It’s not Fred Phelps, it’s OBVIOUSLY Bob Barr.
Don’t make me use my chapstick.
Well, my ass is a bit chapped after reading the Honorable Mr. Barr’s diatribe.
Oooo! Me me me! Call on me!
See, it isn’t Fred Phelps or Bob Barr.
It’s both.
It’s their demon-spawn love child, who’s a little, um, slow, onaccounta they bein’ like half-brothers an’ all.
Oh, and Yogi, son? The object of the game here at the SDMB is to fight ignorance, not propagate it.
[sub]oh, and you wouldn’t happened to be related to Christine, would you? Oh, wait, that was a “J”…[/sub]
AIDS was originally called GRID — Gay Related Immunodeficiency Disease. The name was change to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome because it is more accurate (being the disease is not specific to homosexuals).
Let’s try to stick to the facts here in GQ. I’d rather not see this go to the Pit.
DrMatrix — General Questions Moderator
You ask if I ever do things that might harm me. Yes, I do, I probably drive too fast, tailgate,… things that a cautious driver would abhore. But I do those things with a clear understanding of the benefits/risks. I don’t do anything that I know will kill me. well yes I do things that can kill me like drive a car or walk on streets. But I have decided they are worth the risk. I dont knowingly do dangerous things. I guess I am just a chicken.
quote [90% of AIDs is hetero)
Just in the US, what percent is hetero? can we please restrict this to just the US?
and DR you say you have people ignore your warnings all the time about their health. well does compassion help or do they die just the same. Does your compassion help the surviving members of the family?
I have a super easy question - who will absolutely positively never have to have to worry about contracting HIV? Answer? No one. Period.
Everyone having sex is potentially exposed to HIV,
regardless of any protection being used.
I can’t even believe we’re pointing fingers and going, ooh, ooh, she’s got it, ooh, they’ve got it. How absolutely absurd. We know people have gotten it from blood transfusions, contaminated needles, accidental ‘sticks’ in medical environments, unprotected sex, and at least one case of HIV from an infected dentist to his patient. We KNOW this already, right?
I have to say it’s more important why people are still being infected, not who.
The reason that makes me just want to cry, is the stupidity, and yes, it surely is stupidity, on the part of the medical establishment in couching this battle as being ever close to a successful ‘cure’. Perhaps the term ‘medical establishment’ is a bit harsh, but honestly! I know I’ve heard repeatedly over the 20+ years of HIV that a cure, or treatment is just around the corner. Every new breakthrough was just on the horizon. And how many people have risked their lives believing that?
The last I read, the carrier for HIV still hasn’t been located, despite intense efforts to catalog and test animal species native to Africa. What else do the scientists not yet understand about this virus?
I’m worried that HIV is a humongous iceberg, and all we can see is that 10% sticking up. If so, the worst may be yet to come.
Silly goose, the Federal Government hasn’t spent a cent on G.R.I.D. education spending. So why do you have your panties in a wad?
From the CDC, Basic AIDS Statistics (as of December 2000):
Giving those numbers in percent form, among men, 56% of cases resulted from homosexual sex, 22% from injecting drug use, a little under 8% from a combination of those two factors, less than 1% from hemophilia, a bit less than 5% from heterosexual sex, less than 1% from blood transfusions (I assume the hemophiliacs were also exposed from blood transfusions), and a hair over 8% from unknown or unreported risk factors. Among women, about 41% of cases were from injecting drug use, a negligible percent from hemophilia, a little over 40% from heterosexual sex, less than 3% from other transfusions, and about 16% from unknown or unreported risk factors. For total cases, male and female, about 46% resulted from male homosexual sex (note that lesbianism is not even listed as a transmission route), 25% from injecting drug use, over 6% from a combination of homosexual sex and injecting drug use, less than 1% from hemophilia, about 11% from heterosexual sex, a little over 1% from blood transfusions, and over 9% risk factor unknown or unreported.
Just so long as we realize that the U.S. is not the world.
I decided to use your logic in linking general answers to reach a conclusion. Confusing isn’t it?
