# HIV (aka AIDS) still causing fatalities by the thousands in USA --needs to be better known **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 15, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169 "2018-06-15T20:02:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bee\_Mulk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bee\_Mulk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bee_Mulk)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/1 "2018-06-15T20:02:44Z")
It has not stopped–the fatal element in HIV. Less than 12 months ago a well-known gay-playwright died of HIV and he only found out he had the fatal disease a few months earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Bee\_Mulk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bee\_Mulk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bee_Mulk)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/2 "2018-06-15T20:04:34Z")
Actually more composer than-but-still playwright Michael Friedman was his name. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/3 "2018-06-15T20:07:39Z")
Is this because some people aren’t getting diagnosed in time to get proper treatment? Or because some people can’t afford the treatment? Or current treatments not effective for some people? I’m sure it’s all of the above, but I’m curious if one is a disproportionately bigger problem than others. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/4 "2018-06-15T20:21:28Z")
Since there’s no question here, let’s move this to MPSIMS. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/5 "2018-06-15T20:23:32Z")
This post of his in another thread, > [@Are Americans kind of forced to support LGBT standpoints?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-americans-kind-of-forced-to-support-lgbt-standpoints/815430/339): > > Despite very high-rates of mostly gay-caused syphilis in USA and Canada we are being forced to accept LGBT standpoints. New here. ,should tell you exactly where he is going with this thread. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/6 "2018-06-15T20:37:23Z")
Staph infections kill more people every year in the United States anyway. There’s a pretty high number of people walking around with HIV that don’t even know it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/7 "2018-06-15T20:45:06Z")
> [@Bee\_Mulk](#): > > Actually more composer than-but-still playwright Michael Friedman was his name. If you put your ear to his grave, can you hear music playing backwards? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/8 "2018-06-15T21:11:45Z")
> [@Bee\_Mulk](#): > > It has not stopped–the fatal element in HIV. Less than 12 months ago a well-known gay-playwright died of HIV and he only found out he had the fatal disease a few months earlier. Yes, HIV is still a thing. Yes, it is still a bloodborne pathogen that can be transmitted through unsafe sexual intercourse, unsafe needle practices, through blood-to-blood contact, or _in utero_. Yes, it still causes AIDS. Yes, AIDS still kills people. Why on earth do you think these things are not known, **Bee Milk**? Who do you think is unaware? What are you trying to say? . ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/9 "2018-06-15T21:26:35Z")
What exactly is your point? A very good friend of mine found out he was HIV positive in September of 2016, he was dead in July of 2017. [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=831208](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=831208) If you’re advocating for improved HIV education and access to PrEP, then I agree. If you have other motives, I’ll be seeing you in the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/10 "2018-06-15T21:34:39Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Why on earth do you think these things are not known, **Bee Milk**? Who do you think is unaware? What are you trying to say? > . Not to support the OP but I thought that AIDS had been cured and while the disease was still around I was surprised to see people still died from it. Now that I think about it I’m not overly surprised that people die who don’t know they are sick until too late or can’t afford medical care but still I thought it was mostly a minor problem. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/11 "2018-06-15T22:13:31Z")
AIDS hasn’t been cured. There are some very good treatments available for it now, such that a person with access to those treatments can probably live a long and almost-normal life. But not everyone has access to those treatments. This is especially a problem in Africa, but it affects the US, too. A good friend of mine has it, and his hemophilia causes him a lot more problems than his HIV (yes, he got it from a transfusion). But on the other hand, he had to move out of state, and pick his state of residence based on what insurance was available where. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/12 "2018-06-15T22:15:03Z")
Fair enough. I don’t have the luxury of _not_ knowing about it…but the epidemic \*has \*lost a lot of attention in recent years as treatment and prognoses improve. Hmm…would be interesting to see just how many people in the US or Western Europe share that with you. Regardless, the answer is continued research on a cure and > [@dalej42](#): > > improved HIV education and access to PrEP so we can finally, finally end this fucking plague. . ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/13 "2018-06-15T23:44:45Z")
