Posted on 02/16/2005 7:31:17 AM PST by dead
Australia must continue to shun a US-led holy war against AIDS, writes Bill Bowtell.
The detection in New York City of a new strain of HIV virus that is highly resistant to anti-retroviral drugs is deeply worrying. If the existence of an HIV supervirus is confirmed by tests now being performed by the HIV authority Dr David Ho and others, then there will be genuine grounds for concern about whether existing HIV containment strategies are working, or need to be radically overhauled to meet the potential threat of a new strain of the virus.
These questions are important and must be asked - and answered - if we are to continue to protect as many people as possible from infection and early death from HIV/AIDS.
In the initial case in New York, health officials said it was the first where a strain of HIV had been found that showed resistance to multiple classes of drugs and apparently led to a rapid progression from infection to AIDS.
But given the overwhelming and pervasive American influence in Australia's media and political affairs, how the American debate about the suspected supervirus develops will have a profound influence on our politicians and opinion formers. This may bring with it the risk that America's solutions to HIV/AIDS will become our solutions.
Before embracing whatever half-brained ideas about how to respond to this potential HIV problem emerge from America's political process, we must first separate opinion from fact.
Australia's record of great success in managing HIV/AIDS stands in contrast to America's catastrophic record of failure, venality and incompetence. After 25 years of combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, the US has an infection rate 10 times that of Australia's. In 2003 the rate of HIV prevalence in Australia was 69 per 100,000, compared with 600 per 100,000 in the US. The incidence of AIDS was 1.5 per 100,000 in Australia against 15 per 100,000 in the US.
An inevitable result of this large - and expanding - population of HIV/AIDS sufferers in the US is the inevitability of new strains of the virus emerging, such as the one now the subject of testing in New York. As well, there has been rising resistance of the HIV/AIDS virus in the US to treatment, as it continues to mutate.
The very large HIV/AIDS caseload in the US stems from the fact that its governments long ago succumbed to popular prejudice and fundamentalist religious pressure to combat the problem by adopting policies based on punishment, faith and emotion, not prevention, education and reason.
Honest sex education and condom use were dumped in favour of the promotion of abstinence from sex and monogamous marriage.
Nothing wrong in that noble ambition, but such foolish campaigns have done nothing to stop young Americans from conceiving, having babies or abortions at anywhere between four and seven times the rate of comparable countries, including Australia.
While America abandoned or greatly curtailed effective HIV/AIDS prevention programs, billions of dollars were funnelled into HIV vaccine research and provision of new drug treatments.
America chose to fund a permanent, fruitless quest for the Holy Grail of a HIV vaccine while shunning the common, convenient, cheap latex prophylactic that works like a charm to prevent HIV infection.
It was a great deal for drug companies and researchers but a lousy one for those Americans who pay for it with their taxes, health and lives.
While US governments waged a holy war against illicit drug trafficking and prostitution, drug use by Americans exploded, and pornography became a bigger revenue earner than Hollywood movies.
As the US criminalised and stigmatised HIV/AIDS in a manner unparalleled in any other country, its misguided policies ensured that many hundreds of thousands of Americans succumbed to avoidable HIV infection and death from AIDS.
In contrast, Australia's governments and its people understood that the fewer people infected with HIV in the first place, the less likely was it that the population at large would come in contact with the virus.
Unlike the US, Australia opted to control HIV through frank sex education, widespread distribution of syringes and provision of free, anonymous and therefore virtually universal HIV/AIDS testing.
The result? In 2005, many tens of thousands of young Australians are free of the scourge of HIV infection, our HIV and AIDS caseload is under control and managed well, and a relative abundance of resources is devoted to the treatment, support and care of our citizens living with HIV and AIDS. In short, a better deal for Australian families, and for Australian taxpayers.
The lesson is clear. If you want Australian HIV/AIDS caseloads to increase tenfold then follow America's example, and try to legislate and pray HIV/AIDS out of existence.
The looming moral panic about a HIV supervirus will be drummed up for US domestic political reasons by self-appointed experts whose motives are as dishonest as their record is atrocious.
Condoms, needle exchanges, honest sex education and Australian common sense will protect you and your loved ones from HIV/AIDS infection far better than laws based on fear, prejudice and ignorance of the evidence accumulated from 25 years of controlling HIV spread in Australia.
Bill Bowtell is a former senior adviser to the federal health minister (1984-87), former national president of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations and an architect of Australia's response to HIV/AIDS.
The very large HIV/AIDS caseload in the US stems from the fact that its governments long ago succumbed to popular prejudice and fundamentalist religious pressure to combat the problem by adopting policies based on punishment, faith and emotion, not prevention, education and reason.
Honest sex education and condom use were dumped in favour of the promotion of abstinence from sex and monogamous marriage.
What on earth is this psychotic moron talking about!?!
Punishment for AIDS? Huh?
“Emotion”? Did he just throw that word in there along with “faith”? It’s like he took a couple of boilerplate anti-american phrases and just threw them in a blender with his brain. Then he poured this mixture into a big margarita glass and drank it.
Can anybody tell me what the hell this guy is talking about? Does anybody anywhere in this country have some trouble getting their hands on a condom? Do you know any AIDS sufferers who have been punished, beyond the punishing ravages of the disease they have contracted. A disease who ravages are mitigated only by drugs developed by evil American drug companies?
