Talk Cancer

Question:

At San Francisco General Hospital epidemiologist Dr Andrew Moss admits that there are few hard facts on heterosexual AIDS. DR. ANDREW MOSS: "We don’t know how fast it’s spreading heterosexually and we won’t know how fast it’s spreading and what’s likely to happen without some more knowledge about those areas." How do you feel about the general predictions concerning the spread of AIDS? DR. ANDREW MOSS: "I think most official predictions about the spread of AIDS have been consistently wrong in this country, and in Britain and in the world, and I think that there’s two reasons for that. One is a lot of very bad science was done, and the other is that political pressures to have high numbers. All administrative numbers are political. And that usually inflates from the opposite direction, and I think it’s been hard for people to back away from their high numbers." Inflated predictions involving the transmission of HIV and AIDS through women have had to be revised. Prostitutes were quickly focused on but a UK survey involving 250 prostitute women over 5 years at St. Mary’s Hospital in London showed only three to be HIV positive. Two were intravenous drug users and one the partner of an i/v drug user. The three are said to be in good health.

Response:

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AGAINST HETEROSEXUAL TRANSMISSION OF HIV AND AGAINST PREVENTION-CAMPAIGNS By Christian Fiala (extract) Prostitutes are at special risk when it comes to STDs. Consequently one would expect a high prevalence of HIV-positive results in this population. Interestingly a study among prostitutes in Europe found an HIV-prevalence of 5,3%. But most of the positive results came from prostitutes admitting i.v. drug consumption (prevalence of 32% compared to 1,5% among the non-drug consuming prostitutes). This is confirmed by the routine screening among the 800 prostitutes in Vienna (1,5 Mio Inhabitants.) Since 1985 a total of three of them was found to be HIV-positive. Again this is incompatible with a STD spreading among the heterosexual population nor can any effect of the prevention campaigns be demonstrated. Kunz, Virusepidemiologische Information, 1987-97, Wien European Working Group on HIV Infection in Female Prostitutes; HIV infection in European female sex workers: epidemiological link with use of petroleum-based lubricants, AIDS, 1993; Mar; 7(3): 4.1-8