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Those who try to associate HIV/AIDS with the gay community and pull that political crap out regarding the funding of research for a cure read on: I have a heterosexual second cousin and his wife who about ten years ago adopted a 6-month old baby. A year later the baby was diagnosed with HIV. Two years after that their baby died. We were all devastated. I also had a heterosexual uncle, married to his wife with two children for over 30 years, he was 55 years old, died of AIDS just this past fall...traced most likely to a tranfusion he received roughly 20 years ago. We were devastated again. Teens/young people of all sexual orientation are getting this disease in alarming numbers. They are teens and are more likely to screw around, especially before they have found a stable relationship. This is reality and it must be dealt with in a realistic manner. Concepts of abstenance are certainly productive, but will not protect those who have not been led to develop a sense of self control or already have and can spread it. There are other countries around the world that are facing virtual decimation of their people and country by this disease. I stand behind president Bush in his not wanting our country to someday be facing the same fate. HIV/AIDS is killing us all. Trying to politicize the issue simply because the gay community has been hardest hit (thus also supporting the notion of a cure) will accomplish nothing more than more families of all types having to continue enduring the needless loss of loved ones.

I didn't mean to seem insensative, and am saddened and sorry for your losses. I wanted to say something about funding priorities, which I yet stand by as AIDS/HIV taxpayer funded research outstrips those for heart disease and cancer, as these continue to take American lives at decidedly higher rates, and whose loved ones continue to suffer no less. I'm sorry. But it's hard to see continuously accelerated AIDS/HIV funding, under such circumstances, in other than political terms.

We were devastated again. Teens/young people of all sexual orientation are getting this disease in alarming numbers. They are teens and are more likely to screw around, especially before they have found a stable relationship. This is reality and it must be dealt with in a realistic manner. Concepts of abstenance are certainly productive, but will not protect those who have not been led to develop a sense of self control or already have and can spread it. There are other countries around the world that are facing virtual decimation of their people and country by this disease.

Why do you suppose this is not a problem in the "extremist" Muslim countries? Wouldn't have anything to do with their practices, would it? Are you opposed to smoking?

Hank