My best friend just found out he has AIDS and told me.......?!

My best friend just found out he has AIDS and told me.......?

I work @ Cracker Barrel and I was just told by my best friend that he has AIDs.........he only recently found out, he begged me not to say anything to anyone but my conscience is getting the best of me.......if I were eating out I would want to know if my server had AIDs wouldnt you? What should I do, I am so conflicted right now!!

2 weeks ago
**** all of you ppl who think I am ignorant, I know he can't it on except by bodily fluids and blood, but you never know what might happen, you NEVER ******* know, I am just looking out for people so **** all of you who want to burn me at the stake for being ******* responsible........

WARNING: HIV Denialists are going on to sites about issues with HIV (youtube, Answers, etc.,) and spreading their lies.
By all means, read what they have to say. Then visit:
http://aidsvideos.org/myths/

This is in response to the HIV Denialist poster, and for those of you who don't know what an HIV Denialist is, here's a definition:
A "denialist" is a person who stubbornly denies a fact that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt even though overwhelming evidence proving the fact is readily available and independently testable by anyone who wishes to do so. Examples include moon landing, Holocaust, HIV causes AIDS, and round Earth denialists. Denialists ignore evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and fail to publish evidence of their own.

Now to the specific points (all papers were peer reviewed by the way....in case you were wondering:

HIV DOES CAUSE AIDS:

Proof that HIV is the cause of AIDS is overwhelming. National Academy of Sciences, CDC, Institute of Medicine, NIH, AMA, Canadian CDC, Pasteur Institute, UNAIDS, and WHO all agree. Google "HIV and AIDS Myths Debunked" to find a page at AIDSvideos with data and references from research studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals showing that HIV causes AIDS and debunking common myths. Or watch my educational videos such as "The Top Ten Myths About HIV/AIDS."

Responsible scientists agree that HIV causes the disease AIDS. People who are HIV negative do not develop AIDS. We have seen people go from HIV negative to HIV positive to clinical AIDS countless times. There is a correlation between the viral load in a person's blood and the drop in the patient's CD4 count and increase in severity of disease symptoms. When antiretroviral drugs are used and cut the patient's viral load, the CD4 count can rebound and AIDS symptoms can improve.

NIAID: By 12/31/94, "CDC had received reports of 42 health care workers in the United States with documented, occupationally acquired HIV infection, of whom 17 have developed AIDS in the absence of other risk factors .... These individuals all had evidence of HIV seroconversion following a discrete percutaneous or mucocutaneous exposure to blood, body fluids or other clinical laboratory specimens containing HIV." [CDC, "HIV/AIDS surveillance report, 1994 year-end edition," 1995a;6(no.2).]

HIV HAS BEEN FOUND/ISOLATED:
NIAID "Relationship Between HIV and AIDS:" "Improvements in co-culture techniques have allowed the isolation of HIV in virtually all AIDS patients, as well as in almost all seropositive individuals with both early- and late-stage disease." [Coombs et al, "Plasma viremia in human immunodeficiency virus infection," N Engl J Med 1989;321(24):1626-31. Schnittman et al, "The reservoir for HIV-1 in human peripheral blood ...," Science 1989;245(4915):305-8." Also Ho et al 1989, Jackson et al 1990]

(Source: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/hi...

NIAID "Relationship:" HIV has been "isolated from the brains of children and adults with AIDS-associated encephalopathy, which suggested a role for these viruses in the central nervous system disorders seen in many patients with AIDS." [Levy JA et al. "Isolation of AIDS-associated retroviruses from cerebrospinal fluid and brain ..." Lancet 1985;2(8455):586-8. Ho DD et al. "Isolation of HTLV-III from cerebrospinal fluid and neural tissues ..." N Engl J Med 1985;313(24):1493-7.]

"HIV can be isolated from AIDS patients and grown in laboratories. PCR tests can count the amount of HIV in blood. The virus is easily, and has been on numerous occasions, photographed using electron microscopes." (From aidstruth web site's article "Errors in Celia Farber's March 2006 article in Harper's Magazine")

(Source: http://www.aidstruth.org/errorsinfarbera...

AIDS IS NOT CAUSED BY Antiretroviral Medications:
Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) do not cause AIDS. Clinical AIDS including all of its symptoms has been diagnosed in countless people who were never previously treated with ARVs. On average, people who are diagnosed with clinical AIDS and put on ARVs live longer than those diagnosed with clinical AIDS who are not put on ARVs. ARVs treat AIDS, not cause it. HIV is the cause of AIDS.

(Source: http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm)...

ARVs DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE SICKER, BUT BETTER:

ARVs do sometimes have unpleasant side effects. But remember: (1) often people are put on ARVs because they're already becoming sick with a low CD4 count and/or clinical AIDS symptoms, and they're no panacea, so it's no surprise if people on ARVs still look sick, and (2) they might be sicker or dead if they weren't on the ARVs. Studies have proven that ARVs are safe and effective for treating clinical AIDS. The death rate is lower for those on ARVs than those not treated.

HIV TEST IS ACCURATE:
Testing is specific & accurate. "A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% .... and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99% (46, 47). With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000) (48)." (Chou et al, Annals of Internal Medicine, 5 July 05, vol 143, #1, p 55-73)

(Source: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/1...

"The performance of four enzyme immunoassays, manufactured by Abbott, Diagnostics Pasteur, Genetic Systems, and Organon Teknika, for the combined detection of anti-human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and anti-HIV-2, was examined .... Sensitivity estimates in the four assays were 99.71, 99.94, 99.49, and 99.68% .... Specificity estimates from blood donations were 99.92, 99.46, 99.67, and 99.85% ..." [Silvester et al. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr Hum Retrovirol 1995;8:411]

HAVING ANTIBODIES DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN YOU ARE IMMUNE:

Having antibodies to a virus does not necessarily mean that your body is now immune to that virus. It only means that your body has been exposed to the virus (or to a vaccine) and has generated antibodies in response. The immune system is able to develop protective immunity to some viruses but not all viruses. Unfortunately, HIV is one of the viruses that the body is able to fight but not to eliminate and develop protective immunity against on its own.

NIAID: Many viruses are pathogenic even after antibodies appear [Oldstone MB, "Viral persistence," Cell 1989;56(4):517-20], including polio [Kurth R, "Does HIV cause AIDS?" Intervirology 1990;31(6):301-14], measles [Gershon AA in Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases, 3rd ed. NY: Churchill Livingstone, 1990, pp. 1279-84.], cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex, and varicella zoster [Weiss & Jaffe, "Duesberg, HIV and AIDS (commentary)" Nature 1990;345:659-60.].

CLAIM: HIV Test Bottles or Documentation Say There's No Standard for Being HIV Positive

Those are only standard legal disclaimers. "A large study of HIV testing in 752 U.S. laboratories reported a sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 98.5% .... and studies in U.S. blood donors reported specificities of 99.8% and greater than 99.99% (46, 47). With confirmatory Western blot, the chance of a false-positive identification in a low-prevalence setting is about 1 in 250 000 (95% CI, 1 in 173 000 to 1 in 379 000) (48)." (Chou et al,Annals of Internal Medicine,5 July 05,v143#1,p55-73)

(Source: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/1...