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50% of gogo girls HIV?


junglesoup

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Old Hippie said:

WOuldn't the use of condoms throw off the results? I mean how could they tell if it was condom usage or the vaccine which was preventing the virus...? Hence, they would then perhapes be encouraging the lack of condom usage, which would increase the risk of other STDs...

 

That is why a control group is used in studies. One group of prostitutes gets the vaccine and one group (the control group) does not. Then you compare the HIV rates of the two groups.

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SHyguy,

 

I understand that, but if all or some of the girls in either or both groups are using condoms, then that throws off the result. Also, how would they know if a girl had even been exposed to HIV/AIDS? They'd have to test the punters shagging them, then have the girl shag an infected guy, take aviral load, and see if she catches it that one time, which she may not anyway...howdo you find a volunteer to participate in such a test?

 

If the test were to take place, and be effective, I'd think you go to a place like africa, and inocculate the villages that have been damn near wiped out by AIDS, see if the trend starts reversing. Frankly I don't see anyway to really do this, when the alternative to the vaccine (Or not receiving the vaccine, but a Placebo) is death...but then I'm not an expert on this...Hopefully Josh or someone who is will weigh in here...

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Don't know how they arrived to that number, but my guess they simply put a figure there.

 

It's extremly difficult to get a proper statistic about it, basically because people (sadly) is reluctant to get the test done.

 

One statistic that could be good approximation is the % of girls that test positive during the VISA process. Most of the embassies request a medical certificate to issue the VISA, certificate that has to be issued by the police hospital.

 

I had access to those statistics and I cannot post the exact number here, but February 2005 the number was around the 30%.

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Hmmm...o.k. first off, I'm a bit drunk, and on Vicodin, so my math may be off...but that would mean almost 1/3 has HIV/Aids...now, one expert says the female to male transmission rate is 1/500 for unprotected sex...and I have had sex with over 1200 Thai women (He added braggingly), then that means I had sex with roughly 400 who were infected...this means I was exposed 400 times...yet, I don't have HIV/AIDS (tested before Surgery a few weeks ago...). I have also ner, knock on plastic, had an STD...have shagged about 6 girls in the last 19+ years with out a condom, meaning I was exposed to AIDS/HIV about 2 times...hmmm...

 

O.k. living in SFO, I get to read about AIDS/HIV everyday...oddly, a lot of what I read, is tied to Gay men, and intravenus drug users...once in awhile, the oddball case of a heterosexual who got it from a blood transfusion or "elsewhere." But last count I read (I might be off now) had 90++% of the cases involving gay men or IV drug users, and women who caught it from guys who were Bi Sexual and or IV drug users..., or so the stats went.

 

Bottom line, no one really knows where a guy/woman gets HIV...from a dirty needle/medical instrument, sex, drug use etc...use a condom and be careful, and pray for the best...

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The maths of this sort of program is very well worked out. Condom usage (or lack of) is basically immaterial to the study, as you can assume that it will be the same in both groups. So, take (say) 2000 girls without HIV, divide them (randomly) into two groups.

 

Group A get the putative vaccine (1000 girls), and group B gets either a placebo, or more commonly another well established vaccine they are unlikely to have had (this way they get *some* benefit out of the study).

 

For simplicity (here), wait 5 years and go back and re-screen all the girls for HIV. What you *hope* is that you get say 200 HIV in the non-(HIV)vaccinated group and none in the (HIV)-vaccinated group. Then you have a vaccine. If you get 200 HIV+ in each group, you got expensive soup.

 

The problem (being raised here), is if, for example you only get 1 or 2 cases in the non(HIV) vaccinated group, then if you get 0 or 1 in the vaccinated group you do not know if your vaccine works or not, especially since the potential vaccine may not protect 100 percent of individuals. Therefor you need to be sure that there will be sufficient cases in the "control" group to validate your experiment.

 

Obviously this is grossly simplified. If you have a fair idea of the transmission rate, you can then calculate your study population size. If the rate of transmission is low, you can increase the cohorts to 5,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 (or whatever) so that it will still give the desired significance. However, the larger the pool, the more expensive the trial (you got to be able to follow these people for years).

