Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/faqs/bionet/molbio.hiv/sci.med.aids_faq_part_8_of_10

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Newsgroups: sci.med.aids,sci.med,misc.health.aids,soc.motss,bionet.molbio.hiv,sci.answers,soc.answers,misc.answers,news.answers
Subject: Sci.Med.AIDS FAQ part 8 of 10
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Date: 22 Nov 1994 07:53:18 -0600
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Section 7. Information Sources.

Q7.1     Phone Information about AIDS.
Q7.2     Phone Information about AIDS drug trials.
Q7.3     US Social Security: Information for Organizations
Q7.4.    Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.
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Question 7.1. Phone Information about AIDS.

For general information about AIDS and referrals to other AIDS
information sources, call

CDC National AIDS Hotline: [phone]-AIDS
Spanish:1-800-344-7432
Deaf:    1-800-243-7889
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Question 7.2. Phone Information about AIDS drug trials.

You can obtain information about ongoing AIDS drug trials in the United
States by calling the AIDS Trials hotline at

1-800-TRIALSA
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Question 7.3. US Social Security: Information for Organizations

SSA is committed to disseminating information about its benefit
programs to as wide an audience as possible. If your organization has a
newsletter, electronic bulletin board, informational database, or other
system for housing and disseminating information to people living with
AIDS and their caregivers, SSA would like to know about it. SSA wants
to work with you to share information about Social Security benefit
programs and eligibility criteria. SSA will share or exhibit public
information materials if you will inform them of any
meetings/conferences. Also, if you believe your staff could benefit
from an in-service training program covering SSDI/SSI, Medicare,
Medicaid, and other topics, please inform SSA.

SSA looks forward to a continuing partnership with your organization to
inform the thousands of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS
about the benefits available through Social Security. If you have any
questions, or have any additional public information needs, contact
Robert G. Goldstraw, Social Insurance Affairs Specialist (AIDS
Outreach), Social Security Administration, Baltimore MD 21235.
Telephone: [phone].
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Question 7.4. Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis.

Please see Q5.3 `Duesberg's Risk-Group Theory' for introductory
information on this question.

The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis
(hereafter just 'Group' for short) is an organization of scientists,
AIDS-activists and educators, and other concerned persons, currently
numbering around four hundred. As their name indicates, the Group
wishes for the scientific community to reexamine an hypothesis which
they believe to have been prematurely, dogmatically, and even
dangerously, accepted. Many or most of the best known AIDS-skeptics are
members of the Group, including Peter Duesberg, Robert Root-Bernstein,
John Lauritsen, Eleni Eleopoulos, Michael Callen, Jad Adams and Kary
Mullis. The Group may be contacted at 2040 Polk St. Suite 321, San
Francisco, CA 94109 USA; Fax: [phone]. The Group publishes a
newsletter entitled Rethinking AIDS, for which a $25/year donation is
requested.

The Group came into existence as a result of efforts to get the
following four sentence letter published in a number of prominent
scientific journals, including Nature, Science, JAMA, The New England
Journal of Medicine, and Lancet. As of October 1993, all have refused
to do so.

"It is widely believed by the general public that a retrovirus called
HIV causes the group of diseases called AIDS. Many biomedical
scientists now question this hypothesis. We propose that a thorough
reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against this hypothesis be
conducted by a suitable independent group. We further propose that
critical epidemiological studies be devised and undertaken."

The members of the Group do not necessarily agree with each other on
the precise nature and causes of "AIDS;" all they automatically have in
common is disbelief that HIV (sole) causation of AIDS has been
scientifically established.
========================================================================
==
Section 8. Internet resources.

Q8.1    Ben Gardiner's Gopher AIDS Database
Q8.2    CDC AIDS Public Information Dataset.
Q8.3    HIVNET/AEGIS Gateway (BETA VERSION)
Q8.4    Other USENET newsgroups.

