Ed (imported) wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:44 am
Thats an interesting statement A-1. I am certain that I neither have HIV, had small pox, or have any natural immunity to either. And dispite the rampent sex of the early 80's, 90's and 00's and a little in the late 70's, I am not now nor have I ever been, dead. I also hope that you are not suggesting that any of the dead deserved it. I believe that anyone who would knowingly infect an unsuspecting person should be more than castrated.
Ed
Ed,
Of course not. However, the attitude that Gay people infected people with callous disregard is not completely fair or accurate. You have to understand the socialization of this population sub-group.
The Gay community of the 1970's and early 1980's attitude was that it was their right to have Gay sex as often as they wanted and with as many people as they wanted. Some Gay men were having from 1000 - (yes, go figure) 2,200 partners a year. Their medical records revealed that the more partners that they had the more their medical charts looked like an encyclopedia of veneral disease. The prevalent attitude was, "Oh, the clap, pleeese! just go to the doctor, get treated and you will be good to go some more after you are well." At first they thought that veneral disease could never kill you in the day and age in which they were living. This was a deadly and wrong attitude and it killed many people, and not all of them were Gay...
In addition, hepatitis was rampant and in the midst of the HIV epidemic 90% of the HIV positive Gay men were also infected with hepatitis. It was well-known that screening for hepatitis in the blood banking system could also prevent HIV infection. Why wasn't it done? Well, it was deemed too expensive to do the testing...
Read all about it. (
http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/papers/ts.pdf)
This was hush-hushed REAL fast...because of this, 90% of the hemophiliacs in AMerica were infected with HIV through using Factor 6. It took the biproducts of over 3000 units of blood to make 1 unit of Factor 6. The Gay community in big cities were civic-minded and young and they donated lots of blood to the Red Cross Blood Banks. As a result, virtually ALL of the factor 6 given to hemophiliacs during the AIDS crisis was infected with HIV.
SO, if you want to bitch about people infecting other people, Ed, go find Karl Bove who made the decision not to screen blood for hepatitis anti-bodies during the HIV crisis.
The poor Gay men didn't know any better. The medical community should have. ANd, God rest his soul, Ronald Reagan with his homo-phobic attitude and righteous right backing blamed the AIDS crisis on it's victims when he said...
On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: "How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons."
Find it here. (
http://www.actupny.org/reports/reagan.html)
So, Ed, with all do respect, putting people with AIDs in prison is tantamount to reducing the
kristoff wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:10 pm
correctional system to a Leper Colony. Even today.
I suspect that some of us were just plain friggin lucky not to have contracted HIV or died.
If things were as simple as an issue of smallpox, I suspect we would be out in
fecting everyone with it as a cure to the pandemic
I hold the research being done in Brigham Young University in Utah with deep distrust due to their religious affiliation. They have a bias. I would suspect that the immunity to HIV virus arises from a natural selection type process of a perfectly natural genetic trait difference in humanity.
It is just a coincidence that the bacillus that causes the Bubonic plague (black death) and the HIV virus both target the T-Helper Cells and both use a similar enzyme to break down the cell membrane. This, in my estimation, is what gives the immunity. The CD-4 molecules in some individuals are either completely immune or significantly resistant to the infection process and this allows the natural immunity of the human body of these lucky individuals to eradicate the HIV virus because it cannot infect at a rate fast enough to weaken the immune system. In some cases, as I said, infection of certain individuals is impossible.
It is possible that you might be such an individual. If you want to help, contact the
Arron Diamond Foundation (
http://www.adarc.org/about/history-irenediamond.htm) and see if you could possibly assist their research.
However, I want to say this to any individual who thinks that they participated in the rampant sexuality of those days and that they may have infected individuals with HIV. IF you have a natural immunity, not only can you NOT get the HIV infection, but you CANNOT pass a disease that you do not have to another individual.
If this though is giving you a castration complex, making you feel that you should have yourself castrated as some sort of retribution, you need to seek a professional therapist. Your guilt is unfounded.
A-1
A-1 
