"I’m not sure that’s real great news. Apologies for sounding so heartless but: The ability to hang around for 15 years, potentially infecting more people, is the downside view."
Oh..so when it comes to those who contract diseases that could potentially infect others...the sooner they die the better.
You're right..that is heartless.No disagreement from me. Yes it is heartless. The disease, I mean. The realities of it are terrible. And one of those realities is that the longer a person with it survives, the longer the potential for infecting others. I’m not preaching involuntary confinement (like Cuba), or even social segregation, but we do need to face facts. I’m certainly not hoping for early death for anyone, but the facts are the facts. "Sooner they die the better"? Those were not my words or thoughts but yes, the fact is, it would be better from the disease transmission point of view. Not from the humanitarian point of view. A fatal communicative disease that kills in hours doesn’t get spread as far or as fast as one that kills in years. Odd how morality so often becomes not a choice between good and bad, but a choice between bad and worse.
SARS is spreading faster and may spread(unless it's stopped) farther than AIDS, even though it kills people faster.
But you do present some valid moral questions when it comes to dealing with contagious diseases.
I would say that trying to save people's lives is the primary concern and dealing with ways to prevent it's spread is secondary.
Otherwise it would be fine to just kill everybody who has certain contagious diseases to stop them from spreading.
And by the way, this also applies to diseases like Hepatitis C...not just AIDS.