Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!att!chinet!arf
From: arf@chinet.chi.il.us (Jack Schmidling)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: What's the Why and How of Mosquito Bites?
Summary: bla.bla.bla facts please
Message-ID: <9297@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 18 Aug 89 15:02:26 GMT
References: <5399@mtgzy.att.com> <4948@tank.uchicago.edu> <9263@chinet.chi.il.us> <24875@joyce.istc.sri.com>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago, Ill.
Lines: 106


mammals/e6 
 
Article 2393 (2 more) in sci.bio: 
From: alan@apptek11.uucp (Alan Algustyniak) 
Subject: Re: What's the Why and How of Mosquito Bites? 
 
 
>> ARF says: 
 
>> Have you never smashed a blood-gorged mosquito sitting on  
your arm?  All the senario needs to transfer, is for the  
mosquito to have taken a prior, partial meal, from an AIDS  
carrier. 
 
>> Not quite as improbable as your virgin birth! 
 
 
>This reasoning seems convincing on the theoritical level,  
but one has to wonder why, then, are not ALL sub-Saharan  
people infected by now? 
 
ARF says: 
 
The same reason, everyone attending a homosexual picknic  
does not get AIDS.  Recognizing a transfer mechanism does  
not throw the probability arguments to the winds. 
 
>I have read that mosquitos are not as attracted to black  
skin as they are to white skin, but by how much, I don't  
know. 
 
Arf says: 
 
I don't know about black but I learned long ago not to go  
botanizing in a red shirt. 
 
>BTW, if mosquitos need blood to propogate, then how do the  
ones deep in the swamps do it?  
 
ARF says: 
 
I know not what swamps you have in mind but on this planet,  
they all have large populations of mammals. 
  
 
(Russell Turpin)   says: 
 
>No, it also requires blood from the last meal to be left in  
the mosquito's proboscis, that the mosquito's proboscis is  
still in your arm, and that you smash the mosquito in such a  
fashion that the blood is injected into your arm.   
 
ARF says: 
 
I never suggested that the blood would neatly squirt back  
into the arm.  The proboscis would no doubt be destroyed by  
the smashing.   
 
I do suggest that you have on your arm several drops of AIDS  
contaminated blood sitting on an open, albeit small, wound.   
You also have contaminated blood on the smashing hand.  If  
you have a sore on your hand, scratch your nose, rub yours  
eyes, etc., etc., there are possibilities that can not be  
swept under the carpet. 
 
>The chance of HIV infection from smashing a mosquito may be 
greater than the chance of virgin birth, but if this mode of 
transmission occurs, it is so rare that it does not show up  
in epidemiological studies.... 
 
ARF says: 
 
Mosquito transmission does not show up in epidemiological  
studies because of the absurdity of asking every AIDS  
victim:  "Have you ever been bitten by a mosquito?" 
 
What would you do with the data? 
 
The only conclusion you could logically arrive at is that  
AIDS is caused by mosquitoes because it is the only exposure  
mechanism they all have in common. 
 
 (Jon Kauffman)   says: 
 
>Um, I seem to remember an article which describes a study  
in St Augustine, Florida, a locale know for its mosquito  
population. 
 
>The idea is that many other things being equal (I cannot  
comment on how equal they really are), if mosquitos were a  
vector, then all age groups would be affected equally, since  
mosquitoes aren't particularly choosy. 
 
ARF says: 
 
All of the above is precisely the non-rigorous, anecdotal,  
rhetorical, negative, dis-information that has been fed to  
us in lieu of the results of a rigorous, scientific study to  
find out if AIDS {can} be spread by blood sucking insects. 
 
All we hear are reasons why it can't be spread but not a  
single study with real virus, real insects and real lab  
animals and/or people. 
 
The Amateur Radio Forum (arf)