The music magazine Spin used to have a monthly column about AIDS, and in the early 1990s, an unnamed physician told the writer, “In 10 or 15 years, AIDS will mostly be a disease of drug addicts, and you won’t hear much about it.” I was skeptical about that, as I am of futuristic predictions in general, but in this case, s/he was right, and that explains in large part why it isn’t such a big story any more. The treatments are also less brutal and actually work. However, it’s also been discovered that one reason the side effects from the early AIDS meds were so horrific was because the patients were being overdosed. Within the past year, I did a CE about neonatal and pediatric AIDS, and it said that most of the HIV-positive children in the U.S. nowadays were adopted from overseas, or born to a woman who contracted it overseas in her home country. ---
**Author:** ![Graymalkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@Graymalkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Graymalkin)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/14 "2018-06-16T01:19:58Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The music magazine Spin used to have a monthly column about AIDS, and in the early 1990s, an unnamed physician told the writer, “In 10 or 15 years, AIDS will mostly be a disease of drug addicts, and you won’t hear much about it.” I was skeptical about that, as I am of futuristic predictions in general, but in this case, s/he was right, and that explains in large part why it isn’t such a big story any more. > > The treatments are also less brutal and actually work. However, it’s also been discovered that one reason the side effects from the early AIDS meds were so horrific was because the patients were being overdosed. > > Within the past year, I did a CE about neonatal and pediatric AIDS, and it said that most of the HIV-positive children in the U.S. nowadays were adopted from overseas, or born to a woman who contracted it overseas in her home country. What is a “CE”? ---
**Author:** ![Buttercup\_Smith](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buttercup_smith/32/473_2.png) [@Buttercup\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buttercup_Smith)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/15 "2018-06-16T01:22:04Z")
Continuing education. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/16 "2018-06-16T02:57:19Z")
I should add that I was never involved in the treatment of a pediatrics AIDS patient, although I practiced in areas where the disease never had a very high incidence. In the mid 1990s, the city where I lived, then and now, opened an AIDS hospice, and at the time, its location was kept even more secret than that of the abused women’s shelter. The organization still exists; nowadays, the building has a sign in front of it and the address is in the phone book and posted online. Most of their clientele are HIV-positive men who need a place to stay after they get out of prison; IDK what they do if they have a female client, but the current shelter is men-only. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/17 "2018-06-16T03:04:13Z")
Those of you under the age of about 45 or even 50 cannot comprehend how terrified people were about AIDS after the disease was first identified. For the first few years, we didn’t even know what caused it, and could only treat the symptoms. It wiped out a whole generation of hemophiliacs; very few were alive by 1990. It’s still decimating some parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, and the extremely high incidence in some areas is still being studied. I personally think a lot of it is from the reuse of needles and other medical equipment, but that doesn’t fully explain it. Imagine bird flu, Ebola, H3N2, anthrax, etc. all wrapped up in one package, and on top of it, it’s incurable, and multiply that fear, mostly of the unknown, by about 10,000. I sure hope the human race never witnesses anything like that again. More recent research indicates that it’s not a “new” disease at all, just one that escaped from an isolated area in Cameroon, where people probably caught it from butchering infected monkeys and everyone in the area thought they just had another terrible wasting disease, and went from there. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/18 "2018-06-16T04:30:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > This is especially a problem in Africa, but it affects the US, too. [Russia](https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/eastern-europe-central-asia/russia) is particularly hard hit in Europe. Only about a third of those infected are on retrovirals and there are worrisome signs the epidemic might be getting worse. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/19 "2018-06-16T05:57:15Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > [Russia](https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/eastern-europe-central-asia/russia) is particularly hard hit in Europe. Only about a third of those infected are on retrovirals and there are worrisome signs the epidemic might be getting worse. I’ve heard that Ukraine has the highest per capita infection rate outside Africa, and most of that is due to drug addiction. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169/20 "2018-06-16T09:36:52Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Those of you under the age of about 45 or even 50 cannot comprehend how terrified people were about AIDS after the disease was first identified. > … > Imagine bird flu, Ebola, H3N2, anthrax, etc. all wrapped up in one package, and on top of it, it’s incurable, and multiply that fear, mostly of the unknown, by about 10,000. I sure hope the human race never witnesses anything like that again. Huh. In my part of the country, I recall the epidemic to mostly be subject of homophobic jokes, not fear. People weren’t afraid of it because they thought it was “the gay disease” and they didn’t think _they_ were going to get it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hiv-aka-aids-still-causing-fatalities-by-the-thousands-in-usa-needs-to-be-better-known/816169.md?page=2)