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From: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: AIDS
Message-ID: <1867@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 20:16:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.1867
Posted: Wed Oct  8 20:16:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Oct-86 03:29:48 EDT
References: <1826@mmintl.UUCP> <4207@reed.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 23


In article <4207@reed.UUCP> jeanne@reed.UUCP (Jeanne A. E. DeVoto) writes:
>In article <1826@mmintl.UUCP> johnmill@mmintl.UUCP (John Miller) writes:

>> [ about AIDS in Central Africa, where AIDS has been recognized for
>>	about 3 years and 20% of the population is infected ]

>>However, many of the infected children shown were patently more than
>>three years old.  HOW DID THEY GET AIDS?

> [ argument that AIDS was prevalent in Central Africa long before
>				recognized ]

>So, the explanation is simple.  The older children most likely got it
>while being carried by infected mothers, just like the younger ones.

Easy to check; the mothers of children with AIDS should then also have
AIDS.  Is anybody looking into this?   If Jeanne's hypothesis is correct
then finding the oldest children so infected might well help to pinpoint
the time and place where AIDS originated.  A statistical plot of percentage
of incidence vs. age might also be very useful in other ways, such as
prediction of the future spread of the disease elsewhere.

				--johnmill