their life away should be canceled? How callous is that? On the contrary, I think a true Christian -- someone who really lives the life modeled by Jesus -- would instead be rushing to the sides of the AIDS victims in an attempt to reach them with the gospel before the end of their lives. If researchers can develop a drug to buy you more time to reach such a person, a Christian should be all over that.
The pastor at my church says you should hate the sin, but never the sinner. That , in my humble opinion, is pretty good logic.
There are 2 main vectors for HIV/AIDS... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Don't share needles if you are a drug user.
2. Sexual contact - use a condom.
If everybody followed these simple, common sense rules, there would be no HIV/AID epidemic.
That's RAPE-seed oil. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not (Score:3, Insightful)
- Have an infected partner
- Have a broken condom
- Actually contract AIDS from the exposure
Now in most cases, if you knowingly have encounter the first obstacle and proceed with sex, protected or not, you are knowingly engaging in a heavy risk. Multiple partners of course increases the risk of being unknowingly exposed, so knowing your partner is a bit thing, but adding protection to a known partner does greatly reduce risks.
99% protection is still pretty damn good if you've got a reliable partner and are practicing good sexual practices/hygiene, although I would personally advocate against promiscuity I have nothing against sex itself. One would hope that having sex weekly for several years, you would have a partner who had been screened against HIV and safe. I'd like to know where you got the 99% number, care to cite your sources and factors?