AIDS and the "miracles" of modern medicine...not so fast!?

I was speaking to a friend the other day about the research we both do in our fields, and some of what he does is tied to gene therapy.

So here we have a dilemma...create drugs and treatments for people who might live another 20 years...and they wind up infect hundreds more...creating wholesale misery on a scale unprecedented. If you think people with AIDS are willing to tell their partners and were condoms/safe sex, think again鈥?br>
NO, it's not a PC issue, but that's reality. There was a reason back in the day they quarantined people with especially infectious diseases.

We now have super-strains of Bacteria and Viruses, which have switched into high gear because we are overzealous with going to the doctor for anything wanting penicillin for the smallest of issues, or 鈥渢reatments鈥?for colds and flu鈥檚 which make us 鈥渇eel鈥?better while the virus has morphed into something that will hit much harder next time.
As a researcher in this business, the future ain't too bright.

Please don't even go there with the word..."cure". That is a pipe-dream like zero-mission anything...

Have you ever held a child who depended upon you die? I have. Once you experience it you'd change your attitude right quick.

You have a good point about strains getting stronger. Hopefully there will be a cure all soon for all those suffering and for those not a vaccine for prevention.

So the point of your.....er.....questions is:

"Don't treat any of the sick, let them die off, then we will have no need to progress medical technologies (because those who are sick are not allow to use it), and therefore have made the need for a Medical Industry useless to humanity because if the well get sick, they can't use the technology"?

Hmmmm.....interesting thought. Those Doctors and Scientists truly do earn their seven digit figures.

Despite what you may think, most of the people working toward prevention of contracting of the illness is the GLBTU community. Yes there are the select few who are stupid and evil, but most of that comes from ignorance and fear of the disease itself. i've seen some want to pass it on to their partners so they don't have to die alone. Education is what will prevent this disease from spreading. we need to educate everyone and get rid of the stigma surrounding it.

you are correct in that many people with ANY sexually transmittable decease do not tell there partners. Never just trust someone to be honest about this.....it could lead to your death.

The folks I know with HIV are practicing safer sex, only having sex with other infected people, or are abstinent. I am sorry to hear that you are having a different experience with that.

Gene therapy is very exciting stuff. Research points to AIDS becoming a chronic condition that one will have to manage, similar to how folks are able to manage their diabetes today.

Perhaps a trip to a local AIDS council might be in order for you to learn first-hand what non-heterosexuals are doing about AIDS.

Best wishes.

I guess then we would be better off going backwards to the turn of the century where there was nothing other then being able to either recuperate or die.

May I also add that the life expectancy was around 50 or less back then. Today the life expectancy is in the 70's.

All drugs are helpful and lots of people have things like diabetes who if born a century ago would die very young.

you raise a point, but under extreme false pretenses.....

1) that gay men somehow are not honest people and in fact so dishonest they will not even tell their partner they have a deadly disease.

2) that gay men are so shallow and callous that they not only would not tell their partner, but would also have sex with them, and infect them.

3) gay men are nothing but promiscious dogs and while infecting their parnter, they would be out having sex with "hundreds more" and infecting all of them.

4) gay men have never heard of condoms.

I think your "research" is completely blinded by an anti-gay bias, therefore relagating your "research" to be MEANINGLESS.

Wow so you think cures for life threatening diseases are impossible; you apparently get paid to research; you think quarantine is a better idea than research or treatment; you think all (or just some?) sick people want to infect others; on that basis, you want contemporary society to give up and sacrifice the few millions for the possible salvation of more; tell me, would you write off Africa, Asia?

Oh one more question - can you sleep at night?

Let me start by saying that I have serious reservations about you being a researcher -- or in fact any sort of academic. That is particularly fed by your seeming lack of a clear understanding of what you are talking about in the last paragraph. Not penicillin, but antibiotics is what you are referring to and, well -- neither bacteria or viruses needs to be capitalized, as neither is a proper name, rather simple classifications of microscopic objects [remember, viruses are not even considered alive by a considerable number of biologists -- but rather are regarded as nonliving infectious particles. I could go on.]

Laying aside my reservations however -- it may simply be that the Ph.D/M.D's that I know are more erudite -- and assuming that you are actually a researcher -- I find the idea that you even have an ethical dilemma based on the lines of the one that you describe to be disturbing in the extreme. If you want to advocate quarantine -- that's one thing; tacitly advocating what can only be the deliberate sabotage of research in order to increase the death toll from a disease because you do not trust either the medical and democratic system we have in place OR the victims of the disease -- that is considerably more extreme, and totally unacceptable.

I think that you have a moral responsibility to report to your superiors that this is the way you feel - using exactly the explanation that you use here. If you feel this way, frankly, you should NOT be researching in the field. Perhaps a teaching position at some university, with minimal research and publishing responsibilities would be better for everyone.

Kindest regards,

Reynolds
believeinyou24@yahoo.com

Notation from Jonathan -- While "cures" for bacteria are some distance away -- cures for viruses, like cures for cancer are much closer -- with cures for at least some viral infections being no more than five to ten years away. We understand the methods by which viruses replicate, how retroviral infection vectors function, and have a (presently) theoretical understanding of how to block that replication.

Jonathan also notes that your reference to zero missions (meaning zero emissions I presume) indicates to him that you are, rather than a researcher of anything, probably something of a conservative "hitman" -- zero emissions is one of their classic arguments for why not to bother to research lower emissions -- since you cannot reach zero [neglecting hydrogen with electrolysis of water]. That also seems, examining your argument, to be your argument here. If you are just a Right winger -- shame on you -- take your marbles and go home.