I have a biological perspective on everything. Interesting article in March Esquire on AIDS. Maybe Gary North was correct about AIDS years ago, after all. Seems the latest and greatest "silver bullet", Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) is starting to fail (even for the small minority of AIDS patients worldwide that can afford it).

Some quotes, the implications of which for Y2K comparison, on several levels, I leave to your imaginations... (hint: substitute "y2k" for "virus" or "HIV"):

"the HAART dam is already leaking, and there's high danger of it collapsing altogether. There's no question that we're in a honeymoon right now. Failures are occurring right and left."

"reality is that by their very natures, viruses, and particularly HIV, have the better of human beings"

"In the epidemic, we have historically witnessed peaks and troughs of optimism. [a scientist] acknowledges that the peaks felt last year are now disappearing. "The image that comes to mind is a lot of people filling up sandbags."

"HAART didn't lose its luster suddenly. Rather, it's been fading slowly - so slowly, in fact, that it's easy for the denial-inclined to ignore the new reality"

"The trajectory doesn't look good. With time notched out in weeks, extending from July 1996 through the end of 2000 [!! - RC], and graphed against numbers of HAART patients whose treatments are failing, it takes a heap of denial to reach anything but sobering, even grim, conclusions."

"and time, once again, favors the virus. In the time it has taken you to read this article, ... some of the viruses will have developed capacities that the didn't have when you began reading."

"Minute by minute, HIV gains advantage."

-- Runway Cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), February 17, 1999

Answers

not to put to fine a point on it, but our parish administrator has a bumper sticker on his car that reads: PRACTICE SAFE SEX: GET MARRIED AND BE FAITHFUL.

given a y2k level 5 or worse, I wonder what will spread faster - diseases due to improper handling of sewage, or HIV?

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 17, 1999.

Arlin: I like your parish administrators' bumper sticker. I saw one the other day that said: When you play, you pay. Don't become a statistic. Aids=Death.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 18, 1999.

"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger."

-- I am (I_Am_A_Virus@FooledYou.com), February 18, 1999.

Atlantic Monthly magazine, February, 1999, issue has cover article "A New Germ Theory." Goes into why many diseases generally considered genetic have to be germ/virus caused. Also discusses why strains of a disease (e.g., cholera) are virulent in some areas (e.g., Guatemala) and mild in others (e.g., Chile).

Evolution uber alles. (Sorry, bible thumpers.)

-- a (A@AisA.com), February 18, 1999.

Heard on the radio news last night ... a virulent strain of bacterial staph infection is now showing to be resistant to the last antibiotic known to stop it. I didn't get the name of the bacteria nor the drug .. I was busy driving .. but to me it's yet one more data point on this very complex graph.

Dan

-- Dan (DanTCC@Yahoo.com), February 18, 1999.

Sorry, I can't see how this has anything to do with Y2K. Yeah disease has been around longer than man, so what? It will be around long after man. Why do you expend so much energy on problems?

A hotel sign in Acapulco, Mexico read: "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

Troll Maria

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), February 18, 1999.

LOL Troll.... Great One!!!!!

-- (cannot-say@this.time), February 18, 1999.

Hey Tia Maria,

Do you personally pass all your posts before serving them here? ;)

I think we should be told.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 18, 1999.

andy, you've turned into the biggest jerk here, next to INVAR

-- ... (.@...), February 18, 1999.