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Julian Sanchez | March 10, 2006

Ronald Bailey looks at how, for many, a stint in prison becomes a death sentence.

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|3.10.06 @ 11:17AM|#

http://www.aumag.org/viewfinder/leftSeptember04.html

and now you know the rest of the story . . .

|3.10.06 @ 11:46AM|#

Gee, maybe if we weren't incarcerating hundreds of thousands of drug offenders, this wouldn't be such a big problem...

That op-ed piece about the private prisons was interesting, but since the public prisons are also rape factories, I fail to see that it makes that much difference as to who owns the joint. Bottom line, when you take a step back and look at it, it is seriously weird and disturbing that our country incarcerates so many people.

While I do sympathize with inmates who are raped, prisons are always going to be nasty places just by the nature of the residents, and in many countries merely leaving prison alive is an accomplishment. From my limited reading, our prisons, bad as they are, are luxury hotels compared even to those in other First World countries.

|3.10.06 @ 11:49AM|#

That op-ed piece about the private prisons was interesting, but since the public prisons are also rape factories, I fail to see that it makes that much difference as to who owns the joint.

Sometimes I like to compare government control to private control and see who is worse.

We have a winner!

|3.10.06 @ 12:11PM|#

The problem with private prisons is the fact that there is only 1 customer - the government.

|3.10.06 @ 12:17PM|#

I think ChrisO has the broader issue -- the drug war.

Not only is it mass incarceration, usually of blacks disproportionately, but it is the concentrated incarceration of persons who have been exposed to the most efficient means of HIV transmission -- contaminated needles; and then that is there spread via the next most efficient means for a bloodborne virus: unprotected anal intercourse, consensual or otherwise.

|3.10.06 @ 12:26PM|#

The problem with private prisons is the fact that there is only 1 customer - the government.

True, but I don't think we want them to seek out other types of customers, do we? :)

CCA and all the rest are really no different than any other type of government contractor. Mostly bureaucrats with slightly nicer offices. And equally corrupt.

Wild Pegasus|3.10.06 @ 12:26PM|#

Confusingly, Bailey conflates "HIV", "HIV infections", "AIDS", and "AIDS infections". One can have HIV but not have AIDS. And there's no such thing as an "AIDS infection": AIDS is a syndrome, not a pathogen.

- Josh, virusmyth.net

|3.10.06 @ 12:34PM|#

Not only is it mass incarceration, usually of blacks disproportionately, but it is the concentrated incarceration of persons who have been exposed to the most efficient means of HIV transmission

That's a good point, but I was mostly thinking of the notion that such large prison systems are almost inherently unmanageable. I liken it to a wartime internment camp--a milder version of Andersonville, if you will. You simply cannot incarcerate that large a group of people without serious consequences.

|3.10.06 @ 12:46PM|#

CCA and all the rest are really no different than any other type of government contractor. Mostly bureaucrats with slightly nicer offices. And equally corrupt.

Worse corrupt according to the link. Claiming they have fewer responsibilities than gov't prisons. Funny how the loudest cries for freedom come from the drivers of negroes.

|3.10.06 @ 12:46PM|#

"Confusingly, Bailey conflates "HIV", "HIV infections", "AIDS", and "AIDS infections". One can have HIV but not have AIDS."

Technically, true but that Duesberg stuff is past its expiry date. HIV is the main, if not sole cause of AIDS, as it is understood. Koch's postulates have worked.

What challenge to conventional wisdom may prove to have legs is the possible myth of the high risk of HIV transmission from healthy penile-vaginal intercourse. In fact, some evidence loudly suggests that in Africa poor needle hygiene (multiple reuse in same clinics), and folk medicine reuse of needles, scarification practices, (along with anal intercourse and some sex invovling infected genitalia and growing intravenous drug use), and other unsafe practices may better explain the bulk of the spread of HIV in many parts of Africa than the "heterosexual" theory.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15228726&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12665438&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

|3.10.06 @ 12:54PM|#

Matt I think you are way off on this one.

