Even if the scrutiny of the worlds eye has shifted from AIDS as a hot topic, it still runs rampant in the world. Despite our best efforts, it keeps spreading, growing and killing.
Africa especially is a hotbed for this disease. Lack of hospitals, doctors and prophylactics often mean sickness and death and sometimes these poor, frightened third world people don't even know why.
I'm just a simple engineering technologist, so I don't presume to be any sort of expert in the fight against aids, so take this next statement with a grain of salt.
We've been going about curing aids completely ass backwards, and I know how to cure aids.
You heard me, I have the cure for aids.
To date, all the "cure" efforts we've heard of have been a head on battle with the strengths of the virus. We haven't created any vaccines, and our best efforts at anti viral drugs are met with a limited success in suppression, but not elimination of the bug.
Going head to head with this virus is like pitting a chicken against a pit bull. Sure, the chicken might scratch the dogs nose, but the dogs going to win, period, end of story.
What needs to be done is not to battle its strengths, but to exploit its weaknesses.
The virus can only be spread by sex, or by exposure to tainted blood, and only if that blood can penetrate your skin.
Further, the virus cannot exist outside of the body.
Stop the spread of the virus, and within a generation aids will no longer exist.
This needs to be a worldwide effort. All monies being poured into research for a cure need to be redirected to a world wide effort to detect each and every individual that has aids. Those that do have aids must be forced to wear identification.
Laws will be such that will prohibit those with the HIV virus from having sexual activity with those who are not infected. Anyone caught breaking this law will be subject to a sentence of life imprisonment. Those who do drugs and share needles will also be sentenced to life in jail, as do those who refuse to take the HIV test.
Yes, this violates every human rights code in the book. But think about it; most reasonable people will willingly volunteer to end aids. Those who are not reasonable are also those inconsiderate enough to do things like drunk driving, and therefore are not a contributing member of society. Those who do not contribute to society have no business being in it.
So what do you think? Am I way off base? Will the planet earth ever be able to work cooperatively for just a single generation to eliminate a killer? Or am I an inconsiderate jerk for even proposing such an idea?
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Rants
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Cure for Aids
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19 keen observations:
You have a good point. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that everyone with Aids would have to wear ID. That is like wearing a scarlet letter. Maybe if the ID was kept under the clothes.
The problem with not marking the people with aids is that it induces too much of the honour system.
MOST people will be willing participants to ending aids, but there's always the ignorant and selfish percentage. Even if this percentage is small, it will quell any efforts made for destroying the virus once and for all.
Thus, complete and total control must be kept for the duration of the project for it to be a success.
Like I said, the issues here are humanitarian in nature. But weigh one against the other: some hurt feelings against the elimination of a killer?
Ok well, there will be more than hurt feelings.
These people will become social parriahs.
Perhaps sentences just as stiff for abuse of these people need to be imposed?
Imprisonment for harassment?
That sounds like this one movie I watched a long time ago. It's a little harsh.
I watched a documentary about this issue in Africa and it could be somewhat isolated to small villages or not however...
The problem is that the selfish bastards know they are spreading AIDS and care diddly squat if they have AIDS or not and they keep spreading them to prostitutes and their wives.
Another unfortunate oversight is their way of thinking. The women there who has multiple children, striving to support her family by turning tricks, because their so-called husband left them and these women believe that, and I quote, "If I don't question if I have AIDS, then I won't get AIDS." I don't think they grasp the reality of it all until they become ill.
And when people die from AIDS, no one says anything, no one asks where this person went, and they just dump the body. I think, especially the women who were left with no choice but to work on the streets, need better education and empowerment. It needs to be an internal social effort and not just from outsiders.
And I don't necessarily agree with marking people and imprisoning them. If you mark people with AIDS, then you might as well mark everyone who has warts, chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis, etc.
Or.. we could just chop off the guy's pee pee :)
Fashionista:
Yes, but all those things you mentioned aren't pandemics and aren't killing millions.
Also:
Women are just as much the problem as men, might as well sew those holes shut huh?
By your suggestions, we'd fix the problem of the human race too :P
mike - you can't sew those up :P
because...
women need to use tampons! :P
Why don't we do much the same thing, but instead of forbidding them to procreate at all (impossible), just make them wear condoms and stop sharing needles?
