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From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.women,net.motss,net.jokes
Subject: Re: AIDS and RE: The worst (hist.) surgical proc.
Message-ID: <1732@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 09:55:03 EST
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Posted: Tue Mar  4 09:55:03 1986
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<followup to Beth Christy & others>

Or the apparent lack of female-to-male sexual transmission of AIDS in 
the US may simply be an effect of the virus' long latency and the
particular American subpopulations (gay males, IV drug users) that
AIDS has first reached.  Not long ago, some medical opinion doubted
that male-to-female sexual transmission of AIDS was possible or
very likely.

If semen is a vector, then the (visible) presence of blood isn't 
required for transmission.  Many sexual encounters cause some physical
trauma to tissue, & perhaps (microscopic) hemmorhaging.  The trans-
mission condition for most STDs is contact of mucose membranes.

I don't think many cultures in the rain forests or rift valleys of
central Africa, the possible origin point of AIDS, practice
cliterodectomy.

I still think that anthropologist Uli Linke's conjecture says more
about the psychology (anthropology?) of nervous Western populations
facing AIDS than it does about the disease itself.

						Regards,
						Ron Rizzo