Posted on 12/02/2003 7:58:03 AM PST by mikeb704
Last Monday was designated World AIDS Day. U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson, speaking from the AIDS-ravaged continent of Africa, said that it looks like we’re losing the war against the deadly disease.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela hosted a concert in Cape Town as part of an effort to have AIDS declared a global emergency. Taped messages from Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson were shown.
Sitting near Mandela was Oprah Winfrey. Yes, the same Oprah who in 1987 presciently observed: "Research studies now project that one in five – listen to me, hard to believe – one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me."
That proved to be nonsense, as did other exhibitions of conventional wisdom on the topic. A 1985 cover of Life warned: "Now, No One Is Safe From AIDS." U.S. News & World Report cautioned: "The disease of them is suddenly the disease of us . . .finding fertile growth among heterosexuals."
The reality is that the major causes of AIDS were, and continue to be, men having sex with men and people injecting themselves with drugs. In that order. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in 2001 fewer than 10,000 Americans contracted AIDS through heterosexual contact.
The total number of annual AIDS cases in the U.S. has declined significantly, particularly between 1995 and 1998. So have the number of unfortunates who’ve died from the malady.
Even in America, however, all the news isn’t so encouraging. Last month a CDC official reported a significant jump in the number of AIDS cases among homosexual men. "To some extent, there is some prevention fatigue," he said. "It’s driven by a sense that HIV has become a chronic and treatable disease."
Perhaps that sense partially explains why, despite substantial increases in government spending on AIDS, the number of cases each year has been holding at about 40,000.
Total Federal expenditures for HIV/AIDS were estimated to be close to $15 billion last year. This represents almost a fivefold increase in the last dozen years. Still, critics assert much more needs to be set aside. Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark has pledged to increase spending for AIDS research, prevention and health care to $30 billion a year by 2008.
It may be tempting to think that tossing more dollars at a problem will cure it, but that rarely, if ever, is what happens. A lot of them are just squandered.
Federal dollars for AIDS are no exception. $100,000 was used to pay for a "drag queens’ ball" in New Jersey. $200,000 from one federally funded group was used for workshops described by a pro-homosexual newspaper as "hot, horny and healthy."
Some advocate abstinence and chastity as ways of reducing AIDS. In many quarters, such views are considered patently absurd.
Yet it’s interesting that the African nation that’s had singular success in curtailing AIDS uses exactly that approach. Uganda has based its efforts in what’s called the ABC model: Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms if A and B fail. Priority is placed on using the first two options if at all possible.
It doesn’t appear as though Ugandans have been hit by "prevention fatigue." The HIV/AIDS rate has been cut in half in the last decade.
AIDS is a cultural as well as medical crisis. These days we’re most reluctant to "impose" our views on others. But the fact is that combating AIDS effectively will require a change of behavior by some individuals. This is the information that needs to be widely disseminated, not promises of a cure that may never be found.
The alternative is a continuing epidemic of heartbreaking proportions: Millions dying slow, painful deaths, their orphans struggling to survive. AIDS isn’t caused by a lack of Federal funding or too few people wearing red ribbons.
Well, those that are smart enough to realize it works and have the discipline to practice it will live, the rest may die off. Perhaps this is simply a case of natural selection.
Total Federal expenditures for HIV/AIDS were estimated to be close to $15 billion last year
What is even more amazing is that diseases that are not politically correct, that kill far more Americans, that are mostly unpreventable, get far less money.
HIV Cases Climb Among Gay, Bisexual Men in U.S.
Syphilis in gay men raises AIDS concern
Young gay, bisexual men still hard hit by AIDS
Gays Party on AIDS Dollars While Patients Suffer
Sizzling Sex Seminars Have Watchdogs Wondering Where the AIDS Money Is Going
Pro-Gay AIDS Group Gets Millions in Government Money
AIDS official dubs CDC scrutiny a 'witch hunt'
AIDS Funding: 'An Epidemic of Waste?'($1 billion in Fed $$$ Wasted)
Amen and preach on!
Some very important highlights from the article:
The reality is that the major causes of AIDS were, and continue to be, men having sex with men and people injecting themselves with drugs. In that order. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in 2001 fewer than 10,000 Americans contracted AIDS through heterosexual contact.
It may be tempting to think that tossing more dollars at a problem will cure it, but that rarely, if ever, is what happens. A lot of them are just squandered.
Yet it’s interesting that the African nation that’s had singular success in curtailing AIDS uses [abstinence as a preventative measure]
These days we’re most reluctant to "impose" our views on others. But the fact is that combating AIDS effectively will require a change of behavior by some individuals.
You make a very interesting point. However AIDS actually threatens all human life on the planet over the very long term. (The fewer humans there are, the greater the chance of species extinction.)
There are credible genetic researchers who theorize that humans once before declined in number (they guess ten thousand or fewer survived over the whole earth as the result of an ice age)and that humans today are descended from that small number. AIDS could do the same thing to the human species.
Pure and utter nonsense! As we've seen in our country, the only people with AIDS are those who engage in non-monogamous heterosexual activity, IV drug users, and those who have sex or receive blood products with those in the previous two groups.
Outside of this nation, AIDS spreads due to heterosexual activity completely outside of our societal norms.
We will survive this epidemic of the perverse.
This is my impression...if someone can prove otherwise I would like to hear it.
Diseases evolve, rather efficiently, and the HIV is no exception. In fact given its constant rate of change, you can almost predict that surviving variations will be seen. Please note; I am not talking about next year. We are talking many decades (ten year periods). Consider this AIDS has been with us for about 20 years. The infection rate has gone from a handful to an intercontinental epidemic spreading silently and growing by millions every year. Diseases do not spread in percentage increments. They spread by geometric progressions. If you see 20 million infected today, you can expect to see 40 million in 5 years, and 80 million in 10 years, and so on. I grant you that good behavior helps but diseases transmitted by body fluids will not be deterred by such moral behavior because people worldwide have poor hygiene. All living things, from viruses to humans propagate - life finds a way. The HIV will too. It is only a question of whether it will propagate faster than our ability to interdict it with a cure or an immunization.
That's only true in the first world. In the third world, various factors such as malnutrition, immune systems weakned by tropical diseases, female genital mutilation, and empidemics of other venerial diseases make HIV infection much easier through normal sexual intercourse.
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