Oh wait, we're already trying that.
this kind of goes along with my thoughts about people with STD's like warts or herpes should be forced to wear a scarlett letter of some type so taht way everyone else knows they are tainted.
it's also a deterrent not to get it.
hmm, I've been thinking about your idea.
It's not bad, but I don't know that it would work. I think that it just involves too much government control. Hypothetically,if aids is cured, after that...the id thing could get out of hand. People need more rights than that. It would be like a global government.
Also, it may be pretty much impossible to find everyone in the world who is inflicted.
Ok, I will completely put aside any emotional or moralistic feelings I have on the topic and instead look at the practicalieties.
1. You would have to identify those with aids. Thats about a 5th of the middle and southern african population, not counting the rest of the world.
2. You would have to have a government capable of enforcing rules. The government here doesnt even have a real police force, for example and Sudan accounts for a HUGE part of Africa.
3. There is no way in hell you would be able to stop people getting round the rule. If we could, drugs wouldnt still be so easy to get hold of. There is not one single thing in the world that the government of any society has been able to wipe out.
4. There would be an international outcry about segregating these people. Many are victim, as they were infected accidentally, or through rape or whatever (especially in africa where one in 3 women is raped in her lifetime)
I think, short of quarantining every '3rd world' country and managing worldwide riots, this approach isnt feasable.
Miss P, you are correct, this approach is not feasible.
Aides will always be there.
TB is coming back for the same reason.
More on that on my next post.
Reminds me of when I was in Thailand in '63. The brass decided that, since we had the highest VD rate of any unit in the Army, they should eradicate VD in the area. We were in a compound in the middle of the jungle, so all that had to be done was restrict everyone to base for a week, run short-arm inspections, and treat everyone with a drippy dick. The first night, hordes were going over the fences to consort with the local whores. VD won the day.
this is such a tough topic for me! I wish there was a cure for AIDS but there is not one!
I lost a friend earlier this year to this disease!! So so Sad!!!
Ne.
As unlikely as it is that we'd eradicate the disease, we'd probably see a significant drop in new cases--so that's a success...and a dangerous new baseline for handling future communicable diseases. If it worked for AIDS, why not SARS or bird flu...it was once the pox, cholera, the plague...it may one day be the superbacteria we're making possible through our addiction to antibiotics. I think the moment we're willing to impose dramatic sanctions on people, regardless of the practicality, it smooths the way for reacting to our fears with little regard to human dignity & the sense of a shared investment in the outcome--which is actually what's responsible for a great deal of the attention & funding towards disease research, the pressure to act now instead of pushing something aside as a noxious trapping of poverty, perversion, or stupidity...how many people in the panic that strikes with the onset of a new epidemic would lose their humanity?
I think the people who behave as though they don't have a deadly, infectious disease are basically committing homicide or manslaughter. And still, I think our struggle to deal with that is easier, and will have a better outcome, than trying to reverse the totalitarianism that would spring from a little seed of practical disease control through identification, martial law, and segregation.
I'm with ya Mike....
Knight had a good point....maybe wear something that isn't visible just walking around but it could easily be seen if one was intimate with another.
Unless people aren't comfortable showing off 4 inch peckers
I totally agree 100% though...
Even better, for those that won't participate, we could sneak into their house at night and cattle brand their forehead with some sort of marking. Then we can just say, "Hey, we gave you a chance to do it the right way."
The rational that I've come to realize after reading all these comments, especially after reading Miss P's is that... Those men's pee pee should be cut off :) Then they won't be able to rape anymore. :P
I know. Harsh. So is branding someone who has STD.
Fashionista
By the same paint brush, you should also sew womens vagina's shut so they won't whore any more.
right?? ;)
People with AIDS are already social parriahs.
Castro did something similar to what you're suggested, in cuba obviously.
A lot of the people who have HV don't even know, so finding a way to encourage regular testing would be a good thing. Butt...
There are many folks with HIV, in loving relationships with other people. Are we going to tell two consenting adults (and I know how obsssessive you are about the rights of two consenting adults) that they can't have a relationship?
There's an interesting WEb site called:
www.loveandrespect.us
that deals with some of these subjects.
But...I'll agree with one thing you're saying: AIDS is as much of, if not more than, a social problem as it is a medical problem.
Your Sister
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