Nothing wrong in that noble ambition, but such foolish campaigns have done nothing to stop young Americans from conceiving, having babies or abortions at anywhere between four and seven times the rate of comparable countries, including Australia.
There are tens of thousands of sociological and societal variables at play here. This moron wants to pin the entire statistical disparity on the fact that Americans don’t receive sex education. A thoroughly erronous assumption from the get go, and an absolutely asinine conclusion as a result.
billions of dollars were funnelled into HIV vaccine research and provision of new drug treatments.
Yes, Americans actually are spending billions to find ways to help people infected with this disease. This pompous wad of pudding wants to wish those infected a happy death and conduct “condom on a cucumber” classes for those not yet infected. Gee, that’ll accomplish something.
As the US criminalised and stigmatised HIV/AIDS in a manner unparalleled in any other country,
Criminalized? That’s the single stupidest demonstrably false idiocy I’ve ever read. Cuba, moron, Cuba. That’s where they lock you up if you contract the disease. Stigmatized? In America, they make a movie about you or sing folk songs in your honor. But according to this unparalled simpleton, we treat HIV/AIDS patients in a manner far worse than Cuba, China, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, or North Korea.
Unlike the US, Australia opted to control HIV through frank sex education
We have that in spades, stupid.
widespread distribution of syringes
We don’t do that, and you could make a case for it, but the benefits of those programs have not been proven by any study. Some studies show it cuts infection rates, others show it increases it.
and provision of free, anonymous and therefore virtually universal HIV/AIDS testing.
Any American can go give blood to their local community blood bank or the Red Cross and they will get a completely free and anonymous AIDS test. They will even get cookies and juice.
I’ll give a dollar to anybody who can find a more erroneous idiotic article by a stupider bastard than this today. Honestly, this might be the dumbest person to ever type an article.
Anything short of a quarantine is worthless.
The author notes that anyone who supports accoutability and responsibility in protecting others from the irresponsible spread of killer AIDS, IS NOW A "HOLY ROLLER". The mindless left's moniker for anyone with values and sensibility -- namely conservatives.
"In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
Gettin the idea?
criminalizing aids? when did we do that?
here i was thinking that all we was doing was trying to find treatments, and passing out condoms, and doing everything we could NOT to upset the little dears. NOW I find that we've criminalized it! WOW!
Bring back the Leper colony.
This is one of the stupidest articles I have ever seen. This faggot seems unwilling to recognize that his fellows in America either don't give a shiite or are deliberately seeking infection. Of course, he may be in the throes of full scale AIDS dementia.
Any bets he hates all things American and religious?
While I agree with everything you said, I should point out that needle exchange programs are very common in the US. We DO that.
This guy needs to wake up to homosexuality particularly in large swaths in the US... Bug Chasers and the like... all the education and free condoms in the world will not stop these self destructive behaviors.
My guess is the author is gay and he's terrified his promiscuous lifestyle is in peril and he's lashing out at the easiest target.
I think that an AIDS virus that kills quickly is better than an AIDS virus that tarries its punishment.
The drug abusers and unsafe-sex addicts will die off quickly, without getting much chance to infect large numbers of people.
The large incubation creates much more nefarious consequences, IMHO
I guess we should adopt more Progressive policies like Fidel.
To me these would seem to be absolute means of avoiding AIDS, excepting some type of rare occupational exposure to infected blood or body fluids.
We already have a successful model for containing AIDS...using the same methods that were used to combat syphilis and gonorrhea before the availability of antibiotics. It would require mandatory reporting of all cases and visits by case workers to track down all the infected persons sexual contacts.
From the article...widespread distribution of syringes
This shows how the Liberal mindset is truly racist and inhumane. If this fool had EVER known someone who hooked on drugs, he would never do anything help keep them there. You don't help drug users by giving them the means to continue their habits. It WILL lead to their deaths. This is just wrong, I don't care what the "studies" say about reducing AIDS infection rates. You are STILL killing the addict, just slowly and painfully. And that, is inhumane.
Anything short of a quarantine is worthless.
In order to even begin to have an effective quarantine, you’d have to have the government implement mandatory and repeated blood tests on the general population. They’d also have to have unfettered access to your medical records and likely monitor your sex life.
Maybe you’d go for that, but I’m against it.
A better solution might be to avoid sticking yourself with needles used by other people, and refrain from allowing anyone to jam a penis into your rectum.
During heterosexual sex with someone other than your proven uninfected partner, you can mitigate, but not eliminate, the risk by wearing a condom.
"Anything short of a quarantine is worthless."
-What the hell do you think Australia is? One giant quarantine. Its just stupid to say enlightened policy has protected an island nation of 30million from AIDS. Relatively few people visit Australia when compared to the United States. The gay population in that country is predominantly in one city.
-I am sure the statistics per capita are just as encouraging in Fiji or Bora Bora but they aren't patting themselves on the back for some sort of fictitious enlightened public policy. Australia, here's a straw, grasp.
I don't think those programs are very likely to do anything about the spread of the disease though. It's not as if a junkie in need of a fix is really particular about the sanitary nature of the needle.
The Duckbilled Platypus?
Then again, there must be something in Australia that produces morons like Bowtell and allows them to spew this ignorant garbage.
I guess we should be happy he isn't in the military. ;)
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