Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 20:31:15 EDT
From:         Mike Fessler <MIKEF@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: How to Defeat Aids

>  Aside from blood transfusions, I think that the way to defeat Aids
>is to encourage people to discontinue a promiscuous lifestyle and to
>make abstinence in vogue.

It's instructive to look at previous examples of sexually transmitted
disease epidemics in American history -- they tend to prove your claim
false, not because it's morally unsound but because it doesn't work in
real life.

During the First World War, the social outlook toward syphilis was one of
moral outrage, ostracism, and punishment. For example, in the U.S. Army
during WWI, condoms were not distributed; soldiers contracting the
disease were subject to disciplinary action; rhetoric focussed around
abstinence, disgrace, and shame. The syphilis rate soared.

During WWII, governmental policy changed sharply. The Army distributed
condoms through the PX. Soldiers were instructed on their use; and
contracting an STD was treated as a medical, not a disciplinary problem.
The syphilis rate plummeted like a stone.

(I can locate the source of this information upon request -- I have
a photocopy of the article stashed in the attic of a house 500 miles
away, but I can probably obtain a reference...)

> As for education, since sex ed has been
>introduced into the schools the rate of diseases and teen pregnancies
>have increased.

Ah, ah, ah -- correlation does not equal causation. Why do you think
sex ed. was introduced, anyway? Perchance to fight growing problems
with pregnancy and disease?

>Also, there is no protection against Aids even from a
>condom.
Geez, I bet all those epidemiological studies showing vastly reduced
rates of HIV transmission with condom use must be lies, huh? Probably
part of the liberal conspiracy.

> The Aids virus is one fifth the size of the smallest hole in
>any condom.

Yeah, but HIV doesn't just float on through empty space. Try filling a
condom with water...do you see it leaking? Water molecules are a couple
(at least) orders of magnitude smaller than HIV virions... On that sort
of scale, surface tension and other small-scale molecular interactions
play a big role. Incidentally, there's also some evidence that naked HIV
particles are not nearly as hazardous as certain cells from an infected
host (T4 lymphocytes, for example). You're also ignoring the viricidal
effect of many spermicides that most condoms are packaged with.

>  As for women, they do have choices.  They can choose not to have
>sex, and they can choose not to have sex with someone that will not
>wear a condom.

I thought you just said that no condom will protect against AIDS...

>On a national level we need to treat Aids like any other
>epidemic, for example TB.  Until this is done the whole nation is in
>danger.  Aids needs to be treated like other diseases that are just as
>deadly.

Wholeheartedly agreed. For example, we need to stop comparing infectious
(nay, epidemic) diseases to noncommunicable ones such as heart disease
and (most) cancers.  The current mortality rate for an epidemic is
almost meaningless compared with it's exponential increase.

This also means that we need to stop judging people with AIDS on a
moral basis. Our society rarely, for example, condemns TB or influenza
victims. To successfully combat the disease, we need to treat it as
a medical problem, not a way to push our own moral agendas.
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