HIV saves lives

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Maxwell Hamilton - 17 Aug 2007 02:37 GMT

Hi,

I write with a fancy title. It's because at the moment I study publicly available renowned statics. See what I found:

In 1998 we had 596 cases of death caused by AIDS [1] in Germany. According to the renowned german Robert Koch Institute (RKI) we had
82504 HIV+ people (called prevalence) in Germany [2]. With the typical avarage mortality of 1.06 % [3] we would expect 82504 * 1.06
% = 875 death people within the average population. Thus I conclude you were better off being HIV+, at least in 1998. You had 32%
increase in survival probability againt the average german. Oops - the guys at RKI must have thought! So they 'corrected' the
prevalence for the year 2000 at 38000.

Just a minor adjustment.

Greetings
Max

[1] WHO - Current WHO figures obtained via: http://www.who.int/globalatlas/dataQuery/default.asp
[2] RKI , Epidemiologisches Bulletin 20/98:
http://www.rki.de/cln_049/nn_208946/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/1998/20__9
8,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/20_98.pdf
[3] http://www.ipicture.de/daten/demographie_deutschland.html

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David Canzi -- non-mailable - 17 Aug 2007 18:32 GMT

>I write with a fancy title. It's because at the moment I study publicly
>available renowned statics. See what I found:
>
>In 1998 we had 596 cases of death caused by AIDS [1] in Germany.

How many HIV+ people died from causes other than AIDS?

>According to the renowned german Robert Koch Institute (RKI) we had
>82504 HIV+ people (called prevalence) in Germany [2]. With the typical
>avarage mortality of 1.06 % [3] we would expect 82504 * 1.06
>% = 875 death people within the average population. Thus I conclude you
>were better off being HIV+, at least in 1998.

You are assuming that HIV+ people never die of anything but AIDS,
as if HIV somehow makes them magically immune to heart attacks
and car accidents.

I only point out your simplest mistake. Life is too short to
point out all of them.

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David Canzi | Eternal truths come and go. |

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Maxwell Hamilton - 19 Aug 2007 20:33 GMT

>>I write with a fancy title. It's because at the moment I study publicly
>>available renowned statics. See what I found:
>>
>>In 1998 we had 596 cases of death caused by AIDS [1] in Germany.
>
> How many HIV+ people died from causes other than AIDS?

roughly 25 % cancer and 50 % cardiovascular system plus 4 % from external influences [1].

>>According to the renowned german Robert Koch Institute (RKI) we had
>>82504 HIV+ people (called prevalence) in Germany [2]. With the typical
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> point out all of them.
> ...

There is no real mistake. Of course you are right, it might be that the number of death within the HIV+ is roughly twice as much if
there would be *no* overlap. That would be an upper limit. There are 50% (50+4 s.a.) of cases [1] which *should* not and 46 % which
might overlap the AIDS death cases. Do you think that a HIV+ person dying from heart failure will not be called AIDS case?

Car accidents are an insignificant proportion (4 % external influences of 1 % [1]).

It's just not the point. The point is: The number is at the *lowest imagnable level*. If you are a HIV- german your probabilty of
dying is 1 %, if you are HIV+ it is something between 1 % and about 1.5 %. Not really threatening!

Moreover, if you study the statistic values to find hints on wether HIV causes AIDS or not, when you want to know if AIDS is
epidemic in germany or not, at this point you definitely find no clear evidence. It is more a tiny hint that makes the story smell
bad.

Max

P.S. The current situation is roughly comparable to the one described above (in germany).

[1] Statistisches Bundesamt, DESTATIS, GESUNDHEITSWESEN, Todesursachen in Deutschland, Fachserie 12 / Reihe 4, 2004, published
Nov-7-2005

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Maxwell Hamilton - 19 Aug 2007 22:39 GMT

>>I write with a fancy title. It's because at the moment I study publicly
>>available renowned statics. See what I found:
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> I only point out your simplest mistake. Life is too short to
> point out all of them.

Let me respond a second time:

Obviously you striked out one unpleasing fact about the RKI figures
from my former post.

So I will present something about precision of HIV prevalence data.

In 1998 RKI estimates the total number of HIV infections
since the beginning of the epidemic: 85 716 [1]

In 2006 RKI estimates the total number of HIV infections
since the beginning of the epidemic: 82 000 [2]

According to the estimates per year from 1998 up to 2006 there
should be an increase of roughly 8 x 6000 = 48 000 cases
(s. for example [3] 2007 - 2006 cases ~= 7000).

The missing increase surely is not because there have not been any
positive test result from 1998 until 2006. Further a decrease is
utterly obscure. Obviously the 1998 figure has to be corrected
downward. Or the value should have been given including the
measurement error: 86 000 +/- 50 000.

This +/- 60 % is the precision of the RKI HIV case data in 1998!

So RKI cannot present usable HIV prevalence data which could
be the basis for conclusions.

Fortunately the situation is much better with AIDS prevalence data
from Statistisches Bundesamt as well as WHO. This allows
conclusions for germany.

Max

[1] RKI, Epidemiologisches Bulletin 48/98, s. Tab 3
http://www.rki.de/cln_049/nn_208946/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/1998/Anlag
en/9848HIV3__pdf,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/9848HIV3_pdf.pdf[2] RKI, Epidemiologisches Bulletin 47/2006, p 413http://www.rki.de/cln_049/nn_208946/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2006/47__06,templ
ateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/47_06.pdf[3] RKI, Epidemiologisches Bulletin 47/2005, p. 439http://www.rki.de/cln_049/nn_208946/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2005/47__05,templ
ateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/47_05.pdf

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