There is zero proof that HIV causes AIDS.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller18.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/culshaw1.html

|3.10.06 @ 12:55PM|#

WRT Public vs. Private Prisons: The real issue here is what you should be imprisoned for. I'm sure we all agree that the drug war is stupid, but what is the reason for locking up non-violent criminals that we all agree should be punished (thieves and the like)? If the penal system were geared toward making the criminal compensate the victim we could avoid putting so many people in rape hotels to begin with.

|3.10.06 @ 12:57PM|#

Worse corrupt according to the link.

Not really interested in defending private prisons, but the notion that they are more corrupt than state prison systems is highly doubtful. More unethical, eh, maybe. Personally, I'm dubious of the entire idea of private prisons, and I say that as a fairly stout libertarian.

But gods help you if something happens to you in a public prison. They have sovereign immunity and are unaccountable to no one for their actions, and the guards are unionized public employees who virtually unfireable, even if they wrongly kill an inmate.

|3.10.06 @ 12:59PM|#

"unaccountable to no one"--geezus cribimus, what the hell happened to my editing skills today??? Must be a warm, sunny Spring Friday or somethin'... :)

|3.10.06 @ 2:19PM|#

To all of you who think that HIV doesn't cause AIDs, I invite you to stick a hypodermic needle containing some of the virus in your arm. Then let's wait and see.

|3.10.06 @ 2:58PM|#

Ron all I'm saying is that there is no proof.

|3.10.06 @ 3:33PM|#

Greg --

See below. The HIV causing AIDS case is pretty solid.

http://www.avert.org/evidence.htm

mch

|3.10.06 @ 3:34PM|#

actually there are at least 51 customers in the US (probably more). Cause federalism and stuf.

|3.10.06 @ 3:36PM|#

actually there are at least 51 customers in the US (probably more). Cause federalism and stuf.

|3.10.06 @ 3:37PM|#

actually there are at least 51 customers in the US (probably more). Cause federalism and stuf.

I would inject all kinds of mystery virii in me if I could. Its fun! Just not HIV. Cause that is the one that causes AIDS.

|3.10.06 @ 3:37PM|#

|3.10.06 @ 4:00PM|#

Greg, you sound like the ID proponents claiming there is no "proof" of evolution. The fact is it may never be proven to your satisfaction that HIV causes AIDS, but it is the theory that best fits the facts.

|3.10.06 @ 5:37PM|#

Ron Bailey writes:

To all of you who think that HIV doesn't cause AIDs, I invite you to stick a hypodermic needle containing some of the virus in your arm. Then let's wait and see.

Ron, normally you are lucid, but this comment is beyond ignorant.

There's been 1 milion HIV+ people in the US, over the past 25 years, and NOT ONE SINGLE AIDS DOCTOR OR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER HAS CONTRACTED AIDS.

Don't you think there were a few inadvertant needle pricks along the way, that should have resulted in a few AIDS cases?

Also, outta curiousity, What do you think would happen to me, if I accepted this invitation? "Some of the virus?" Heck, since the experts can't even culture any virus from AIDS patients, I would die from old age, waiting for you get "some of the virus" .

Sorry, but your competitor, Lew Rockwell, has you beat by miles on this one.

Hank

|3.10.06 @ 7:16PM|#

I'm with Ron Bailey and Zoidberg. The HIV-doesn't-cause-AIDS reactionaries really are in cahoots with the ID asshats.

here's the deal:

1. Medical professionals practice universal precautions. they're not perfect, but they're still pretty sanitary on an everyday basis. needlestick is rare, but lucky for those who do get stuck, HIV is not as infectious as we like to think it is. Hepatitis B&C are far more infectious than HIV.

2. HIV also has something called an "infectious dose" you need a certain number of virus particles to generate infection. In an HIV+ patient with a low viral load, that microliter of blood on the needle's tip probably doesn't contain nearly enough viral particles to produce infection.

