The threat of a global Aids epidemic is over, say experts

[Big Don]

The threat of a global Aids epidemic is over, say experts


By Fiona Macrae
Daily Mail story
Last updated at 12:02 PM on 09th June 2008
Excerpt:
The threat of a global Aids epidemic is over, the World Health Organisation's top HIV expert has admitted.
Understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed said Kevin De Cock, who has spent most of his career leading the battle against the disease.

Rather than being a risk to populations anywhere, the threat in developed countries is largely confined to gay men, drug addicts and prostitutes and their clients.


Myth revealed: A 25-year health campaign against AIDS had little relevance outside Africa, the World Health Organisation admitted
The concession comes just months after the United Nations admitted overstating the threat of Aids, slashing estimates of the number of people with HIV worldwide from nearly 40million to 33million.
Speaking a quarter of a century after the term Aids was coined, Dr De Cock said large-scale heterosexual spread was unlikely to occur anywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 11 million children have been orphaned by the disease.
He said: 'It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries.
(((END EXCERPT)))
Why did this myth come to be so widespread? Because the gay lobby didn't want AIDS to be seen as a "Gay Disease".

 

[Big Don]

'In the US, the rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region with the lowest rate.

'That is in one country. How do you explain such differences?'

A damn sight fewer prostitutes, johns, IV drug users and homosexuals?

 

[elder999]

Peculiarly, while AIDS started as and remained a mostly homosexual phenomena in the U.S.,in Africa it has been primarily transmitted through heterosexual sex. We've also learned a few things in the last 25 years, like men who are circumsised being at a lower risk of infection.

Maybe all the anti-AIDS stuff worked-think about it.

Condom use is up, and that's got to be part of it.Heck, you have to "something" to procure the services of a prostitute, but you'd have to be pretty stupid to utilize their services without using a condom.Ditto any other "risky" sexual behavior.

Junkies probably share needles less, and clean needles are distributed by public health authorities in many places.

Blood donors are screened for HIV......

THough it does beg the question of why HIV infection isn't permitted to be tracked by public health authorities to curtail infection the way other STD's have been....

 

[CuongNhuka]

It still exists, there is still no cure, it is still lethal, and we still have no way to stop it, and little way to slow it down. So, no matter what this guy says, it is still an epidemic.

 

[Big Don]

It still exists, there is still no cure, it is still lethal, and we still have no way to stop it, and little way to slow it down. So, no matter what this guy says, it is still an epidemic.

I'm impressed. I've never seen anyone miss the point so completely before.

 

[CuongNhuka]

OK, I'll bite. What's the point?

 

[Empty Hands]

OK, I'll bite. What's the point?

Gay people are icky and bad, and have foisted AIDS off on the rest of us in an attempt to avoid their responsibility for their sinful, icky ways.

How did I do Don?

 

[Empty Hands]

Why did this myth come to be so widespread? Because the gay lobby didn't want AIDS to be seen as a "Gay Disease".

Hey, did you ever think that just maybe this became a "myth" due to the widespread and effective health and education campaign against the disease? That maybe the US would look a lot more like Africa if it wasn't for those AIDS educators you despise so? Or that the cure for the epidemic in Africa will be the "pro-gay" health education campaigns we have had elsewhere?

 

[CuongNhuka]

Gay people are icky and bad, and have foisted AIDS off on the rest of us in an attempt to avoid their responsibility for their sinful, icky ways.

I was going to say something like this, but, I figure he hates me enough. I don't mind people arguing with me, but I don't like it when they hate me. So, thanks for saying it for me!

 

[RandomPhantom700]

A damn sight fewer prostitutes, johns, IV drug users and homosexuals?

Funny thing is, Don, the article doesn't actually follow up with that "how do you explain the difference" question. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the difference is explained by a difference in population size, dispersal (DC being much more concentrated of course) and transitory. I realize you're eager to pin AIDS on them damn heathens, but let's not be too hasty, eh?

While I'm at it, I'd like to bring up a few other points:

1) It's been 25 years since the term AIDS was first applied to the disease and, thus, since public awareness of it began. I recall many of the news stories and campaigns, which were fueled by very justified fear of the disease. We know a lot more about it now then we did 25 or even 5 years ago.

2) If two people have unprotected sex and one of them has HIV, tthere's a high risk of infection, whether they're gay, lesbian, straight, bi, whatever. The virus isn't going to stop on its way to the recipient, realize this is straight sex and therefore condoned by God, and then turn around. Regardless of the disparity among AIDS sufferers, the campaign of everyone needing to be safe and use a condom isn't innacurate.