 

The only time that ethics *really* raises its ugly head, is, say, if you go back and check after one year and the rates are *very* different (i.e. your vaccine works really well) then it may not be ethical to continue the study for the five years. You then go back and vaccinate *all* of the control group, not leaving them to die off so you can get "better" data.

 

The fact that the proposed study was not carried out in sex workers, would suggest that the rates are low.

 

The 50% figure is high, but you really need to know what the figure is talking about. From memory, the rates in (farang servicing) sex workers is relatively low. The rate in up country sex workers (the low end brothel workers, twenty Thai's a day at 100 baht per pop) is staggeringly high, and I would not be shocked by a 50% figure.

 

However, there is NO question that HIV/AIDS is out in the "farang orientated" sex workers. I know (knew) of at least two Nana workers who have died of HIV aids, and of one girl working NOW in Nana whose Thai husband has just been diagnosed with it and it is *almost* certain that he contracted it from her (she refuses to get tested).......

-j-

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Do you still accept the offer of free sex with a stunner?

---------------------------------------

That's the greatness of having been, or being a partaker in Thailand, it's easy to be relaxed about the whole sex thing, and as easily to say "no, thanks, I've had plenty of stunners, and plenty of good shags, and will, still, on my clock, not anyone else's".

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Most bars claim their girls are tested for HIV/STD?s monthly and I believe many if not most bar owners do in fact enforce this policy. However, tests results can be faked and the girls know the ends and outs of the routine. So if they were positive no doubt they could easily find a way to beat it.

 

A little story follows relating to an incident where I wanted to verify a certain girl had actually been recently tested ? it?s a little longer than I intended, so some may want to stop here...

 

OK, in Pattaya about six years ago I met a cute little newbie beerbar girl in a very small karaoke bar located in one of the alleys off of walking street. Nice girl and I ended up spending several days with her. One hot afternoon when we returned to my room to cool off we got a little carried away and had a hot session sans condom which scared the piss out of me. Afterwards :banghead: I questioned her about the last time she had been HIV tested. She responded with ?I?m OK, no HIV, all girls in bar tested every month ? I prove to you tomorrow?.

 

She said she would stop by my hotel the next day at noon and would take me to the testing clinic to prove she was telling me the truth. Well, I figured the chances of her showing up would be something like 1 in 10,000! But damn if she didn?t walk into the hotel at exactly noon the next day just as she had promised! ::

 

She said we go now, but because of the hospitals location motorbike taxis would be required. I reluctantly agreed and we soon found ourselves at the large hospital you see when exiting the freeway for Pattaya (think that?s the one anyway, can?t recall its name). I took a seat in the waiting area while she went to the desk to speak with a couple of nurses. In a few minutes she motioned me over to where a nurse had her HIV test results all laid out for me to examine. The tests and examination had been performed about two weeks earlier, tests were all negative and everything appeared in order. Satisfied and now being much relieved, we left, but not before she reminded me: I told you, I not lie to you. Yes, she was a good one. :)

 

A brief follow-up: I returned to LOS about six weeks later and revisited her bar hoping to locate her. As I mentioned this was a very small beerbar with only four or five girls working the place. My girl wasn?t there, so I asked the mamasan about her - unfortunately I couldn?t recall her name...

 

The mamasan then produced a large ledger with pictures of all the girls that had worked the place along with very detailed daily entries stating the times each girl was BF?d, even customer description, and other details including up to date HIV test results. All entries were written very neatly in English and I was very impressed. There were so many entries in such detail I was amazed at the work that had gone into this careful bookkeeping. Turned out my girl didn?t take to selling herself and apparently had returned to her former village life. Never saw her again, who knows?

 

Anyway, I have heard mention of bar ledgers, but this is the only one I?ve ever examined or even seen. Was wondering how common this type of detailed ledger is among bar owners and is it required by law?

 

ST

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