First, we have to distinguish AIDS in the US from AIDS in another country. Diseases aren't the same in every population group. I'll address the US in this post.
akinf said:
The point I am trying to convey is that HIV cannot be relegated to one group of people or specific types of people. It is not a disease with a particular profile; it affects different people around the world (mind you it tends to affect the poor and uneducated) but it permeates all types of people.
While AIDS may permeate all types of people, there is a profile. To say there is not a profile is ignorant and destructive. What if we ignored all disease profiles? Wouldn't we do a disservice to black Americans if we ignored their predilection for CAD and DM? What if we ignored the suicide predilection in older white males? AIDS and hepatitis are the only diseases I can think of for which factual predilections are ignored. I'm not sure why. It's not offensive to tell smokers smoking causes cancer and to even treat smokers like second class citizens, but it is terrible to point out that AIDS and HIV
in the US is most closely linked to homosexual contact and IV drug abuse. I know it goes beyond those groups but the fact still remains. Why do the facts upset people. Have I said I hate gays? Have I said we should stone drug abusers?
akinf said:
The very idea of quarantine is so impractical in today's world, I would go as far to label it as nonsensical and quite backwards thinking. Like somone else put it before, the idea of being sent off to go die just doesn't fly. The reason HIV is such a major problem in developing countries is because women don't have control over their sexuality. A woman's movement is needed from within the society, and that's where the education comes in. If you can educate the people with ideas and philosophy grounded in principles that conforms to the culture, then you can change the way people think.
Quarantine is used in the US and world wide even today. The CDC and WHO don't seem to think quarantine is backwards. I know that given the political climate today it can't happen. Hell, I'm not sure I'd even support quarantine. I'm just saying that an absolute quarantine is the only means we currently have to stop the spread. Every person in America knows about AIDS and how it is spread. Some people are so paranoid they think you can get it from a mosquito. Despite all the education, AIDS remains and spreads. So, either education doesn't work or the techniques being taught don't work. It's the same with smoking. Americans know it's bad but ~25% still smoke.
akinf said:
tx oms, you also have a "them vs. us" attitude that leads me to think that because you are not part of the problem, that you don't need to be part of a solution. I am not trying to analyze you are label you, because I am certainly not qualified to do that, but your ideas are so bizarre that it makes me wonder just how a person with so much education could even suggest such ideas as reasonable. I know you have said they would never be implemented, and they wouldn't, so why are you still so hell-bent on suggesting it?
I didn't suggest we implement it. I said that a quarantine, an absolute quarantine, is the only way we can stop the spread of AIDS right now. That is a fact. Nothing else has worked in 25 years. Maybe we should look at why nothing else has worked.
For starters, let me address my "us vs them" attitude, I do get frustrated with this topic, but it's not "us vs them". I was "them". I participated in risky behavior for many years. If you are reading this you are probably "them". Probably 99% of people reading this have engaged in a "risky" behavior. If educated people are too selfish and too attracted to "feel good" behaviors how can we expect the whole world and uneducated people to avoid risky behavior? For all of you who think education is the answer, have you, an educated person, ever engaged in risky behaviors?
If education hasn't eradicated smoking, how in the world is education going to stop things that feel even better than a nicotine rush, such as unprotected sex? I'll even yield a little bit: education has some effect but it is not currative. Smoking did decrease with education but it has now plateaued.
Another reason nothing to date has contained, stopped, or eradicated AIDS is America and the world as a whole doesn't really care about AIDS. America and the world wants to have its cake and eat it too, as they say. Either HIV is a deadly virus, like polio and smallpox, that must be stopped or it is really not that big a deal. Sexually transmitted diseases, especially in our modern culture, cannot be contained with education. Even people who believe sex outside of marriage is morally wrong are having sex outside of marriage! Go interview kids in a Christian church group and see if I'm wrong.
Furthermore, if condoms were the answer we would have contained AIDS by now. How long have latex condoms been available? How long have people been told that using latex condoms will stop the spread of AIDS? Even free condoms wouldn't help as evidenced by the fact that free money in the form of welfare hasn't ended poverty. We have to face human nature here.
I get annoyed with people who put their heads in the sand and ignore these facts. One is considered a great humanitarian if one talks about cures for AIDS and such, but far be it from anyone to come forward and talk about AIDS as an infectious disease. It is only correct to address AIDS as a social phenomenon.
Like I said, AIDS and, possibly, Hepatitis are the only diseases I can think of that are routinely addressed from a subjective rather than objective point of view. People don't want to address the facts because the facts are offensive to some and difficult to accept for others. Most AIDS activists don't really care if AIDS is contained. If AIDS activists were absolutely determined to stop the spread of AIDS in the US they would do what is necessary. Most AIDS activists want to pay lip service to cures and containment while looking for ways to continue doing what feels good. Problem is, none of those ways work to stop the spread of AIDS.
To sum it up, most people, including myself and most likely you, are unwilling to eliminate all risky behavior. One round of unprotected sex is risky behavior. We can talk about education, but it won't work in America. So, we either do what I said and quarantine AIDS or we do what I and most of you do on a daily basis and just don't care. We can continue to pay lip service while demonstrating by our actions individually and as a whole that we all think AIDS is something that happens to someone else. Based on prevelance studies, you'd probably be right.
I think the subjective approach, emotional voice, and laissez-faire reality about HIV/AIDS in Amecia may be due to its origins in this country. It started in the gay community of San Francisco and New York and spread to a small group of IV drug abusers in New York City. At the time gay rights was at least as heated a topic as it is today. AIDS would have ended the gay rights movement if it was framed as a "gay disease", so it was repackaged by those more worried about their political views than science and healthcare. For years now the conventional wisdom has been that any conversation about AIDS that focuses on its epidemiology and/or a containment approach based on principles of infectious disease is really an attack on gays and society's down-trodden and prudish. Here's an example:
Havarti666 said:
Eh, just another mental giant making the rounds. It's the same solution I came up with... when I was an 8th grader.
It is because AIDS has become a political issue rather than a medical emergency like an Ebola outbreak that it has not been contained. The world just doesn't care enough to stop AIDS.
akinf said:
Back to my earlier point, the advancement of a woman's movement would allow the woman the authority to decide whether or not she wants a child, or wants to have sex. Men are not just the problem, but in highly patriarchical developing societies where the main problem is, I am really convinced this is a main issue. Education through cultural understanding combined with funding for world-wide research projects leading to a vaccine is the best way to see a positive future for HIV. We've found cures for some of the worlds deadliest diseases, and we come closer and closer everyday, I don't see why HIV would be any different except that this time, the very regular actions of people perpetuates that disease.
Sounds great. Let's apply that to all areas of life. Are you willing to stay in Iraq and educate that developing society until they accept our point of view and democracy?
The regular actions of people also perpetuate many other diseases. We aren't willing to force people in America to excercise and eat right, so we accept a baseling level of DM 2 in America. No one talks that much about anti-obesity education b/c we know that American know obesity is bad. Instead we leave people to their own consequences. Same with AIDS, either we force a radical but effective solution or we just accept that it exists. The difference is no one acts like they are shocked and dumbfounded when you say diabetes is more common in obese people and can't be stopped with education. Maybe we care more about AIDS victims than victims of obeseity?
BTW, what cures have we found for deadly diseases? I can't think of any non bacterial disease we can cure. Sure, we can control or contain but we can't cure.
