[neverdem]

The lead author, Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., is the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City.

After more than two decades with quarantine being politically out of the question, and these folks not getting religion or otherwise doing the right thing, I agree with these proposals to lessen the spread of this incurable disease.

This article is freely available to anyone who registers at no charge with the New England Journal of Medicine. Its linked references are available once you register here. Then, just go back to home. Scroll down to find this article of opinion. Authors were listed in the format used by PubMed because of space.

[SpaceBar]

Michael Savage recounted a personal story on today's show about how he worked at a San Francisco clinic in the early eighties. At that time the AIDS epidemic was just getting started, and Savage was vocal about closing the gay bath houses to stem the spread of the disease, and posted fliers around the city to that effect. Needless to say he was called every name in the book. At the same time Dianne Feinstein was Mayor after the assasinations of Mosconi and Milk, and only after much pressure closed the bath houses.

[FreedomPoster]

My first reaction to the title, "Applying Public Health Principles to the HIV Epidemic", was "Well, that horse is long out of the barn, isn't it?"

[EBH]

Condoms, which can substantially reduce transmission, are not widely available nor is their use strongly promoted, and they are still used infrequently in high-risk sexual encounters

Funny, I can go to any drugstore or grocery store and purchase a pack of condoms. I find the remark made to be untrue. Years ago one would have to ask the pharmacist, but today anybody can go to the aisle and outright purchase them. Plus, if one goes to those new fangle grocery stores with the self checkout lanes you never even have to face a live person. Note: All our grocery stores now have at least 4 of these lanes.

Where does respect for your partner and personal responsibility come into account in this article.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

I have always applied public health principles to the AIDS epidemic. I'm nearly 60 y,o. and in great health even though born and raised in the SF Bay Area. My greatest fear of HIV is the evidence that HTLV-III can be transmitted by common insects. But that information was buried soon after its publication. Mosquitoes near Belle Glade, FL were found to carry Human T-cell LeukoVirus III.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

After more than two decades with quarantine being politically out of the question,...

If it worked with Polio...

[Lucky Dog]

…perhaps society is ready to adopt traditional disease-control principles and proven interventions that can identify infected persons, interrupt transmission [emphasis mine], ensure treatment and case management, and monitor infection and control efforts throughout the population

The author’s postulation is not very likely given that to interrupt transmission requires those who engage in the high risk activity have already shown that they are unwilling to do so in the face of a virtual death sentence from contracting the disease. Additionally, it is even more unlikely given that those in society who merely point to statistics and cite logical prevention steps are shouted down as “homophobes” and “bigots.”

The economic costs, particularly to improve population-wide case management and notification of partners, would be substantial. But the human and economic costs of failing to adopt a comprehensive public health approach are much higher.

Logic has no place in this argument… Just examine previous attempts to inject it in to the national dialogue.

— but reducing sexual transmission is challenging…Condoms, which can substantially reduce transmission, are not widely available nor is their use strongly promoted, and they are still used infrequently in high-risk sexual encounters.

Notice that even this author who is championing attempting control “high risk behavior,” fails to mention the most obvious and most completely effective control: abstaining from homosexual activity. The god of “political correctness” must be appeased even when trying to state the obvious.

HIV/AIDS will continue to be a public health threat until everyone in society intellectually recognizes the ultimate sources and publicly pressures those who engage those activities to stop. This public pressure must incorporate effective disincentives if it is to be effective.

[Phlap]

Applying Public Health Principles to the HIV Epidemic?

HIV is epidemic only to the homosexual(can I still use that word?) community.

[IronJack]

The apparatus of the "epidemic" -- needles, infected blood, and other body fluids -- becomes irrelevant if the practices in which they are disease vectors are eliminated. It doesn't matter if the needle is clean or dirty if you're not injecting drugs. It doesn't matter if your "partner" is a dripping pus bag if you don't have sex with him.

This is nothing more than an attempt to separate actions from their consequences.

[Casloy]

I would flatly dispute something is an epidemic if one can avoid getting it by simply avoiding certain kinds of sexual activity.

[Brett66]

discriminatory responses ranged from descriptions of AIDS as "retribution" to violence and proposals for quarantine, universal mandatory testing, and even tattooing of infected persons. This response led to HIV exceptionalism

Homosexual activists led to the mindset of HIV exceptionalism.

[I got the rope]

Ping! Good discussion here. There are many good points in the article.

[little jeremiah]

Homosexual Agenda *and* Moral Absolutes Two-fer Ping.

It's really quite simple. Don't stick drugs into your veins. If you already do, seek help and stop. Stop same sex acts, visiting prostitutes, or being a prostitute. Control your sex organ. Don't have sex until marriage, and marry someone trustworthy. Stay faithful throughout marrige.

Simple? Yup. Cheap? Costs nothing. The above article is a bunch of gobbledly gook that means one thing: They want OUR money so people can live lives filled with vicious miserable immorality and not suffer the consequences. Now, I don't want anyone to suffer unnecessarily. But there are natural consequences to wrong acts - as you sow, so shall you reap. Karma. The laws of nature.

Why should my money be stolen from me to pay for other peoples' really bad choices?

"Using the current CDC estimate of 40,000 new HIV infections per year, the potential to prevent half to two thirds of these infections, and the current average lifetime cost of care for a patient with HIV infection of $200,000,29 more effective epidemic control would save between $4 billion and $5.4 billion per year.

Widespread availability of condoms, syringe-exchange programs, public health notification of the partners of infected persons, and improvement of case management and monitoring systems would be unlikely to cost more than an additional $1 billion to $2 billion per year nationally — two to three times the current CDC funding for HIV prevention."

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