Word: saliva
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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AIDS, by contrast, is transmitted by intimate sexual contact, exchange of genital secretions and transfusion of contaminated blood. It is not transmitted by mosquitoes or other insects, animals, tears, or saliva, glasss, food or even toilet seats...
...independently discovered that RNA can act as an enzyme, a molecule that accelerates chemical reactions a millionfold or more and makes it possible for life to exist. Plants, for example, depend on enzymes to convert carbon dioxide in the air to sugar and starch. An enzyme in human saliva helps transform starch into glucose, the body's energy source. Until RNA enzymes were identified, all enzymes were thought to be proteins...
...panic and scaremongering was not justified. AIDS is not the black death, and never will be. Unlike the plague or the common cold, AIDS is not easily spread. The virus is transmitted only through blood and sexual intercourse. No one has been found to get the virus from saliva, tears or toilet seats. As a result of education about AIDS and changes in sex habits, the rate of new infections has sharply dropped in some gay communities. And while the virus can sometimes be transmitted in heterosexual intercourse, the evidence does not indicate that AIDS is about to break...
Other forms of sex that do not involve the exchange of body fluids reduce the risk of transmitting AIDS. Though small amounts of the AIDS virus have been found in saliva, there is little evidence that the disease is spread through that medium...
...perform a last, vastly important task: they form memory cells that circulate in the bloodstream and lymph system for many years, primed to spring into action should the same strain of flu virus ever attack again. In addition, the body is protected by specialized antibodies, strategically deployed in mucus, saliva and tears, that immediately recognize any return of this particular virus...