My guess is that compassion does help. You might want to give it a try sometime.
INCORRECT, GOOD SIR.
Land of the free…
Didn’t you just say earlier that it was our right as citizens to tell the government to screw itself? If that is so–then how would this proposal solve anything?
**Yogi Yorgenson wrote:
By the way, G.R.I.D. stands for “Gay Related Immunodeficiency Disease” which is what AIDS was originally called.**
Yes, originally the syndrome we now know as AIDS was originally called GRIDS. The original patients who showed the various symptoms were all gay men and that’s the only common factor the doctors could detirmine. As our knowledge about this disease increased, we learned it was spread thru various sexual practices and wasn’t specifically related to gay men but most easily spread thru anal intercourse.
Yep, It started and was spread by the homosexual lifestyle.
No, you’re wrong. It was NOT started thru the “homosexual lifestyle.” It was started by the mutation of a viral strain decades ago. Unless you have evidence that clearly contradicts that, I suggest you retract that statement. AIDS is spread thru unprotected sexual intercourse, the sharing of IV drug needles, infected blood products or exchange of other body fluids (I believe that breast milk is a viable transmission vector). While unprotected anal intercourse is one of easiest ways to transmit HIV, that’s something not limited to the homosexual community. Oral intercourse can spread HIV, too, tho not as readily.
Instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on a disease which is spread by voluntary “livestyles”. I propose the Federal Government halt all G.R.I.D. education spending and instead have a top government official give the following Public Service Announcement:
“If you are a man, do not stick your penis into another mans anus. Likewise, if you are a man, do not allow another man to stick his penis into your anus. If you are a woman, do not allow a man who has put his penis into another mans anus to stick his penis into any orifice in your body.”
There, problem solved.
Oh yes. That’ll work. After all, we all know how well Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign worked to end drug use in the US during the 80s.
Yogi, you devil you!!!
I can read between the lines, you gun-loving sex-machine…
At first I thought you might be anti-sex, but then I realized that you were actually trying to encourage Polygamy…
I can’t put my penis into another man’s anus… Oh, I get it…<wink, wink>
You’re saying it’s OK for me to put someone else’s penis into another man’s anus…
And, wow, you erotic militia-man you… Who would have believed you’d think it was OK for a woman to stick another man’s penis into my anus?
I’m not sure that the right-wing of the Republican Party is gonna go along with you on this whole encouraging group sex thing, Yogi, but, I say if anyone can convince em, it’d be big butch gun lovers like you…
This whole thing Public Service Announcement thing is pretty unconventional, but I think I’ve figured out a way… I figure Jesse Helms and George and Laura Bush could act out all the positions…
This is gonna be big, darling, BIG…
[[AIDS is a disease of promiscuity, not of sexual orientation. Its spread can be prevented by monogamous sexual relations]]MEBuckner
No, HIV is not spread by “promiscuity.” It is spread by being exposed to certain bodily fluids (usually via injection drug use or sex) from a person who is infected.
In some parts of the US, over 20% of the cases are female.
Someone mentioned that we don’t know what animal species the virus jumped from to humans. You’re thinking of Ebola. We know quite a bit about the origin/evolution of HIV. See. http://www.cdc.gov
Those are the cookies made from the apples in Alan Turing’s orchard, right?
Yogi: we get your point. Really. We are not all of us as dumb as you (think). AIDS was once called GRID. And black people were once called . . . well, lots of other things.
Here in the 21st century, we call it AIDS. Try to keep up with the times, eh?
Oh. One more thing. Magic Johnson is straight. He’s only ever had sex with women. How do you explain him getting HIV if he never had a man’s penis up his butt?
Hey, I’m not Phelps, but my tummy hurts-can I have some tea?
I suggest, at this point, that we keep to the topic at hand and avoid making - or responding to - provocative, bigoted remarks. I suspect that some of these posts were made to simply inflame the TM. If it continues in this vein, I will move this to the pit or simply close it.
Jill
Let me summarize what I believe has been discussed in this thread.