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Question 8.1. Ben Gardiner's Gopher AIDS Database

The 'gopher' system provides convenient menu-driven access to a wealth
of arcana--and valuable information--on the Internet. Daily, more and
more resources are made available in gopherspace. Generally, your local
gopher client (if one is installed) will be available by typing
'gopher' at your system prompt; your local system administrator should
be able to provide further details. Local gopher clients in turn allow
convenient access to other remote gopher clients throughout the
Internet.

One of the most valuable gopher resources for AIDS-related information
is the mirror of Ben Gardiner's AIDS-Info BBS database (also available
by direct modem dialup -- see below section). This database exists on
the University of California at San Francisco Experimental Gopher. It
may be reached either, (1) through the menu system of your local
gopher:
--> More Gophers and Other Internet Services/ --> All Registered
Gophers/
--> North America/
--> USA/
--> california/
--> University of California - San Francisco, UCSFYI/ --> Computers and
Networking Guide to Services at UCSF/ --> Questions, Answers and
Information about Everything/ --> Databases (including Ben Gardiner's
AIDS BBS database)/

or, (2) by typing 'gopher itsa.ucsf.edu', and going through the final
three menus. However, these particular menus are subject to change.

The most convenient means of reaching the database is by adding the
below information to your '.gopherrc' file. This will set a bookmark in
your personal gopher for the AIDS-Info BBS, which may be reached by
typing 'v' from anywhere within the gopher system. The information to
add, using your favorite system editor, is:

Type=1
Name=Databases (including Ben Gardiner's AIDS BBS database)
Path=1/.i/.q/.d
Host=itsa.ucsf.edu
Port=70

The University of California at San Francisco Experimental Gopher also
provides gopher gateways to a wide variety of Biology and Medical
resource gophers. The UCSF gopher may be reached as described above
('gopher itsa.ucsf.edu'), or most simply by adding the following to
your '.gopherrc' file:

Type=1
Name=Bio and Medical Gophers and Info. Sites Path=1/Bio and Medical
Gophers and Info. Sites Host=itsa.ucsf.edu
Port=70

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Question 8.2. CDC AIDS Public Information Dataset.

You can get the CDC AIDS public information Dataset via anonymous ftp.
Michelle Murrain has set up a small AIDS ftp site, which has the most
recent dataset (data through 1992). She gets each year's version
(usually in June-July) and puts it there. It contains a line of data on
each individual, including transmission category, OIs diagnosed, date
of diagnosis, etc. If you send her your snail mail address she'll send
you a copy of the guide to the dataset.

Michelle has used the dataset to analyze differences in OI prevalence
in women and men (J Women's Health - out soon) and is now in the
process of looking at ethnic and gender differences in survival,
especially at whether everybody has benefited from recent improvements
in survival with AIDS.

The ftp site is:

dawn.hampshire.edu:AIDS

The name of the file is PIDS92Q4.DAT (BEWARE the file is 16 MB!!) There
is also a Women and AIDS bibliography there. If anyone has resources
they would like to share with folks via FTP let her know and she'll be
glad to add them. Contact Michelle Murrain via

[e-mail]

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Question 8.3. HIVNET/AEGIS Gateway (BETA VERSION)

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, the gateway for the HIVNET/AEGIS
message areas is about to go into testing. If you are interested, I
would like to invite you to be part of our test group.

Thank you for your interest in the HIVNET/AEGIS mailing lists. HIVNET
is, as you probably know, a network for HIV and AIDS information and
discussion. HIVNET is primarily based in Europe and, together with our
sister organization, AEGIS, based in the US and reaching to other
continents as well, try to make as much free information available as
possible. We distribute both message areas (analogous to Usenet
newsgroups) and files, containing periodicals such as Aids Treatment
News and the CDC Aids Daily Summary, as well as one-shot documents and
reports.

HIVNET and AEGIS have been based on Fido protocols and technology,
allowing low-cost entry into the net. The file distribution
capabilities of Fidonet have been put to good use as well.

