AIDS Super Strain

[Lil Red]

if there was a 'killer' strain of AIDS, that there was no medicine to slow the progression, should those who contract it be quarantined (like they used to do if someone had TB)? so as to not infect others and kill more people?

[indescribable]

what use would there be? aids is not spread like TB.

that's like saying if someone got a bad strain of herpes they should be shut off from the outside world. granted herpes doesn't kill people, but its a sexually transmitted disease.

[Sojourner]

I think a quarantine wouldn't happen for the reasons indescribable states. More likely (although still not VERY likely) would be some sort of identification by which potential partners would be able to know the risk before engaging in certain behaviors ... a chip, a tattoo, etc.

Whether that identification should happen or not ... I don't know. I would hope people would be responsible enough to disclose their illness to a potential partner before endangering the partner. But we all know this doesn't always happen. I think now there are criminal consequences in some places for people who don't disclose that they have HIV/AIDS; I'd assume the same types of law would be in place and would be as effective given the new illness.

[homeschoolmom]

I cannot imagine that a quarentine would be taken seriously in this political climate. Even if the AIDS virus were passed through casual contact, there is no way the government or its health angencies would be able to quarentine people without horrible backlash.

[jezic]

if there were a strain of the virus that could transfer in other means than sexual contact, yes.

[Winchester]

Yes. Should have instituted quarantine in the early stages of the disease, anyway. It's 100% fatal, many victims have shown an unwillingness to avoid activities which may infect others. TB patients are no longer quarantined. Hep C patients aren't either, and Hep C is much easier to contract than HIV.

AIDS is no spread solely through sexual contact. And all sexual contact is not consensual. Rapists infected with any form of STD should be executed.

[indescribable]

any form of STD? wow i think that's getting a little happy with the electric chair. getting executed for giving a bad case of crabs is a bit debatable.

a lot of straight people have AIDS too. a huge percentage in Africa have it (in case you haven't been listening to news for the last couple of years). did you know there are ways now to make sure it isn't passed on to the child? i think they just don't have enough money or equipment to impliment that in Africa.

that's where and sort of what i want to do for a couple of years after college graduation- help children in Africa who are dealing with AIDS and other diseases.

[Aloysius]

notice he said rapists. execute them for their crime of rape and their threat to society that we do not have sufficient resources to contain.

he didn't say "straight" people didn't have it. he said it should have been quarenteened from the start, and he is right. when someone has a fatal and spreadable disease, they should not be left with any chance to spread that disease to the general public. it is the "sexual liberation" climate that made it not happen that way.

[Era Might]

Bring back the leper colonies!

[Sojourner]

[quote name='indescribable' post='1004417' date='Jun 13 2006, 12:48 AM']
any form of STD? wow i think that's getting a little happy with the electric chair. getting executed for giving a bad case of crabs is a bit debatable.

a lot of straight people have AIDS too. a huge percentage in Africa have it (in case you haven't been listening to news for the last couple of years). did you know there are ways now to make sure it isn't passed on to the child? i think they just don't have enough money or equipment to impliment that in Africa.

that's where and sort of what i want to do for a couple of years after college graduation- help children in Africa who are dealing with AIDS and other diseases.
[/quote]
There's a great obscure documentary about AIDS in Swaziland, [url="http://www.chronicleproject.org/"]Dear Francis[/url]. Heartbreaking.

[jezic]

separating people from society won't solve the problems that aids presents. As long as it is spread through sexual contact this is unnecessary as well. The whole idea of leper colonies is a bit strange, but i think it was contagious and they didn't want to risk the infection of others. Aids isn't like that.

(to some others)
Please don't make this into a disease thread about sexual orientation. There are plenty of people all over the world who have aids. Diseases tend not to discriminate. In the US things are a bit strange because there is a group of people who actively seek to be infected with AIDS as some sort of sadistic initiation ritual, but that is a minority group of the total aids population.
---

Part of the problem as aloysius stated is that our culture today doesn't recognize the root issues behind spreading aids, or at least doesn't want to address them. If people lived in the monogamous relationships as the Church teaches and didn't have casual sex, for the most part the disease would be gone in a generation.

[Azriel]

Let us not forget, that while sexual contact may indeed be the leading cause of the spread of AIDS, it is not the only. The problem of intravenous drug use is of concern as well. Turning AIDS into only a "sexual" disease will not in the end help us to fight its spread.

[jezic]

very true as well. Is aids as prevalent in the drug communities?

[ironmonk]

[quote name='Azriel' post='1005554' date='Jun 14 2006, 01:17 PM']
Let us not forget, that while sexual contact may indeed be the leading cause of the spread of AIDS, it is not the only. The problem of intravenous drug use is of concern as well. Turning AIDS into only a "sexual" disease will not in the end help us to fight its spread.
[/quote]


Most people who get it is due to their own fault...

...drugs and/or sex.

If people stopped having premarital sex, HIV would die out. The majority of the cases are from sex. Very few people get it from sharing needles because needles are cheap and often free.