3) Again, regardless of the distribution of AIDS among straights/gays/drug users/etc., in the last 25 years, we've made progress against the disease. To be honest, I'd thought this thread would be a celebration of the fact that the epidemic we once feared is no longer such a threat. I should have realized the naivette of that hope when I saw that you, Big Don, were the thread starter. Instead, the article writer (and you by posting it) chose to politicize what should be just plain good news. The campaign about AIDS awareness over the last 25 years has prevented an epidemic. No cure yet, and be you gay or straight, protected sex is still a good idea, but much more awareness. Even if some population groups with less of a chance of infection might have heard one more AIDS awareness add then was necessary, I don't see the harm.

 

[Grenadier]

I suspect that there will be more rises in the AIDS problem, in the future.

HIV-1 can, and does, undergo mutation at a frightening high rate, thanks to a very error-prone reverse transcriptase that contains its DNA polymerase activity. With so many errors being generated, the DNA is constantly changing.

Due to this ever-changing threat, a cure isn't likely to be found, at least in our lifetimes, using conventional drug treatment. If I am proven wrong on this, then I will happily be eating those words.

It's not surprising, that various drug-resistant strains of HIV-1 are forming, and as they get more resistant, it falls upon the responsibility of the researchers of this world to come up with better drugs, and for people to educate themselves again.

In the meantime, though, numbers of AIDS-related deaths will continue to ebb and flow.

Out of curiousity, though, I do sometimes wonder, whether those falling numbers are due to an actual decrease in the number of infected individuals, or whether better detection methods have gotten rid of many a false positive?

 

[Big Don]

Gay people are icky and bad, and have foisted AIDS off on the rest of us in an attempt to avoid their responsibility for their sinful, icky ways.

How did I do Don?

Not very well, although it is interesting that you call gay people names.

The fact is, AIDS is not the pandemic calamity we were told it was for a quarter century. In Africa, it is, but, in the civilized world, it is pretty easy to avoid, and those who do catch it, generally have their behaviors to blame.

 

[RandomPhantom700]

Not very well, although it is interesting that you call gay people names.

The fact is, AIDS is not the pandemic calamity we were told it was for a quarter century. In Africa, it is, but, in the civilized world, it is pretty easy to avoid, and those who do catch it, generally have their behaviors to blame.

We know this now, a quarter century later. AFTER twenty-five years of fear and ignorance regarding the disease. AFTER Tom Hank's portrayal of an AIDS patient in Philladelphia. AFTER the awareness campaign that, overreaching in its target audience though it may arguably have been, is still largely responsible for having kept the AIDS epidemic out of "the civilized world".

Seriously, I'd like to watch you go to those members of the civilized world who are suffering from the disease and tell them that they only have themselves to blame. Could you do it, Don?

 

[CuongNhuka]

Blameing the victim... yah, thats, that's real nice.

You, I want to what Don's reaction to finding out his brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, or even kid ended up gay.... and caught AIDS.

 

[Big Don]

Blameing the victim... yah, thats, that's real nice.

You, I want to what Don's reaction to finding out his brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, or even kid ended up gay.... and caught AIDS.

Oh, because gay people have no control over their actions?
Gee, that is sad.

 

[CuongNhuka]

You're blameing the victim Don. That's not my fault. I didn't say that gay people have no self control. You did.

 

[Big Don]

Seriously, I'd like to watch you go to those members of the civilized world who are suffering from the disease and tell them that they only have themselves to blame. Could you do it, Don?

How exactly does not telling them the truth, that AIDS, in the civilized world, is almost always the result of choices and behavior, help anyone?
Is honesty now "bad"?

 

[Big Don]

You're blameing the victim Don. That's not my fault. I didn't say that gay people have no self control. You did.

No, I said

The fact is, AIDS is not the pandemic calamity we were told it was for a quarter century. In Africa, it is, but, in the civilized world, it is pretty easy to avoid, and those who do catch it, generally have their behaviors to blame.

That is pretty much the exact opposite of saying they have no self-control. What that says is each person is responsible, and will bear the consequences of his/her own actions.

 

[CuongNhuka]

Oh, because gay people have no control over their actions?
Gee, that is sad.

You said that gays have no self control, not me. And you are still blaming the victim.

 

[Big Don]

Oh, by the way, when you know actions A, B and C, can lead to an incurable deadly disease and you still participate in them, you are to blame, you are not a poor little innocent victim, like those who have been exposed to AIDS by transfusions, rape, etc, you are a person who threw the dice, knowing what could happen and now wants to be a "victim" rather than own up to your poor choices. What the hell happened to personal responsibility?