Senator Stacey Campfield Responds to E-mail About “Monkey” and Heterosexual Sex Not Transmitting HIV
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| “My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].” |
I posted a copy of an e-mail that I sent to Senator Stacey Campfield Blog post showing e-mail sent to Senator Stacey Campfield at sen.stacey.campfield@capitol.tn.gov
On Oct 24, 2013, at 1:15 PM, “John A Smith” <jasmith3569@gmail.comjasmith3569@gmail.com
>> wrote:
You can’t possibly believe 10% of the crap you spew. Have you ever read a Morbidity and Mortality Report from the CDC? Do you live in this world, or your own? Have you NO decency, pride? honesty, intelligence, education? Here is a link to the CDC website, ask someone to show you how to use the computer to get to this website and download the latest MMR for HIV/AIDS and then have them explain to you that heterosexual sex can indeed transmit HIV as it does with other STD’s. You saying what your saying is DANGEROUS because some people will actually believe what you say because, after all, you are a Senator. How, or why, your a Senator I have no idea. After someone has explained the facts to you I would appreciate your response, I’ll enjoy the laugh.
By the way here is the CDC website again: http://www.cdc.gov/
I do want to thank his office for responding to me, however, I don’t see how his answer in anyway backs up his statement of “Aids was caused by One Man Having Sex With A Monkey.” In addition, when I was teaching Paramedics at the NYC*EMS academy, at the direction of Dr. Gillette (one of eight doctors chosen by the government to disseminate evolving information about HIV and AIDS as it was becoming available in 1985,) I learned that using phrases like “full blown Aids” was not only inappropriate but ignorant. The Congressman uses this phrase often in his response. “Full Blown AIDS” makes no sense because if you are unfortunate enough to contract the virus, you actually contract the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) which causes the Acquired Immunodeficiency Disease (AIDS.) You don’t contract the disease. So saying someone has full blown AIDS is just ignorant. You either have the disease or you don’t. You can’t be “almost” pregnant, you are either pregnant or your not. With AIDS, you either have the disease or you don’t. The most dangerous thing about his statements are about transmission of HIV in heterosexual persons. In his response below where he is trying to justify that HIV is virtually not transmitted by heterosexual sex he fails miserably because it just isn’t true. It certainly doesn’t say anything that would back up the ignorance he showed when he said AIDS was caused by a “One Man Having Sex With One Monkey.”
What he actually said was “My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].”
Read more at http://wonkette.com/461721/tennessee-bigot-aids-is-all-the-fault-of-this-one-monkey-loving-pilot#UttsYwiPiuk7HZXK.99
Read more at http://wonkette.com/461721/tennessee-bigot-aids-is-all-the-fault-of-this-one-monkey-loving-pilot#UttsYwiPiuk7HZXK.99
Read more at http://wonkette.com/461721/tennessee-bigot-aids-is-all-the-fault-of-this-one-monkey-loving-pilot#UttsYwiPiuk7HZXK.99
Read more at http://wonkette.com/461721/tennessee-bigot-aids-is-all-the-fault-of-this-one-monkey-loving-pilot#UttsYwiPiuk7HZXK.99
Here is his response, where, by the way, he says he “never claimed to be an AIDS historian!
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8:36 AM (2 hours ago)
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The odds of transmission to a US man through unprotected vaginal intercourse is about 1 in 2000 if the person they are having sex with has full blown AIDS. It is about 1 in 1000 for the female (Both without any contraception). If you factor in the actual odds of a US heterosexual having sexual relations with someone with AIDS the odds go into the 1 in multi millions (sic) .
Even with the CDCs (sic) own numbers of 28% of HIV positive US population are heterosexual, of the 305,000 that have HIV in the US that is only 85,596 people. (In my opinion, even that number is off as the CDC admits they report men who sleep with men as heterosexual if that is how they self identify, but we can go with their numbers) multiply that by the odds of a female having HIV (51% of the population by most numbers) and you are at 43,653 in the US. Seeing as the current US population is 311,800,000, Your odds of interaction with an HIV infected female is 1 in 7,142. Multiply that by the odds of transmission when having unprotected vaginal intercourse with someone with full blown AIDS of 1 in 2000 and you are at 1 in 14,285,387. That is if every single HIV person is still sexually active and not telling their partner. I would hope and expect that is not the case. At worst I would estimate/hope at least 50% are not sexually active with a non infected partner. That puts your odds at 1 in 28,570,774. As I said, Not impossible but highly unlikely.
Even if we cut out 50% of the population for possible math error that’s still over 1 in 14,000,000. I have never said “Never” or it was “Impossible” I said highly unlikely and virtually impossible. I think even a 1 in 14 MILLION chance fits that criteria.
As for the history of AIDS, I never claimed to be an AIDS historian. I was asked a question on a radio show. My origional (sic) assumptions came from the well known AIDS book “And the band played on” that tracked the modern US outbreak down to Gayton Dugas. No one knows the true “world Patient 0”. For a long time it was thought to be Gaton Dugas (An airline steward and prolific homosexual) it was later found to be possibly someone from the 1920’s.
