Interesting statistics on “The O’Reilly Factor” tonight (Tuesday, July 9, 2002) - I didn’t jot down the exact numbers, but O’Reilly reports that the dollars spent on AIDS research by the US Government, divided by the number of people infected, was about TEN TIMES the per-capita spending on cancer and heart disease.
Very interesting statistics, especially considering that AIDS is a behavior-based disease (that was O’Reilly’s take on it). (ducking while the inevitable flotsam and jetsam are hurled my way)…Timmy
Well, when you think about it, who gets preached to more than the choir?
Seriously, though, maybe you should think of the inevitable “safe sex” post as a sort of Surgeon General’s warning that gets stuck on every remotely relevant thread. After all, these threads are regularly read by people who aren’t regular posters and just happened to read the thread out of prurient interest.
I’m sure you agree that this recent explosion in STD transmission is extremely disturbing. I’ll go out on a limb here and say it ought to be cause not just for concern, but for wrath on the part of straights and gays alike. The first wave of AIDS was a tragedy. If smugness and complacency about progress in the fight against AIDS make safe sex passe and result in a second wave, a whole bunch of people are going to think the new victims ought to be candidates for a Darwin Award.
Having unprotected, non-exclusive sex is the functional equivalent of playing russian roulette, especially, so say the statistics, if you’re gay. It’s a lot harder for society to be sympathetic to someone who was “unlucky” and found a bullet in the chamber than it is when someone gets blindsided by an epidemic. I’m very much afraid that if there is a new AIDS wave, there will be a serious backlash against AIDS research in specific and the gay community in general.
I’ve just read two studies today which indicate HIV is indeed on the rise again. One specifically relates to YOUNG gay men (the figures are pretty horrific - a 41% increase), the other related to black men in the US.
For the last several years here, we’ve seen the “old” STDs like syphillis and gonorreah re-emerging, which tells us people are becoming complacent about safe sex. Our Hep C rates here tell us that injecting drug users are also becoming complacent in respect of HIV prevention.
Much as I hate to say it, now that AIDS has become a manageable illness for which the prognosis improves every day (and is now certainly way better than the prognosis for a lot of more common illnesses), younger people who haven’t personally seen people live and die with AIDS don’t have the same kind of fear of contracting it which those of us who were around when it first emerged have.
Even 10 years ago when I was doing HIV education with young drug users, it wasn’t uncommon for them to say “why should I care about a disease which might kill me in 10 years time - I don’t expect to be alive in 10 years anyway”.
The prognosis for someone diagnosed with HIV today is far better than for someone diagnosed with many other diseases; I’m not surprised that people have become complacent.
You don’t need a cite, man. I mean, O’Reilly said it. It’s got to be true. C’mon , it’s the “no spin zone” fer crissakes. No spin, man. Just straight unbiased reporting. Of course he checks his facts*
*probably by asking the janitor “hey Bob, does this sound right to you?”
Even if the figures Mortiss claims O’Reilly presented are true, they’re meaningless in a vacuum. For one thing, AIDS is caused by a virus, which is alive and capable of mutating, requiring more research to treat and defeat it; cancer and heart disease are not.
Sorry pldennison I don’t buy that as a reason for that great a difference in research spending. Heart disease and cancer kill far more people than AIDS, and the fact that AIDS can mutate should not be that great a factor.
Influenza(sp) mutates as well after all, and probably kills more people worldwide than AIDS*, and you know more people get it, but I doubt that the money spent on researching cures for it even come close.
I might be wrong on the number of people killed worldwide by the flu vs killed by AIDS, but I know that the number of people killed in 3rd world countries by the flu is pretty staggering.
It certainly seems to be true that HIV rates among young gay men, particularly inner-city minority ones, are skyrocketing.
Speaking as someone of the respective age group, I would peg my generation’s (about 25 on down) problem with HIV/AIDS is the way that we perceive it. I’m 20 and I don’t remember a world without AIDS; I certainly don’t remember a time before drugs started coming out. Many people my age have never known someone who has died from AIDS- we know a lot more people who are living with it. It’s not a death sentence to us- I feel like a lot of my generation sees AIDS as akin to cancer. Sucks, but it’s manageable. We’re certainly not afraid of it.
And we’re not going to die anyway, so what’s the point in worrying?
That’s because we already know how to treat* influenza, Narile, even when it mutates. We’ve been doing it for decades.
*There is no “cure,” nor will there ever be. They’re viruses. You can either a) vaccinate people against being able to contract it at all, or b) keep it from killing them if they’ve already contracted it.
Tim, I heard those same figures quoted by my state’s senior senator (soon to be retired!!) as grounds for his opposition for the Ryan White bill. So I’m wondering if you, or somebody, can find out where the heck Helms and O’Reilly got them from. [And Esprix, having quoted something is not necessarily grounds that you agree with it, as I would have assumed you knew, much less that you approve of the course of action some people would conclude from it (as discussed in the GD thread paralleling this one). I personally would like to give Tim the benefit of the doubt until and unless he suggests something as a conclusion from what he cited. Recall that it was Beeblebrox, being sarcastic, not Tim, who made the “O’Reilly doesn’t need cites” comment.]
**
This statistic probably is correct. So what? The U.S. government per-infection spending on smallpox is infinite.
Research spending is based on a number of factors, including how deadly it is, how much is currently known about it, how many people have it now, how many people might catch it in the future, etc.
There has been remarkable progress in the battle against AIDS both on the scientific front and the “social” front since the disease was first discovered. As I posted above, I’m very much afraid, however, that a serious spike in infections in the gay community will spark a vicious public backlash.
This is why, while I appreciate the frustration of Gobear, Esprix, Matt, Scott & Co., I also find their attitude a little upsetting. If society is getting a message from the gay community that says, “We know all about AIDS and safe sex. Mind your own business. We are adults and can make our own decisions, thank you very much.” it isn’t going to be very sympathetic five or ten years from now when the new message is, “Look at this tragedy! AIDS is everybody’s problem!”