3. Moreover, HIV incubates for a LONG time. If you can administer HAART drugs to medical personnel right after the needle stick (which is the standard procedure), you can stop the viral proteases before they have a chance to kick in. After that, they can be destroyed by the immune system.

4. Lastly, most of those of us who work in healthcare are not in cahoots with Satan or Big Pharma. Most of us get into this line of work to HELP people. Altruism is a big part of the profession. You've got your head in your ass if you think the AMA got together and conspired to kill people by giving them AIDS while magically never getting it themselves.

Loosen up the tinfoil hats already. Just because you're libertarian doesn't mean you have to reject valid, mainstream scientific evidence. Go to a library, check out any number of peer-reviewed Scientific journals.

And if you ever get a change to meet Duesberg, don't. He's an asshat. I was a molecular biology student at UC Berkeley. I know many of the faculty and have studied under them. There's a good reason they're not keen to let Duesberg teach the undergrads. Duesberg is the tenured equivalent of the crazy aunt in the attic.

And it's not just about his HIV heresy, but the aneuploidy stuff, too. Sure, plenty of cancerous cells are aneuploid. But that's because the mutations came in first, knocking out the genes that control apoptosis, so the aneuploid cells can't die. So you get a ton of cells with cell cycle errors that can't die, but keep proliferating. The relationship between aneuploidy and cancer is not causal in that order.

|3.10.06 @ 9:55PM|#

"it's illegal to distribute condoms in prisons in all but one state"

which state?

|3.10.06 @ 10:49PM|#

Hank said . ... "Don't you think there were a few inadvertant needle pricks along the way, that should have resulted in a few AIDS cases?

Tell you what Hank, you give me your address and I'll send on a few vials of infected blood from some freinds of mine who are HIV positive. You inject them and get back to me after a year or so. Don't do any rec' drugs, just inject the blood. I'm sure you will be just fine. This is beyond stupid.

|3.10.06 @ 11:02PM|#

There's been 1 milion HIV+ people in the US, over the past 25 years, and NOT ONE SINGLE AIDS DOCTOR OR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER HAS CONTRACTED AIDS.

Uh, I've met at least two who have. One was a coroner who got it as a result of a needle stick before vectors were properly understood and the other was a paramedic who also picked it up before measures to protect against it were put in widespread use. Both were heterosexual and in committed relationships. Of course, if you have some evidence for your wild-ass lies, I'll be happy to hear it.

Heck, since the experts can't even culture any virus from AIDS patients, I would die from old age, waiting for you get "some of the virus"

Uh, yeah they can. About halfway down the page. They've been able to for quite a few years now. It just requires blood.

Wild Pegasus|3.11.06 @ 3:54AM|#

To all of you who think that HIV doesn't cause AIDs, I invite you to stick a hypodermic needle containing some of the virus in your arm. Then let's wait and see.

This is the science equivalent of "love it or leave it".

- Josh

|3.11.06 @ 9:36AM|#

Josh and Greg --

Here is a case report of a health care worker infected in Britain as far bask as 1984:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=6150372&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_DocSum

(I suspect the underlying patient and spouse may have gotten their own infections from the substandard health care in Africa but that's another issue and speculative.)

|3.11.06 @ 9:37AM|#

PS -- HTLV-III is old name for HIV.

|3.11.06 @ 7:29PM|#

I haven't agreed with everything that Mr. Bailey writes, but I commend him for this article. This is an important and very sad issue.

Canada too is having an AIDs outbreak among the prison populations.

http://radio.cbc.ca/news/prisons/

|3.13.06 @ 12:14PM|#

Personally, I'm dubious of the entire idea of private prisons, and I say that as a fairly stout libertarian.

Well, that was my point: Since there is no real market, privatization as a libertarian philosophical point on the subject is meaningless.