How many?
I mean, compared to the numbers of people with diseases like leukemia, cancer, how many have AIDS who not queer.
Before you answer, you might want to read, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS By Michael Fumento.
Hank
The number of people who have and die of heart disease greatly outnumber the number of people with AIDS, hetero- or homosexual. So yes, other diseases have a wider immediate impact.
That should not minimize AIDS or AIDS research and it is a grievous error to politicize the disease. The Left uses it for political gain and the Right attempts to trivialize it as only a "queer" disease and they deserve it - good riddance.
Fumento has a good point in that making AIDS political obfuscates the impact of the disease and that politics does not make for good medical research.
However, Fumento's background is in law and political science - not medicine nor physiology research. He makes some critical mistakes which may be honest mistakes or errors stemming from his own political agenda. The number of full blown AIDS cases leveled off and then began to drop slightly when he wrote his book. This was due to more successful treatments. These treatments have only a few years effectiveness and the HIV virus, constantly mutating, became more resistant. AIDS cases began climbing again. Unfortunately, the number of new HIV infections each year remains high and has not decreased (40,000 - 50,000 each year). The number of teen cases are indeed low - it takes 5 to 10 years for AIDS symptoms to develop. So an infected teen is in their twenties when AIDS develops.
Fumento makes a grossly irresponsible error when he states that HIV is not easily transmitted. If a patient moves suddenly in the ER and the nurse, PA, or doctor receives an accidental needle stick, it could be a death sentence. We drill works in precaution but it still happens. The wait, the testing, the dread takes its tool. I haven't been through it yet but I've watched a coworker stress out to the point of almost breaking down - because all it takes is that one little stick. Or, one night with the wrong person...
It is a shockingly easy disease to transmit.
In this country, a quarter to a third of AIDS patients are heterosexual. In Africa (the politics aside), 70 - 80 percent are heterosexual. Thailand fears that its population may fall faster than the Red purges. Its problemm is worse than Africa's and again, it is a heterosexual disease there. So it is not just a "queer" disease.
The real dread isn't the sexual disease, the needle stick for a health professional (or a stupid drug user), or the politics. The real dread is that this is the first fatal virus to strike directly at the immune system. The viral coat constantly mutates making a vaccine or successful treatment almost impossible. Worse yet, a virus will always mutate, always evolve. It is only a matter of time before another virus emerges that strikes down the immune system faster and transmitted by air or cough droplets. This is the long term impact.
Then the epidemic could be horrific.
The upside to this disease I saw in doing grad work while in training. We know more about how a virus works, how our immune system works than ever before. The HIV/AIDS research has spun off treatments for many other viral disease - respiratory, gastrointestinal, hemorrhagic, even helping understand the common cold. So the money funding the research isn't wasted and does spill over into other diseases.
Still, it would be for the best if AIDS wasn't a political gimmick. More progress could be made in all areas if it weren't.