No one knows how SIV (sic) jumped from simians to humans and transformed into HIV for the true “patient 0” but the ways of transmission are well known. While none can be ruled out, Oral transmission is now thought to be all but impossible, I doubt someone was sharing needles with a monkey or got a blood transfusion from a monkey (but I cant say its impossible so I will still say its possible), what’s left?
The CDC does not make any definitive claim as they do not know for sure who it was or how definitely it happened. If they (nor you) can say with certainty who “patient 0” was or how it happened definitively then the door is open for all possibilities.
Now, if you can find fault with my math or the CDC/WHO numbers or you have some definitive new proof of some new discovery as to the history of AIDS I stand ready to correct myself and admit I was wrong. Are you?
Yours in service,
Sen. Stacey Campfield
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Here are some problems with the Senator’s response:
“If you factor in the actual odds of a US heterosexual having sexual relations with someone with AIDS the odds go into the 1 in multi millions (sic).” So then it IS transmitted through heterosexual sex, good your learning.
“The odds of transmission to a US man through unprotected vaginal intercourse is about 1 in 2000 if the person they are having sex with has full blown AIDS.” As opposed to what? Having sex with someone who “almost” has AIDS?
“Even with the CDCs (sic) own numbers of 28% of HIV positive US population are heterosexual, of the 305,000 that have HIV in the US that is only 85,596 people. (In my opinion, even that number is off as the CDC admits they report men who sleep with men as heterosexual if that is how they self identify, but we can go with their numbers) multiply that by the odds of a female having HIV (51% of the population by most numbers) and you are at 43,653 in the US. Seeing as the current US population is 311,800,000, Your odds of interaction with an HIV infected female is 1 in 7,142. Multiply that by the odds of transmission when having unprotected vaginal intercourse with someone with full blown AIDS of 1 in 2000 and you are at 1 in 14,285,387. That is if every single HIV person is still sexually active and not telling their partner. I would hope and expect that is not the case. At worst I would estimate/hope at least 50% are not sexually active with a non infected partner. That puts your odds at 1 in 28,570,774. As I said, Not impossible but highly unlikely.”
305,000 people in the US have HIV? WRONG:
1,148 ,200 Americans aged 13 and older were living with HIV in 2009and as far as “hoping” and “expecting” sexually active people would tell their partner they are infected; “About 18 % of those infected with HIV in the United States are unaware of their infection.”
In the United States
The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1,148 ,200 Americans aged 13 and older were living with HIV in 2009 .1 Of these:
- 279 ,100 were female1
- 76 ,4 00 were youths aged 13 to 241
- About 473,000 had AIDS the disease, not just the virus
About 18 % of those infected with HIV in the United States are unaware of their infection.2 Young adults aged 25 to 34 accounted for 28% of new HIV infections in the United States in 2011, and young people 13 to 24 years old accounted for 21 % .2 That year, women accounted for an estimated 10,512, or 21%, of the estimated 50,199 new HIV cases in the United States .2
From National Institute of Health (NIH.) “How Many people Have HIV/AIDS?’ by NIH
“Even if we cut out 50% of the population for possible math error that’s still over 1 in 14,000,000. I have never said “Never” or it was “Impossible” I said highly unlikely and virtually impossible. I think even a 1 in 14 MILLION chance fits that criteria.” I’m glad you admit that your math is possibly off by 50% but how does your admitting that transmission of HIV is possible, remember now, AIDS, the disease is not transmitted, and people develop the disease of AIDS, not “full-blown AIDS, how does that explain your ignorance that AIDS was caused by “One Man Having Sex With a Monkey?”
“No one knows how SIV jumped (sic) from simians to humans and transformed into HIV for the true “patient 0″ but the ways of transmission are well known. While none can be ruled out, Oral transmission is now thought to be all but impossible, I doubt someone was sharing needles with a monkey or got a blood transfusion from a monkey (but I cant say its impossible so I will still say its possible), what’s left?” HIV IS A BLOODBORNE PATHOGEN. True. No one knows how SIV (HIV stems from SIV) was transmitted (it doesn’t “jump”) but we know the following;
From Frontline: The Age of AIDS: Frontline article HIV: Before the age of AIDS
There are two forms of human AIDS virus, human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2). Related simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) are found in more than 30 species of primates in sub-Saharan Africa; each species has its own form of SIV. HIV-1 is classified into three groups, M, N and O. HIV-2 is also classified into multiple groups, but only groups A and B have been found in more than one person.
The evolutionary tree shows that:
– HIV-1 and HIV-2 originate from SIVs in different primate species
– HIV-1 strains are closely related to SIVcpz/s, from the chimpanzee subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes
– HIV-2 strains are closely related to SIVsmm, from sooty mangabey monkeys (Cercocebus atys).
– HIV-1 groups M, N and O must have originated from three separate chimpanzee-to-human transmissions, because these lineages are interspersed among the SIVcpz/s branches.
-HIV-2 groups A and B must have originated from two separate sooty mangabey-to-human transmissions for similar reasons.
So, I ask you Senator, will you retract your statements that “AIDS was started by one man having sex with a monkey?” Will you make clear that HIV can be transmitted through heterosexual sex and that since 18% of people who have contracted HIV don’t even know they have it and that your statement “My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].” is wrong? Unprotected, heterosexual sex is a dangerous route of transmission?
I do very much appreciate your response as I said in the beginning.
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