The long-term survivors of HIV infection have all abandoned the gay lifestyle. But one mustn't say this. The soft landing for AIDS patients is like the lifestyle soft landing devised for patients with cardiovascular disease, cancer and other conditions. The recommended dietary regimen for cardiovascular disease seems stern to patients when they encounter it. But it is pampering compared with the regimen that the naturopath imposes.
Conventional medicine is more user-friendly.
It was not doctors but alcoholics who devised the total abstinence solution for alcohol dependence. Then stop drinking. The treatment for syphilis , a common STD, is low-tech, unpatented, inexpensive antibiotics. The treatment for AIDS as a viral disease requires high-tech, toxic, costly drugs that are at best palliative and at worst lethal. Fancy drugs, high cost, and death enhance medical mystique.