Emily Oster: What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

[flexpint]

Good report! By the way, she sort of looks a lot like "Bella" from Twilight, don't she?

[098anne]

Interesting stats. I cringed when she said AIDS is first and foremost a policy issue. And again when she said that economists look at health as an investment. I suggest this admitted 'academic' step out of the office and into the real world in order to gain wisdom. She seems to have very little.

[Th3Wab3]

the facts that weaken the HIV = AIDS causation many. to list a few the gender and age disparities that differ according to region. the fact that different regions use different test which cause results that contradict each other. the research on retrovirus causations and function are inconclusive... AIDS = 30 some on diseases many of which are symptoms that are found in peoples who are exposed to fecal contaminated water and malnutrition

[dinogrower]

Yes she needs to be challenged. She could have said how Dr.Boyd E. Graves submitted to the president of the united states a file acquired from the government that proves genetic engineering created AIDS and the law suit was dismissed as frivolous. He had the governments own military files in his hand. Smart people like you could have done better.

[dinogrower]

For such an educated audience seems like she could have done a youtube search with the name Dr. Maurice Hilleman. What a disappointing talk.

[daveadler]

While she has given a very informative talk and sounds very intelligent and articulate, as a secondary observation it should also be noted that her kaboose looks quite good in those pants.

[publicanimal]

@daveadler I noticed how good her butt looked right around the time she said "Abstaining from sex is costly. People really like to have sex."

[playgrrrr]

has is not a disease of poverty. nobody's forcing the people to fuck around like that when it is widely known that it isnt save. when they dont care themselves then why would i? let them die if they want to die that bad.

[playgrrrr]

has=aids -_- statements like that make me so mad i dont even manage to type properly anymore

[Thedreamshaperabc]

As an economist and a mathmatician i would like to say that i think it is likely you could find a strong corrolary between the national product per person and the risk of aids.

So yes, aids is a disease of poverty. But perhaps you have to look deeper, "curing" poverty will also cure the lack of education which may be a deeper problem, but harder to tackle directly.

to sum up: I disagree, Aids is to a large extent a disease of poverty. Goodnight.

[zoharsis]

Four things you should know about AIDS:

It was created in a lab for uses in depopulation in The U.S Special Virus Cancer Program

There are many false positive which lead to people being given AZT- which will kill you

It appeared in the US homosexuals in 1979 and then in Africa in 1982 - correlating to the experimental hepatitis vaccine in US and smallpox vaccine in Africa

World bankers and the government doesn't give a shit about people!

[Thedreamshaperabc]

if you can proove that the score will be:

Crazy theories: 1

Regular theories: a billion

[zoharsis]

First off im guessing that u havent even heard of this h=theory, and of course hadnt looked into the immense proof that it shows. I can list off a whole buncha books, docs, and high credential people that have gone into this showing that it is positively true..as for those so called regular theories..i dont think that a monkey biting a human in Africa all of a sudden leads to a massive human epidemic, meanwhile i can show u evidence of virus splicing in labs..lol do u think the truth isnt hidden

[Thedreamshaperabc]

well if a rat can start the black plague emagine what a large animal such as a monkey can do -_- just lucky it wasnt a blue whale!

..

but seriusly, come on dude. You REALLY believe that AIDS was created in a lab somewhere :D ?

you are talking about a world where we couldnt hide the jimmy carter / rabbit attack incident :)

and dont bother listing 20 books, caus ill list 20 other books and so on. But surely we can agree that the scientific community is on my side right ?

[zoharsis]

well first off, the black plague was spread by rats that had the fleas (the insects that were responsible)..dont try to use a bad analogy liek animal size to relate to the intensity of any disease

my reaearch into the origins of the AIDS virus isnt any skeptical, wishy wshy stuff. u obviously dont knwo about the books, articles and concrete proofs that shows all of this

and dont even bother saying the scientific community is on ur side, they dont even know the origins.

[Thedreamshaperabc]

The size thing was a joke, trying to keep a light hearted perspective on things.

Howcome you of all people are so much smarter than the scientific community ?

personally i think that is extremely vain.

[zoharsis]

too bad u put to much regard to the `scientific community`` as if they were soem kinda unified organization

if u did alot of research of the aids virus liek i did ull see that the scientific community basically has no idea in where it came from..and if u have any idea, id love to hear it and show the contrary logically

if ur not close minded and r really serious and curious about the aids virus ull watch The Strecker Memorandum or just look up Gary Null andéor Boyd Graves

[Thedreamshaperabc]

That the scientific community isnt a unified organization is why they have such credence. Ideas attract researchers of they are good and follow scientific rigor. Which is why the prevailing ideas in this community are so often right..