I suggested:
(restricting the conversation to US only)
1: AIDS is only contracted by the direct actions of the person. It is not caught like a cold passively.
2. that person would have to be pretty stupid to try to get AIDS.
It was suggested by the posters:
- activity to get AIDS is restricted to Homosexual and drug users or at least for 80% of the infections.
- the only way not to get it is to not engage in sex with an infected person or use tainted needles.
- it isn’t nice to call someone stupid who gets aids. you should show some compassion.
- people get because they are ignorant of the facts or they dont care or they assume their partner is clean.
- AIDS is just a fact of the 21st century because we are basicly animals who must have sex.
My conclussion:
since it is easy not to get it then the epidemic would go away if everyone was smart enough to only have sex with clean partners and use clean needles. And the group that chooses to take the risk will get it and being compassionate won’t save a single one.
Is this accurate summarization of this thread?
[quote]
Let me summarize what I believe has been discussed in this thread.
I suggested:
(restricting the conversation to US only)
Well, if you ensure that you never go anywhere or handle anything ever handled by anyone with a cold, then you will not catch one. Not quite on target, and it is clear that the majority of HIV+ people are such as a result of actions we have now identified as risky. Two points: note that there is a minority who did not engage in such risky actions but did become HIV+ nonetheless. For example, a chaste wife in my former hometown whose former husband, unbeknownst to her, was sleeping around and became a carrier of HIV, transmitting it to her. (At the last I knew, she had became AIDS-symptomatic but was stabilized.) And certainly every medical professional should move into a different line of work, because treating patients leads to exposure to bodily fluids, which can transmit HIV viruses. (Jill, are you listening?)
To actively try to get AIDS, yes. To engage in behaviors that might possibly transmit AIDS with appropriate precautions, no.
It was suggested by the posters:
No, it was not so suggested. They identified that 80% of AIDS patients had an etiology including one or both those activities. I doubt if more than a handful of them engaged in such activity with the purpose of coming down with AIDS, and my unsubstantiated hunch is that about half so engaged recklessly, the other half taking what they erroneously thought were adequate protections.
That’s two things to avoid. As noted, never come in contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person needs to be added in. And ensure you’re never given a transfusion. Nor, and this may be appropriate advice, should you ever come in contact with a sharp instrument.
Good.
For the majority cases, that’s pretty close to accurate. “They don’t care” might be better stated as “they fail to recognize risks.” (I presume you have at some point in your life dealt with teenagers who engage in risky activity, for thrills. I know I have. (Note that that’s a restrictive clause – I’m not indicting all teenagers, simply identifying an activity category and an age level as having a reasonable degree of correspondence.)
Nope. But the sex drive is strong. The need for escape from stressful or intolerable-and-unchangeable situations, sometimes leading to drug abuse, is also strong. Many people indulge in the one or the other. I don’t find it my place to judge them for doing so.
Some truth there. However, how do you know that your non-symptomatic, seemingly innocent partner is in fact HIV- and not recently exposed? And, as noted, about 20% of cases result from other causes. Is your dentist HIV-? Every nurse at the hospital? How about the people who handled the file that just gave you a paper cut?
Those who choose to indulge in risky behavior, or who take due precautions but are nonetheless infected by mischance, will indeed get it.
But compassion will (a) prolong lives, by ensuring appropriate treatment and the moral support people facing a fatal disease may well need, (b) support research that may well result in a cure, and © is the right thing to give, IMHO, regardless of who runs what risk for what reason.
Nicely said, Polycarp. My hat’s off you you!
We could be debating lung disease here as well. If noone smoked tobacco, close to 80% of the lung disease we see would disappear, and what remained would most frequently be less severe. We would save billions of dollars on high tech medical care, supportive care, lost wages, disability, etc. We’d spend much less on research, and could free up funds for other causes like juvenile diabetes or cystic fibrosis. We’ve educated everyone to the dangers of smoking. Yet they still keep smoking! Why? Because they’re human. We may as well accept that fact, and deal with lung disease!
Qadgop, MD