The lessons of AIDS

Chicago Tribune ^ | January 5, 2004

[presidio9]

In his bestseller "And the Band Played On," Randy Shilts, the tireless San Francisco journalist and chronicler of the AIDS epidemic, claimed to have identified one of the first cases of the disease in the United States. Sometime in 1980, he wrote, "Patient Zero," a promiscuous, gay French-Canadian flight attendant, had exhibited baffling purplish skin blotches now recognizable as one of the clear signs of full-blown AIDS. A year later, the Centers for Disease Control identified the first known cases of AIDS.

The AIDS epidemic in the U.S. is coming up on the quarter-century mark. In that time, some 500,000 Americans have died from the disease, including Shilts, in 1994, at age 42. But today as many as 950,000 Americans live with HIV or AIDS, many of them sustained by various brews of antiretroviral drugs.

While the death rate has dropped significantly in recent years, the annual rate of infection--about 40,000--has not changed much, so the number of people living with the disease in the U.S. keeps climbing.

[goldstategop]

Why people seem to think its a badge of honor to be stricken with AIDS is beyond me.

[swarthyguy]

Failure to quarantine and adopt a process of identifying and notifying partners, our abject failure in the face of political correctness to classify this as a health and not a civil rights issue, means many more were condemned to death than needed to be.

[Support Free Republic]

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
	Armed Forces - Pacific						10.00	1

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

[Conspiracy Guy]

I agree with you on this one. Had AIDS been a disease hunters contracted from cleaning infected deer. Hunting would have been banned and the sick hunters would have been put in isolation. Because being a hunter is not cool.

CG

[r9etb]

What an ironic article -- they didn't see fit to mention the thought that "Not Doing That" is an almost iron-clad guarantee that you won't get AIDS.

Yet, at the street level, AIDS organizations encounter "donor fatigue." The public is either tired of the topic or mistakenly believes the worst is over--the latter a dangerous misperception.

As expected, they omitted the far most likely reason: people know that AIDS is spread primarily by stupid behavior, and they don't feel like paying for it.

[Darksheare]

Ah yes, the "bug chasers."
Those who seek infection for the status symbol they see it as.

[whereasandsoforth]

His reaction to the AIDS problem is the only thing Castro ever did right.

[yankeedame]

Why people seem to think its a badge of honor to be stricken with AIDS is beyond me.

Neighbor, have you got that right! An "honor", and a right-of-way to the center of every and all conversation.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

Because being a hunter is not cool

Hey, Con Guy, huntin is cool and fun in Bama.

[little jeremiah]

Homosexual Agenda Ping List - article (commemorating?) about 25 years of AIDS. Haven't read the whole article so I don't know their slant, if there is one.

If anyone wants (a) *on* or (b) *off* this highly interesting and sometimes busy ping list, ping me!

[Nick Thimmesch]

Bad meat in the can.

[Agnes Heep]

The best cures for AIDS are capitalism and morality; two commodities in short supply these days.

[StonyBurk]

AMEN. woulda said as much myself.quarentine--even if applied today could do more to help end the purported
crisis. But the problem has escalated to wher eit would
take men and/or women of greater stature than those who
conquored Yellow fever and the problems that made that
Big ditch possible down in Panama.And I don't see it happening.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Hunting is paradise in Alabama. I was being Sarcastic.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

I know, so was I. Noone from here would oppose hunting, cept maybe some yankee slug transplant from maaasaaachusetts or kenw yerk.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Or some of these evolution wackos. They would think that the harvesting of game could disrupt the random transmutation in progress that will convert whitetail deer into superior beings that will posess the knowledge to travel time and cure all illness and hate resulting in a perfect world. Sorry for the rant. Some days!

CG

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

I can tell you that I have run into many a white tail that were a lot smarter than any liberals I have ever had the misfortune of knowing, now, it time for me to go to work.

Have a good one.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I'm at work. Have a good one. And welcome to FreeRepublic.

CG

[Doc Savage]

Gee, I never knew a harmless retrovirus could differentiate genders!!

Of course I was aware that AZT will kill you.

May I be the first to suggest a national memorial statute of Magic Johnson be constructed in downtown San Francisco.

Welcome to the biggest fraudulent science scam ever inflicted on a non-technical populace.

A final thought. Let's outlaw the name Lance!