Subject:
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Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 3 May 2000 03:12:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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331 times
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Larry P wrote:
> But if someone gets the disease through unsafe sex, of whatever kind, wouldn't
> you agree there is some culpability there? It's reallyt *HARD* to transmit
> this virus. It's a risk they choose to take. We KNOW how not to get it. Don't
> bareback. Gary and his partner in 1984 didn't know that and they died horrible
> deaths because of it. I went to his funeral so I have a LITTLE familiarity
> with the pain it brings to the gay community. Gary's corner of it, anyway...
> 1st avenue and 74th st, Manhattan. But that's irrelevant.
>
> However to say now that we should be doing research on a disease that
> ultimately is preventable by behaviour modification while neglecting research
> on diseases that currently aren't... that allows responsibility shirking,
> don't you agree?
Before I make any points, lemme say where I'm coming from. I'm gay, my
partner has AIDS.
"Don't bareback" is not enough. My SO and I are _extremely_ careful and
follow every safe sex guideline you can think of... and in 8 years we've
been blindsided once by an accident which isn't in any of the pamphlets
and was neither foreseeable nor preventable.
Having said that, education, while absolutely necessary, is not the
whole answer either. Has education stopped people smoking? Has it
stopped unwanted pregnancies? No, and no. Birth control education in the
less developed countries has been a high priority for decades, and only
now, in some countries, are real effects being seen. Waiting decades for
educating people about AIDS to have a real effect would leave us with a
disaster.
AIDS is different from cancer and other long-term fatal diseases like,
for example, Lou Gehrig's Disease, in that it's catching, and has the
potential to become epidemic. Cancer is not going to go through the
population of a country like the Black Death in medieval Europe. AIDS
could. In parts of the world, it looks as though it probably will.
Another important point is that an identified virus does exist so that
there is the possibility of a vaccine down the road. Prevention is far
better and cheaper than cure. I want the research to continue so that
there's a vaccine available for when my daughter is out there in the
world in a few years time.
I could go on, but I won't. I find it very hard to be coherent and
rational on this subject.
Kevin
--
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?
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| (...) Let's review for a sec, here... when my uncle Gary got it back in 1984, there was a good argument that it wasn't his fault. People at that time didn't know how to go about preventing it. Now, they do. Haemopheliacs are at the mercy of a clean (...) (24 years ago, 2-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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