For this test period, we are gatewaying the following areas to mailing
lists, based at NLnet. NLnet, the commercial Internet provider in the
Netherlands, has been kind enough to subsidize our connectivity. For
the time being, we do NOT wish to distribute these areas as newsgroups,
out of concern for the signal to noise ratio. Up until now, these
groups have all been extremely high signal in comparison with areas
such as sci.med.aids. In the future, if the demand grows enough, we
will look into distribution as a separate hierarchy.

The configuration is still be tested, so please feel free to report any
anomalies. The lists are all resident on inter.nl.net. The available
lists are:

Fido area    List name    Source Description
---------    ---------    ------ -----------
AIDS.DATA    AEGIS Read-only - data postings
AIDS.DIALOGUE hiv-aids-dialogue    AEGIS Discussion area
AIDS.DRUGS    AEGIS Read-only - NLM Drug desc.
AIDS.SPIRITUAL hiv-aids-spiritual    AEGIS Spiritual discussion
AIDS.TRIALS    AEGIS Read-only - NLM Drug trials
AIDS.WOMEN    hiv-aids-women    AEGIS Discussion of women's issues

AIDS.NL    hiv-aids-nl    HIVNET Dutch language discussion and
data

AIDS.FR    hiv-aids-fr    HIVNET French language discussion and
data

HIVNET.GER    hiv-hivnet-ger    HIVNET German language discussion and
data

AIDS/ARC    hiv-aids-arc    FIDONET Discussion - from Fidonet
backbone

INTERNET    hiv-internet    HIVNET Discussion and announcements
about the lists and gateway

If anyone should have an article for submission to AIDS.DATA, it should
be sent to hiv-aids-data, which will forward it on to the moderator.

Please send me a list of which lists you want to join. After the setup,
to join a list or unsubscribe, send a message to the -request address,
such as [e-mail]. Submissions go to the
list name at inter.nl.net, i.e., [e-mail].

The file base should be available within the month via anonymous FTP
and gopher. There will be a facility to receive announcements of new
files. If you wish to join this list as well, let me know.

A few notes about the lists and gateway:

* E-mail replies to individuals are not really possible at this time,
due
to limitations in the gatewaying software. At the bottom of this
document is a list of working addresses.

* The volume on some groups can be pretty high, such as hiv-aids-data.
Be
warned! it is, however, a very useful source of information.

* The gateway itself, at least for the time being, is a ramshackle,
Rube-Goldbergesque collection of PD software (FredGate, Waffle), Fido
software (Gecho, FrontDoor) and Perl scripts, all running on a poor
386SX in my work room. Later I hope to move the whole thing to a
FreeBSD Unix box.

First I have to find a machine to develop it on!

Any questions can be addressed to either the hiv-internet list (by
preference), or to me personally at [e-mail]. I am
automatically connecting everybody to the hiv-internet list, at least
during the test phase.

Thank you for your interest!
Best regards,
Matthew

Working e-mail addresses:

Matthew Lewis    [e-mail]
Tjerk Zweers    [e-mail] (aids.data
moderator)
Sister Mary Elizabeth [e-mail] (aids.data
moderator) Jan Langenberg    [e-mail] (aids.nl
overseer)
Lucas Vermaat    [e-mail] (sysop, HIVNET board)
Ron Dixon    [e-mail] (sysop)

Any of the users at the following BBS systems in HIVNET are reachable
at the address of the system, with the FULL NAME as user name, with '.'
instead of spaces:

Fido    Internet
----    --------
1:103/927    aegis.hivnet.org
2:25/555    london.hivnet.org
2:280/413    amsterdam.hivnet.org
2:280/419    hivnet.org
2:284/306    limburg.hivnet.org

Other systems may follow, as the gateway is expanded.

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Question 8.4. Other USENET newsgroups.

Questions about AIDS come up occasionally in sci.med and soc.motss. The
newsgroup bionet.molbio.hiv may or may not be available at your
site--it discusses technical issues related to the molecular biology of
HIV. As with any newsgroup, including sci.med.aids, you should read
these for a few days before posting, to see if your question has been
answered already, and to get a feel for the tone of the group.