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That incubation period doesn't sound right. Google tells me: "The interval from HIV infection to the diagnosis of AIDS ranges from about 9 months to 20 years or

by jolux 6y ago

That incubation period doesn't sound right. Google tells me: "The interval from HIV infection to the diagnosis of AIDS ranges from about 9 months to 20 years or longer, with a median of 12 years." (https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/infectious-diseases/disease-information-advice/hiv-and-aids https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/infectious-dise...) So yes, median of 12 years. Not minimum. Wikipedia's entry on HIV/AIDS denialism links to this document from a committee organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1988 where the committee says they find the evidence of a causal link between HIV and AIDS conclusive (page 33): https://www.nap.edu/read/771/chapter/4 https://www.nap.edu/read/771/chapter/4 The rest of that section explains the evidence they have: extremely high correlates for HIV infection and subsequent AIDS prevalence in at-risk communities, no cases in populations that were not at risk, near 100% detection rate of HIV in the blood of AIDS patients, and the tracing of HIV infected blood donors to transfusion patients acquiring AIDS.

lisper 6y ago
> Not minimum. I didn't say minimum. The point is, in the mid-90s you had a lot of people with HIV infections. Some of them were dying, but a lot of others carried infections for many years with no apparent ill effects. I don't see how you can get definitive causality from that data.
- jolux 6y ago
  You said incubation periods of "ten years or more," which was clearly false. The rest of my comment addresses the rest of yours. Not everybody who is infected with a virus gets the most severe symptoms, I would assume we know this intuitively after 10 months in a different pandemic situation ;)
  - lisper 6y ago
    Obviously I meant as much as or up to ten years or more, not at least ten years or more. From the HN guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
    - jolux 6y ago
      I thought it was implausible that you meant less than ten years by saying that, because your argument rested significantly on it. Other than that our disagreement seems to be on whether there was good reason to be significantly out of line with the scientific consensus on HIV/AIDS in the early 90s, which there doesn't seem to be from my research.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > your argument rested significantly on it No, it didn't. If you think that then you haven't understood my argument. Let me try again: HIV was first identified in 1983, so by the mid-90s the virus had been known for just a little over 10 years. Part of the prevailing hypothesis at the time was that the virus occasionally had incubation periods in excess of 10 years, but that it would inevitably kill you sooner or later. I do not see, on the basis of the data available at the time, how you could definitively rule out the possibility that, for example, some people could successfully defend against HIV indefinitely based on some to-that-point unidentified immunological mechanism. Or that AIDS was caused by some unidentified factor that weakened the immune system, and that HIV was an opportunistic infection that was harmless if you happened to have it without the actual unidentified causal factor for AIDS. Or maybe HIV was a co-factor. I can think of a lot of possibilities that AFAICT could not have been definitively ruled out based on what was known in 1995. Yes, the establishment got it right. But it is far from clear to me that it wasn't for the wrong reasons. The history of science is full of examples of the establishment getting it wrong. It's possible they just got lucky with HIV.
        jolux 6y ago
        If the epistemic standard is a well-understood mechanism for HIV causing AIDS then yes I would say that hadn't been identified at the time, but the review I linked admits as such. Moreover if what you disapprove of is the standard of evidence demonstrated by the medical community at the time then I think I can understand that even if I disagree with it. What I can't understand is why you think this is relevant to why Kary Mullis was a denialist, since it's clear he remained as such long after the evidence was overwhelming, the mechanism was demonstrated, etc.

by jolux 6y ago

lisper 6y ago

> Not minimum. I didn't say minimum. The point is, in the mid-90s you had a lot of people with HIV infections. Some of them were dying, but a lot of others carried infections for many years with no apparent ill effects. I don't see how you can get definitive causality from that data.

jolux 6y ago
You said incubation periods of "ten years or more," which was clearly false. The rest of my comment addresses the rest of yours. Not everybody who is infected with a virus gets the most severe symptoms, I would assume we know this intuitively after 10 months in a different pandemic situation ;)
- lisper 6y ago
  Obviously I meant as much as or up to ten years or more, not at least ten years or more. From the HN guidelines: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
  - jolux 6y ago
    I thought it was implausible that you meant less than ten years by saying that, because your argument rested significantly on it. Other than that our disagreement seems to be on whether there was good reason to be significantly out of line with the scientific consensus on HIV/AIDS in the early 90s, which there doesn't seem to be from my research.
    - lisper 6y ago
      > your argument rested significantly on it No, it didn't. If you think that then you haven't understood my argument. Let me try again: HIV was first identified in 1983, so by the mid-90s the virus had been known for just a little over 10 years. Part of the prevailing hypothesis at the time was that the virus occasionally had incubation periods in excess of 10 years, but that it would inevitably kill you sooner or later. I do not see, on the basis of the data available at the time, how you could definitively rule out the possibility that, for example, some people could successfully defend against HIV indefinitely based on some to-that-point unidentified immunological mechanism. Or that AIDS was caused by some unidentified factor that weakened the immune system, and that HIV was an opportunistic infection that was harmless if you happened to have it without the actual unidentified causal factor for AIDS. Or maybe HIV was a co-factor. I can think of a lot of possibilities that AFAICT could not have been definitively ruled out based on what was known in 1995. Yes, the establishment got it right. But it is far from clear to me that it wasn't for the wrong reasons. The history of science is full of examples of the establishment getting it wrong. It's possible they just got lucky with HIV.
      - jolux 6y ago
        If the epistemic standard is a well-understood mechanism for HIV causing AIDS then yes I would say that hadn't been identified at the time, but the review I linked admits as such. Moreover if what you disapprove of is the standard of evidence demonstrated by the medical community at the time then I think I can understand that even if I disagree with it. What I can't understand is why you think this is relevant to why Kary Mullis was a denialist, since it's clear he remained as such long after the evidence was overwhelming, the mechanism was demonstrated, etc.