Re: Frontline on AIDS

I have a question about a technical issue commented upon in
this program:

Near the start, they characterized the infections that persons
with AIDS died from as "rare", but they never said WHY these
people got these rare infections. I would think that they would
get *common* infections and die from these, far more than
getting unusual and rare infections. We live in a sea of common
bacteria and viri and all that prevents them from killing us is our
immune system. Why would AIDS infectees get these unusual
and otherwise-not-often-seen diseases instead of dying from the
common diseases those with active immnune systems simply
shrug off?

An example given was (if I recall right) "polycystic pneumonia".
It was said that there had been only one case in the previous 10
years, and suddenly 3 or more people with AIDS were dying
from it. Where did these people get exposed to such a rare
germ/infectious agent? Why wouldn't they have already been
killed by common ordinary pneumonia or any of a thousand
other common diseases?

I felt that the series sloughed off such important explanations
that could have been covered by a few sentences or comments.

Will

.

Relevant Pages

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