Those who do drugs often do sex acts for drugs... so many times they might think they got it from a needle but they got it from having sex. I know lots of druggies, the lifestyle many lead are like pagan Romans... something right out of the Conan the Barbarian movie.

Everyone knows that there are other ways, but the way it is mostly spread is through sex. So much so that it dwarfs the other reasons.

I do not think that anyone has forgotten this.

Yes there are innocents that get it, which is sad. If people only covered the sexual spread of it and people actually listened and stopped having pre-marital sex the spreading of HIV/AIDS would stop and the virus would go extinct within 15 years.

The reason most people get it is because of sex. Maybe 1 in 10,000 is drug use. There are not that many heroin/meth addicts in the world compared to how many people are sleeping around.

Everyone who preaches safe sex with condoms has blood on their hands. Condoms do not protect from AIDS... Condoms protect people from AIDS as much as a wetsuit protects someone from a bullet.

Let's not forget how most people spread AIDS. Let's not forget that because we can't obey God we have brought this on ourselves.

[indescribable]

i don't think we should cut off young children who have inherited it from a parent, or the numerous african women who are raped each year.

these people have a treatable disease. we don't quarantine everyone who has the cold becuz some old people might die from the common cold. now only education can stop the spread of aids.

i wouldn't take the rest of someone's short life away by shutting them off from everyone. maybe i'd persuade them to cut out their sex life, but otherwise that's mean.

[MichaelF]

In the West, the HIV virus is primarily a lifestyle-based vector. I.e. risky behaviour allows the virus to be transmitted. Monogamy (on both sides, folks!), avoidance of recreational IV drugs (persons in the grip of a heroin binge are less likely to refuse to share a needle, etc), knowing the recent sexual history of your partner, are all effective prophylaxis when dealing with HIV in a 1st World country.

In other words, the Church is right. Monogamy and chastity are 100% effective.

In Africa and Central/South Asia, it's spread both through lifestyle -and- through "secondaries" (rape, bad medical sanitation, etc), compounded by superstition and misinformation. In West Africa, it's poosible (still being -hotly- debated) that the original vector (a jump between chimpanzees and humans) is still active, generating a small number of new infections.

If you are an American (or German, etc..) and you got infected* after 1990 (when the blood supply was finally decontaminated), YOU are the culprit. Risky behaviour is not advised.

*-Not counting medical and police personnel. They are at risk in the line of duty.

Edited June 14, 2006 by MichaelF

[Aloysius]

it's too late to quarentine the whole aids pandemic now. I was merely supporting that point that it should have been done at the beginning.

[djc08]

[quote]AIDS is no spread solely through sexual contact. And all sexual contact is not consensual. Rapists infected with any form of STD should be executed. [/quote]

I'm sorry but this isn't a "Church Scholarly" kind of attitude to have.

Edit: I mean yes rapists are horrible and that's bad but to say someone should be killed is not our place to decide.

Edited June 16, 2006 by djc08

[Azriel]

[quote name='ironmonk' post='1005571' date='Jun 14 2006, 11:32 AM']
Most people who get it is due to their own fault...

...drugs and/or sex.

If people stopped having premarital sex, HIV would die out. The majority of the cases are from sex. Very few people get it from sharing needles because needles are cheap and often free.

Those who do drugs often do sex acts for drugs... so many times they might think they got it from a needle but they got it from having sex. I know lots of druggies, the lifestyle many lead are like pagan Romans... something right out of the Conan the Barbarian movie.

Everyone knows that there are other ways, but the way it is mostly spread is through sex. So much so that it dwarfs the other reasons.

I do not think that anyone has forgotten this.

Yes there are innocents that get it, which is sad. If people only covered the sexual spread of it and people actually listened and stopped having pre-marital sex the spreading of HIV/AIDS would stop and the virus would go extinct within 15 years.

The reason most people get it is because of sex. Maybe 1 in 10,000 is drug use. There are not that many heroin/meth addicts in the world compared to how many people are sleeping around.

Everyone who preaches safe sex with condoms has blood on their hands. Condoms do not protect from AIDS... Condoms protect people from AIDS as much as a wetsuit protects someone from a bullet.

Let's not forget how most people spread AIDS. Let's not forget that because we can't obey God we have brought this on ourselves.
[/quote]


I'm going to assume that this was not directly attributed to me, but for the record, I did not say that AIDS isn't primarily transmitted sexually - I just truly believe that declaring AIDS a "sexual" disease does the fight against it a disservice. Truly, monogamy - obeying God's Law, is what is needed. However, we cannot, and should not forget that this is a communicable disease ... one that is communicable through other means.

That is all I was trying to say.

[Aloysius]

[quote]I'm sorry but this isn't a "Church Scholarly" kind of attitude to have.[/quote]

why not? rapists have committed a grave crime which has forfeited their right to life. the state has full authority to execute grave criminals when it cannot protect society from them sufficiently by non-lethal means. it cannot protect society from a rapist with an STD sufficiently, in my humble opinion.

[quote]2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. [/quote]