SCI/TECH: AIDS may overwhelm wider world

On World AIDS Day yesterday, AIDS experts issued warnings that India, China and Russia are on the brink of mass AIDS epidemics, comparable only to Africa. Speaking on World Aids Day, Peter Piot, executive director of the United Nations agency UNAIDS, said that the virus spreads very quickly, sometimes even jumping 2000% in just seven years, like it had done in South Africa. The experts also criticized President Bush's plan on AIDS, known as "ABC" - Abstinence, Being faithful and using Condoms, saying that abstinence isn't an option for some women.




Here is another instant of the UN and the world criticizing President Bush's domestic policies. If actions aren't taken immediately, AIDS will change from being the leading cause of death in African-American women between ages of 25 and 34 to the leading cause of all Americans.


[edit on 2-12-2004 by Banshee]

Originally posted by surfup
If actions aren't taken immediately, AIDS will change from being the leading cause of death in African-American women between ages of 25 and 34 to the leading cause of all Americans.

I have to challenge this statement. AIDS is positively correlated with high risk behaviors. In the eighties, AIDS was called the gay disease and gays responded with behavior modification and the epidemic was slowed in the gay community. A younger generation of gay males are reportedly less concerned and rates are beginning to rise once more.

While we are waiting for a vaccine for AIDS, which could take some time given the mutablity of the virus, the best action is to control one's libido. This, of course, is a simplification of a very complex problem, but it is the best we can do until science catches up to the highly adaptive virus.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by surfup
If actions aren't taken immediately, AIDS will change from being the leading cause of death in African-American women between ages of 25 and 34 to the leading cause of all Americans.

I have to challenge this statement. AIDS is positively correlated with high risk behaviors.

Grady - I need to challenge your assumptions. True, AIDS is blamed on high risk behavior, and said to result from "Personal Choice and Lifestyle" - as are diseases like heart disease, stroke and obesity. But there is far more evidence to support the idea that numerous other factors are in play, not least of which are environmental contaminations and the cumulative effects of super-imposed infections.

...The article speaks to social realities - not the result of 'high risk behaviors.' ...FYI - a report last year showed that most AIDS in women in Africa resulted from 'iatrogenic transmission,' meaning African women were being infected in clinics during childbirth and checkups.

...There is a lot more to the AIDS story than simple 'cause and effect' - let's not blame the victims, convenient as it may be.


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There is no data, of which I am aware, that suggests that the world is in danger of a mass epidemic among those who avoid the identified high risk behaviors. Certainly, those who are infected with AIDS do pose a threat to society, but that threat is largely contained by stringent controls of the blood supply used in surgery.

So far, it has not been proved that AIDS is spread by casual contact or by mosquitoes. While I am very much in favor of continued efforts to educate the world of the effective means of avoiding infection and to find a vaccine, I do not hold to the idea that AIDS will ever become rampant among the general population, unless the general population abandons good sense and proper controls of the blood supply.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
There is no data, of which I am aware, that suggests that the world is in danger of a mass epidemic among those who avoid the identified high risk behaviors.

Grady - there is much data - and a number epidemics loose in the world. Most involve infectious agents interracting with environmental contaminations.

The primary vectors of transmission are water and food for infectious agents. As far as environmental contaminants, just to introduce the subject, there are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals in the environment that may create genetic mutations to create new diseases or new forms of old diseases...

...I have been writing about these here for a while. My most recent post is:

www.atsnn.com...

...The issues are complicated: scientifically, ethically and socially. Taking the easy way out by blaming the victims is convenient - but scientifically inaccurate and finally, unconscionable.


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