[mikeb704]

Oprah, Klintoon, the Most Rev. Jackson. . .several of the usual suspects.

[Bikers4Bush]

Since there's an easy way to keep from getting the disease I find it hard to be very sympathetic to anyone other than those who contract it through a blood transfusion or a cut during surgery, in other words through no fault of their own.

Anyone who gets it from sharing needles or risky sexual practices is on their own as far as I'm concerned.

[FormerLib]

Some advocate abstinence and chastity as ways of reducing AIDS. In many quarters, such views are considered patently absurd.

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.

[2banana]

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

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.

[EdReform]

Ping

[EdReform]

"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."

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)

Feds Take Aim at Taxpayer-Funded AIDS Prevention Programs

Many HIV positive don't tell.

[PA Engineer]

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.

Wesley Clark has pledged to increase spending for AIDS research, prevention and health care to $30 billion a year by 2008.

Please check my math someone. I can't believe this number. Wesley Clark is proposing giving $750,000 for every infected AIDS individual in care and research funds per year. What??? What about breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's...? It appears that politically correct medical research has condemned the majority of sick Americans to near certain suffering and death. Thank you Democratic panderers.

[scripter]

Bump and ping. Thanks for the heads up, EdReform.

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.

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links

[xzins]

ping

[Voltage]

The antiviral medicine apparently only slows down the progression of the disease, during which time the infected feel good enough to spread it further.

This is my impression...if someone can prove otherwise I would like to hear it.

[traditionalist]

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.

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.

[FormerLib]

I can't help noticing that homosexuals are trying to be removed from the banned list and be allowed to donate blood. It would appear that they are angry about the fact that AIDS is NOT spreading to the heterosexual community. Since propaganda campaigns such as the one addressed in this campaign aren't working, perhaps they are looking for another avenue.

[xp38]

The statistics for African HIV infection are at best wild guesses. No real testing is done in a large swath of the continent.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

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."

It's the bug chasers.

[walford]

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.

AIDS is first and foremost a cultural crisis. Yes, it is true that in Africa AIDS is spread more by hetero contact. That is because promiscuous heteros provide the HIV organism the best opportunity to replicate and spread.

Cultural mores are such that many African wives cannot conceive of saying 'no' to her husband even if she knows that he's been unfaithful and likely to be HIV +. Then there's the spectacle of the superstition that raping a virgin will cleanse an infected man of the virus, resulting in female INFANTS being raped and infected.

In the West, it is male homosexuals who are the most promiscuous, thus providing the organism the best host population. Amongst our cultural mores that mitigate against AIDS containment:
- misplaced 'compassion' for those infected impels us to provide medicine prolonging the life of those who are infected. These then allow them to infect more people.
- misplaced concern for the infected's rights mitigating against quarantine.

If it were not for certain behaviors, AIDS would have died out where it originated with its original hosts. If AIDS is cured and the causal behavior persists, a new disease will emerge to exploit the opportunity.

This notion of being reluctant to 'impose values' is absurd. It assumes that WE are the ones who make the rules. We don't. Those rules are made by a higher authority which [or whom] cannot be tricked, cajoled, intimidated etc.

We humans are no less subject to the Nature's Laws than any other living thing. Our culture is the means by which we define ourselves and demonstrate our worthiness to be here. If we have a culture that is infected by 'values' that mitigate against survival, we will perish and won't be missed... period.

[ArGee]

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's almost as if G-d exists, and He knows what He's talking about.

Who wuda thunkit.

Shalom.