Those whacky africans.

[Safri]

tbh the only way to stop hiv/aids is to let everyone who has hiv/aids die - its pointless to develop drugs which will keep them alive as they will die anyhow and are more likely to give the disease other people. That couped with a safe sex campaign, and airports/ports/any place of entry into a country doing aids tests/TB tests, and the military guarding each countries border to stop illigal immigration is possibily the only way to do it however.

i agree with this, looking at your other posts, think im on the same general wavelength as you, more or less

[tranq]

I agree with your common sense approach, but many see this as unethical.

I do know that cats with FIV - the feline version of HIV are able to cure themselves of it in some cases with natural antibodies, I hope that human research into stem cells could make this possible, since treating HIV positive people as lepers isn't seen as ethical in today's world, even if it gets the job done.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007.../aids.features

however the bi line of the article underlines the problem in Africa

"In the past 30 years Agnes has had unprotected sex with up to 2,000 infected men. Yet she and a small number of her fellow sex workers are still free from Aids. Stephanie Nolen travels to Majengo, a slum in Nairobi, to meet the extraordinary women and researchers who are changing the history of HIV"

[Randle98]

very lovely ... :)

[freemehul]

They don't want to distribute clean drinking water nevermind condom's. As bad as a problem as AID's is, don't more people die of thirst, starvation and malnourishment?

well then grab the stats

granted it isn't the biggest killer disease (that's malaria), but it still means an aweful lot of young people will die. what's more if they have it and get children, it's almost certain the next generation will get it too. granted there's meds, but they're very expensive (too expensive), also the meds have side-effects, what's more not being able to breastfeed ain't a good thing either.

Lets face it aids is a pandemic in africa and it's long term pandemic. That is never a good thing.

thirst, malnourishment and starvation isn't the biggest killer in africa, sure millions have died from it, but it's not much compared to the other causes of death

infectious diseases are by far the biggest killers in africa, malaria being number 1, tb making a big comeback

funny though it may it sound to you, but cancer and cardiovascular and respitory diseases are also top causes of death in africa and yes those are diseases we think belong to western and affluent nations

[freemehul]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007.../aids.features

however the bi line of the article underlines the problem in Africa

"In the past 30 years Agnes has had unprotected sex with up to 2,000 infected men. Yet she and a small number of her fellow sex workers are still free from Aids. Stephanie Nolen travels to Majengo, a slum in Nairobi, to meet the extraordinary women and researchers who are changing the history of HIV"

inmunity exists to the disease that's true, but it's very rare. a little less rare in europe than it is in africa (has to do with the history of the plague). That inmunity is caused by a rare gene, it gives inmunity to aids, but from what i heard also inmunity to the plague.

thing is though there's downsides too for having that gene. In combination with another gene, that person will get an inherital disease called cystic fibrosis

evolution exists ladies and gentlemen but it ain't necessarily pretty

[Magn]

Evidence to these can easily be found on such countries, you see taking my country as an example; in more developed and Western mind setted parts (where people tend to care less about religious beliefs and social wievs) of the country AIDS cases are higher,while on the less developed (and thus more conservative) parts of the country such cases are rarer.

Its a double-edged sword.

Less promiscuous sex, but still a fair amount of it, except that people are more ashamed of it when it happens.

Thus, they are more likely to hide it (which includes not getting tested), generally being in denial about it (which mean they won't act responsively about it) and they are more likely to be misinformed about STDs (since sex before marriage is taboo anyhow, why talk about responsible sex before marriage?).

This is bad business.

[Magn]

I have to say, that article on the Vatican position really irritated me.

Since when do people listen to the Vatican when dealing with modern issues?

Those guys live at least a good 400 years in the past. They are more well suited for past moral dilemmas.

[Mr Anon]

"They are more well suited for past moral dilemmas."

I wouldn't even trust them on those. They think comdom usage between a married couple is a moral dilemma. :P

[watchman]

Brings to mind a billboard I saw in Florida back when I was driving truck. Showed a guy putting a wedding ring on a girl's finger and caption read "God's orriginal plan for safe sex." Of course that assumes both you and your spouse took your vows seriously.

[testsubj]

i wrote a 20 page paper in med school about telling the who/nih to stop looking for a cure to hiv/aids
my instructors were perturbed by it, but understood the reasoning

still got an A
:)


as long as theres a pill to solve a problem, the average person will always abuse themselves
and there are FAR more average people than there are with common sense

[Magn]

i wrote a 20 page paper in med school about telling the who/nih to stop looking for a cure to hiv/aids
my instructors were perturbed by it, but understood the reasoning

still got an A
:)


as long as theres a pill to solve a problem, the average person will always abuse themselves
and there are FAR more average people than there are with common sense

If people were reasonable, HIV would have stopped existing a long time ago.

But people aren't reasonable.

Here are some the issues:

1) In many places, HIV tests are not free (dumb, dumb, dumb)

2) Even if they are free or affordable, many people won't get tested anyways

3) Even if some people know they have AIDS, they won't care and will spread it anyways

4) Even if a country could establish mandatory population-wide AIDS screening and manage to find a way for people who have AIDS and don't care to stop spreading it (the later is by far the hard task), there is no way you'd force the issue at an international level so other countries would still have AIDs and re-insert in your country

Anyhow, the AIDS problem is in a way mitigated by the fact that you can control it at a personal level.

Depending on your lifestyle and the precautions you take, you can reduce your risks of contracting AIDS to zero or almost zero.

I think the main things that can (and should) be done in the short terms are:

1) Make AIDS screening free or inexpensive

2) Make sure kids are taught at school about STDs and methods of prevention.

3) Treat cases where someone willfully spread the disease as if he committed an equivalent murder