FeedLocal: A disease is a disease, regardless of cause
May 18, 2008 in Local Tags: AIDS, Clare Howard, HIV, Journal Star
Twenty years ago, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading something about AIDS and HIV. I wrote my share of them. These days, almost nothing. We assume that the disease has been beaten. There are people who walk around with an HIV infection who may never get full-blown AIDS, and there are people with AIDS who are living and working amongst the rest of us, seemingly unaffected.
Today’s Journal Star article reminds up that the disease is still out there in the United States, still killing people, still causing health problems for those who are living with it. And there’s still the issues of bigotry, ignorance and misunderstanding, judging by the stories told in the article and some of the comments made by Journal Star readers.
Why in the world would someone like it their compassion to those who get sick in some ways, but not others?
Kudos to PJS reporter Clare Howard for the reminder.
May 18th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Y’know, this is one of those things where I feel education simply isn’t enough. Preventing and containing the spread of AIDS requires personal responsibility in people’s lifestyles, not simply knowing the risks. I really wish more emphasis would be added to this. Sure, it’s alright to regard AIDS carriers as “victims of AIDS,” but apparently it’s still not fashionable to suggest that a good number of them could have prevented it by living a less licentious lifestyle.
With the exception of accidental transmission or freak accidents, this is something people can largely avoid. I don’t agree with the assessment that people deserve AIDS or “had it coming,” but I’m guessing the relative control over it factors into their reasoning.
But then again, we have to consider society’s least common denominator: if a person is one of those hateful idiots who thinks it only affects gays and minorities and they deserve it for being what they are… we can safely assume reasoning really isn’t a factor at all.
May 18th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Many diseases besides AIDS can be prevented or lessened by lifestyle choices — heart attacks, diabetes, lung cancer, etc.
Still, very few if any people would treat smokers who get lung cancer or emphysema as if they “deserve” it for “being what they are”. Nor would most people react to an overweight person who has a heart attack or becomes diabetic by saying “Sorry, you brought it on yourself by being a fat, lazy pig.”
The same principle applies, in my opinion, to anyone who contracts HIV or AIDS from high-risk sexual activity or drug use. Whether they could or should have prevented it becomes moot once they get it. If you’re sick, you deserve whatever care or treatment is available to help you. Period.
May 18th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
“Whether they could or should have prevented it becomes moot once they get it.”
Moot point, really.
I was more ridiculing the current approach to preventative measures, not suggesting people ought to be treated like shit for getting AIDS. But either way, your point was worth repeating.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am
In it’s early days, AIDS was something you pretty much had to make an appointment to get, if ya know what I mean.
Flame in 3…2…1…
May 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
*sets vonster on fire*
Hey–you said…
May 19th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
But I’m right….
May 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Actually, you’re wrong, Vonster.
More than 10,000 individuals were infected with HIV when the government and the companies that made their medicine failed to take the necessary measures to keep their factor safe.
Oh, and then there were the thousands of patients who were given infected blood when they needed blood transfusions.
And when the US couldn’t use the tainted blood, they sent it overseas.
But hey, what’s a million dead gays and hemophiliacs, right?
May 19th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
In it’s earliest form in the US, known then as GRID, it was primarily limited to a given population - and you know it.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Your strawman canard is expected, though….
May 20th, 2008 at 8:30 am
It was GRID till the powers that be realized that name was a misnomer. You’re inability to see the big picture is expected, though.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:34 am
If you chose to ignore the 800lb gorilla in the room that’s up to you.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:53 am
And it’s “your” not “you’re”.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Note: Whenever Vonster mentions “the 800lb gorilla in the room,” he’s usually talking about (whispered) *black* people.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:05 am
And whenever he starts attacking people’s spelling, he knows he’s wrong.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I guess the 800lb gorilla is supposed to be gays? I won’t forget the gays so long as you remember all the folks contract the virus through other means, k?
May 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
“All those folks” didn’t contract the virus by frumping like bunnies in anonymous sex bathhouses. Get your timeline straight.
Try not to be an asshole, Reno.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
That’s asking a lot.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
BTW, here’s an update on that Muslim school story we discussed.
http://www.sondrak.com/index.p.....l_bullies/
May 21st, 2008 at 7:47 am
sounds like some people need to be arrested for assault.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
No sharia law being tried in the US , eh?
May 21st, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Look at the UK and`CA
May 21st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Coming soon to your neighborhood