Waxman letter to Bush re African AIDS
Letter to President Bush from Rep. Henry Waxman re AIDS medicine for Africa:
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_health_hiv_drug_standards_botswana_march_26_let.pdf
Bi-Polar Bear wrote:dlowan wrote:I have a considerable bosom - NOW do I win?
link please.......
I'm sure that i can safely speak for the Bear, as well as myself, when i say that we consider any woman's bosom worthy of consideration. To prove this, and to demonstrate our disinterested and completely objective dedication to the quatifying of boobies (only in the public interest, mind you), i invite you ladies to PM me or the Bear with pix or links to your personal web sites so that we are enabled to offer good adivce to inquiring minds . . .
(Hey, Bear, you gotta share . . . )
dlowan wrote:We have a cold snap here - it is s cold that the flashers are jumping out from bhind the bushes and describing themselves...
Do I win the silly prize?
That's a very funny joke!
set, to someone with no sense of irony (though there likely aren't any of those around), that just might be a violation of the TOS.
Tarantulas wrote:Sex education reduces AIDS, and most Africans have less sex education than Americans, so the higher African AIDS rates are due to their lack of sex education. (Americans have lower STD rates than Africans and a person is more easily infected with AIDS when they have an STD.)
Good point, and it fits nicely with mine: the US didn't suddenly start having better sexual education (or safer sexual practices overall) when we learned of AIDS, there was already a HUGE difference in sexual behavior and norms between the two populations BEFORE AIDS.
That difference led to different outcomes in the spread of the disease.
what's his name's claims are ridiculous, but let me point out one thing:
Aids is given attention mostly because it effects specific groups more than others: homosexuals and Africans. These are both groups in the limelight of American recognition in this time period. Yes, Aids is bad. However, we pay more attention to aids than a lot of diseases that kill a greater number of people. Why? Because aids is highly controversial because of the populations it targets.
Aids stats
Disease
Research Funding
Annual Deaths
Funds per Death
AIDS
$1,950,000,000
45,000
$43,333
Cancer
$1,810,000,000
518,000
$3,494
Heart Disease
$708,000,000
760,000
$932
Diabetes
$295,000,000
36,000
$8,194
Alzheimer's
$243,000,000
100,000
$2,430
(Figures taken from the Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress)
http://www.afec.org/issues/homosexuality/aids.htm
this helpful chart
As you can see, aids gets much more funding per death than many other more devastating causes.
Scrat wrote:
Good point, and it fits nicely with mine: the US didn't suddenly start having better sexual education (or safer sexual practices overall) when we learned of AIDS, there was already a HUGE difference in sexual behavior and norms between the two populations BEFORE AIDS. That difference led to different outcomes in the spread of the disease.
Yes, there was a big difference between first world behavior and third world behavior prior to AIDS. First worlders simply have more education and this is inevitable.
But don't discount the difference AIDS made. Many ignored the other STDs because it wouldn't kill ya.
Herpes just didn't have the same Russion Roulette scare that AIDS did.
AIDS brought fundamental changes to the hippy "free love" culture that herpes was not able to.
Scrat wrote:Tarantulas wrote:Sex education reduces AIDS, and most Africans have less sex education than Americans, so the higher African AIDS rates are due to their lack of sex education. (Americans have lower STD rates than Africans and a person is more easily infected with AIDS when they have an STD.)
Good point, and it fits nicely with mine: the US didn't suddenly start having better sexual education (or safer sexual practices overall) when we learned of AIDS, there was already a HUGE difference in sexual behavior and norms between the two populations BEFORE AIDS.
That difference led to different outcomes in the spread of the disease.
Scrat, as someone who was in the public education system in the 1980s, your claim that AIDS did not impact sex education is simply not true. It was, in fact, the primary focus of my sex education classes.
We actually had an AIDS talk from one of the Student Health people in my Freshman Comp class at the U of Wyoming in 1985. Condoms were also available in the lobbys of the residence halls beginning that year. Granted, no one used them, but they were available.
Portalstar,
Aids is the only disease on that list that is communicable, which would justify the heavy dollars spent on prevention.
I'm willing to bet that every dollar spent on AIDS education probably offers substantially more savings than a dollar spent on any of the other diseases listed.
Same here.
And Portal Star, I think that's a pretty simplistic summary of why AIDS gets attention. It gets attention for a number of reasons, including the shameful history (Reagan utterly ignoring it), and the fact that it is NEW and therefore there is a lot of hope for an actual cure. Then, once we get into the area of cure, there is the fact that there are (very expensive) treatments that keep the symptoms at bay for a good long time; rich Americans get those and live (seen how hale and hearty Magic Johnson is looking?) and poor Africans (and poor Americans) don't get them and die.
There are just many, many levels to why AIDS gets attention. Lots of flashpoints for one disease; homosexuality, sexuality in general, class (rich/poor), medical advances, etc., etc., etc.
Good point, Jer, about communicable.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disease
AIDS
Incurable, highly contagious, treatment has severe side effects.
Cancer
Group of disease syndromes, various causes, some preventable,some neoplastic disease syndromes curable, most threapy carries horrible side effects.
Heart Disease
Again, group of disease syndromes, many self induced, often responsive to lifestyle changes, frequently "curable" with available threapeautic regimens.
Diabetes
As above.
Alzheimer's
Incurable, final diagnosis only at autopsy.
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Also, HIV has the potential to mutate to more virulent forms.
Quote:AIDS brought fundamental changes to the hippy "free love" culture that herpes was not able to.
...wailing...pounding fists on table
So far the only thing exposed here is a virulent homophobia.
(When will they come up with a cure for that?)
hobitbob wrote:We actually had an AIDS talk from one of the Student Health people in my Freshman Comp class at the U of Wyoming in 1985. Condoms were also available in the lobbys of the residence halls beginning that year. Granted, no one used them, but they were available.
See, by the time I was off to college (1993), you wouldn't get anywhere with a girl without a jim hat around, we'd been so thoroughly indoctrinated. In the circles I was in, behavior had absolutely been influenced by education, which in turn had been profoundly shaped by HIV. But maybe my experience (in California) was atypical...