Gary Null on the other hand is a radio host, a man who entertains people that is. He holds two bachelors and a phd from a "correspondance university". He also makes money by selling these videos -_-

the Strecker thing is plain wrong. Aids didnt anihilate humans,

[zoharsis]

I agree, ideas do attract research, but when it comes to a coverup..there is always a way to cover up, even though there is so much evidence proving otherwise. Im not sure what u think what u hear AIDS was manmade, and i can understand how u wudnt believe it. But ur not the first person ive debated this on, and if any of the people i talked to on this subject really cared, they wud actually go look for themselves instead of blind skepticism.

This is serious stuff. Im guessing u didnt watch strec

[marcloveless07]

I talked with Uganda HIV community and government workers and here data is off the mark.

This is a misinformation peice. She needs to challenaged.

[FogLight2]

Interesting lecture but she talks way too fast.

[publicanimal]

@FogLight2 Maybe she's talking fast because TED speakers are given a time limit for their talks? You don't have to be a genius to figure that out.

[ngonea]

Please Educate Yourself Emily,

Search "Boyd Graves", "What is Aids"Fort

[expandmymind]

this video fails to answer the question of why the test for hiv has different criteria in different countries giving different results. all of her information is based on the premise that hiv causes AIDS ... maybe we should take a second look at that assumption.

[Thedreamshaperabc]

Agree with the first part, not with the second part.

:)

[trenteady]

@expandmymind Or maybe you're a crackpot.

[eliasshedd]

Thank you Emily. It is very important that people sit down and think about these issues using fact and data rather than old beliefs about morals and sexuality.

[sadymo2]

Very disappointed! I don't know how they inlcude this in TEDtalk!

[swingbabu2006]

This is the only STUPID video I saw in TED

[nilbud]

A moneyhead applying inflexible inappropriate rules to something they have no understanding of, that could never happen... She's the problem not the solution, she keeps telling people what and how to think, another greedfreak.

[MrFrankBullitt]

Unfortunately, education about HIV is not enough. In order for people to see meaning, they must feel like thier lives are important. We are far from that in most of the world.

[kurtilein3]

i dont like how she concentrates on the number of sexual partners so much. why is she trying to reduce the number of sexual partners and not trying to spread the use of condoms? what sense does that make?

she seems to imply that we need people to have less sex and doesnt care much about educating people, telling them how it works, and getting them to use condoms. HIV is NOT caused by sex, its caused by a virus infection.

im at 5:30 now, when this doesnt change the rating will be very low.

[kurtilein3]

ok, i finished watching, and my criticism stays.

i think its not nice to tell people that they may not have sex, while in reality they can f**c as much as they want if they just use a condom every single time.

its like the catholic church telling you that if you dont want to have children then you may not have sex, pills and condoms are not allowed, and sex is immoral, while in fact sex is good for your health and positively affects your happyness and success. and condoms actually work.

[bitmap]

becuase Condoms do not stop the spread of the infection as much as just not having sex.

she doesnt have to be right, she just is showing a new idea or spin on something.

[orinocojones]

Yeah but did the UN estimations deal with AIDS specifically or HIV Positives? Mortality via HIV can take up to 20 years, where the HIV allows AIDS. Mortality rates won't tell you how many people are HIV positive and as yet there is no cure for this. So I'd be more inclined to go with the UN statistics. I think it's over-optimistic.

[yancur]

So she is suggesting that the ABC program didn't work anywhere else than Uganda?

[sacapiloa]

no, shes saying that abc alone wasnt responsible for the aids prevalence drop. and there are many factors we dont take into account.

[yancur]

Yes, what I meant was, whether or not there was another country where they tried ABC with no success at all?

[xenojaker]

Should have changed "What do we really know" to something like "finding truth". So that AIDS fits on the title, not just AI, because it is misleading. It is however, just as all the TED Talks are, still very interesting and worth watching.

[siddhesh]

> "What do we really know about the spread of AI"

I thought this talk was going to be about Artificial Intelligence :D

[Kaaru]

You're not the only one! I was wondering, "what could the 'spread of artificial intelligence' mean?". lol.

[reivilo]

title is tooo long and thus miss leading... shucks :(

[Ch28Kid]

LOL me too

[neo4b]

lol me too