From: dgp@venus.wustl.edu (Don Porter)
Subject: AIDS and attitudes
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis Mo.
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 04:36:15 GMT

For goodness sakes, people!!  There were ~180 articles earlier today.
I come back after five hours, and there are 120 more!  

Since this thread is careening ahead without me, I'd better drop my
two cents in now, before it gets lost in the deluge.

<1992Apr14.001357.26579@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> (Matthew A. Lewis) writes:
>> AIDS, aka side-effect of the ME generation's hedonistic lifestyle, will
>> statistically probably never be "my disease." Sure, anyone can get
>> AIDS, or any woman can get pregnant, but certain factors have HUGH
>> effects on probability.

<1992Apr14.002826.18031@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> (Keith A. Cochran) writes:
> That's exactly the attitude that's going to get you infected, MaThiEu.

No.  Attitudes do not infect people.  Viruses do.  Matthew can have 
any attitude at all; it will not cause or prevent contraction of
AIDS.  Behavior matters.  Actions matter.  Attitudes do not matter,
except as they express themselves through action and behavior.

> And why did you delete *3* lines from me saying that the CDC 
> says 60% of new HIV infections are going to occur in the Hetero 
> community?  Don't like the fact?

I'm with Matthew on this one -- I'll believe it when I see it.
I sure hope I never do see it.  I'm skeptical because of the track
record.  Let me explain.

I made an observation a few years ago that the news media followed
trends in reporting.  Certain topics are "hip" or fashionable at certain
times, and the media is filled with them.  Then the national attention
span runs out, and you hardly hear about the subject anymore.  I even
developed my own little calendar:  1989 was the year of the environment.
Came right after the big drought in 1988.  1988 was the year of drugs.
And 1987 was the year of AIDS.

AIDS stories were everywhere.  And in every AIDS story was the 
obligatory report of the CDC estimate that about 1.5 million people 
were infected with HIV, and did not realize it.

It's five years later, and WHERE ARE THOSE 1.5 MILLION NEW
CASES OF AIDS?  Yet I don't read of revised estimates on the 
number infected.  Instead I read revised estimates on the 
incubation period.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm delighted that the numbers have not
been as large as predicted.  And if exaggerating the risk
was necessary to convince people that changing their behavior
was vitally important, then maybe the publication of those
estimates worked for the best.  But as a simple matter of fact
I don't buy it; not without some more evidence.

Having said that, let me add:  It is possible the estimates 
are accurate.  It is possible that the incubation period
is longer than first believed.  The prudent thing to do is
behave as if the estimates were true, or even as if they are
low.  But assuming a worst case scenario for the sake of
prudence is not the same thing as believing the worst case
scenario is actually true.

> This message brought to you by somebody who knows too many good 
> people who are dying of AIDS, because "statistically, it'll never 
> happen to me".

I wish Matthew had not used the word "statistically."  Statistics
have little to do with it.  Fact is there are certain behaviors
which can lead to HIV infection.  If you do not engage in these 
behaviors, it is virtually impossible to become infected with HIV.

Matthew has described his behavior: monogomous sex life, no regular
blood transfusions, and I presume no IV drug use.  He's certainly
no longer at risk of catching it from his mother during delivery.
What's left?  Are you a health care worker, Matthew?  To my knowledge,
that pretty well exhausts the list.  Should he spend
his time worrying about HIV infection, or some other disease
like, say, multiple sclerosis which also attacks young people,
and he is more likely to get, yet less likely to have hordes
of famous people raising money to help fight the disease?

|   Don Porter | dgp@saturn.wustl.edu | Washington University in St Louis   |
|  "The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they     |
|   please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we       |
|___risk congratulations." -- Edmund Burke._________________________________|
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