AIDS has been blown far out of proportion. Not only does it not lead to a huge number of deaths (and it is good to bear in mind that AIDS does not actually kill anyone...it's the opportunistic infections that pile on and do the actual damage) but it is possibly the single most preventable disease in the history of humankind.

The vast majority of transmissions can/could be prevented by (hold on to your hat) not having sex until marriage.

Oh, and don't forget...HIV/AIDS is not a disease, it is a disability. (No, seriously. Go look it up.)

Tom, it's both. Any debilitating chronic diease is considered a disability under the ADA.
But preventable epidemics are nothing new. 25% of American men of draft age were found unfit for military service in 1917 because of Syphillus(sp?).
So, were you and your wife both virginal when you married? Or are you simply being sanctimonious? Or both?

The parallel with Syphilis is correct, however, my own activities and marital status are not relevant to a discussion based on facts. To be more clear, the validity of my conclusions are in no way a function of my sanctimoniousness, or lack thereof.

I believe I am correct that HIV/AIDS is given a special designation under law, which sets it apart from other communicable diseases. Since it is considered a disability, it is unlawful to discriminate against someone with HIV/AIDS.

While that sounds great, the upshot is that if a health care provider (HPC) knows that a patient is HIV+ and decides to double glove (while only using a single layer of gloves on other patients) that HPC is guilty of discrimination. Additionally, a patient is under no obligation to inform his/her HPC of his/her HIV status, but a HIV+ HPC is prohibited from practicing.

If I'm wrong, by all means let me know.

Considering the reality that barebacking (anal sex without a condom) is creeping back into gay and bi culture, I would expect to see a rise in those numbers in the next few years. Because of those numbers you cite, Aaron, there's a whole new generation coming along that mistakenly believes the AIDS/HIV threat has passed and/or is no more dangerous or lethal than contracting HSVII.

[Does it surprise you?]

A figure like this reported at lifelikepundits?? No, this doesn't surprse me at all. This is what I've come to expect as the standard for fact checking among the pundits. In other words, no fact checking at all.

Since HIV/AIDS surveillence is one of the things that I do in my job, I immediately questioned your cumulative figure of 14,000 HIV deaths over the last 25 years, which is 4,000 deaths less than CDC reported for the year 2003 alone. If this ridiculously low figure were true, my tiny jurisdiction would account for 27% of all of the HIV deaths in United States. Not very likely in the buckle of the bible belt.

I satisfied myself by following the blogger's link to the "world fact book" and found that no where on the page does it say that those numbers are cumulative for the last 25 years. Those are single year figures for all of those countries. The 14,000 deaths reported for the U.S. closely matches the single year figure of 14,092 published by CDC for 2002, so I would hazzard a guess that the factbook figure represents that one year.

The cummulative total of deaths among people with AIDS in the U.S. since we recognized the condition in the 1980's is 524,060. A mere 37 fold over the number reported in this blog.

For factual information on HIV deaths see Centers for Disease Control at:

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats.htm

[If a health care provider (HPC) knows that a patient is HIV+ and decides to double glove (while only using a single layer of gloves on other patients) that HPC is guilty of discrimination.]

That is just not true. Universal precautions are something that we are required to do and there is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, that bars us from double gloving when we are aware of a case of HIV. We do it in the HIV clinic ALL OF TIME and it is in fact a written protocol for known HIV patients in this agency. Now, if I told an HIV positive patient that I would not treat him/her because of the HIV or if I told that patient that I would only treat him in a hospital setting instead of in the clinic where everyone else is treated, that would be a violation of the Disabilities act.

[AIDS has been blown far out of proportion. (It does) not lead to a huge number of deaths]

I can't believe the ignorance exhibited by this statement. Take a look at the factbook and you will see that in just ONE YEAR the total number of deaths in the top 15 counties was over 2 million people a year. What figure do you need to get to before you consider it a huge number of deaths?

Before we had drugs to treat HIV, the HIV infection was a death sentence. The first year that I worked with HIV patients, my clinic had 226 patients with full blown AIDS. Two years later, 200 of that group were dead. During those years HIV was in the top ten causes of death in the U.S. Then we started getting some drugs to treat the patients with and getting some community education on the problem and around 1997 AIDS dropped out of the top 15. Last year it was 24th in the U.S. but it is a top killer in a number of countries and still a significant threat in the United States.

AIDS is blown out of proportion my hind foot.

Yes, Tom. Your marital status and previous activities are relevent. You very snarkily opined that AIDS is totally preventable if people just abstain from sex until and unless they are married. If you weren't a virgin until you were married or are not 100% faithful to your spouse, then I'd like to ask what those people who got HIV were doing that you weren't.
And Keith has pretty much covered wheither anything you have to say is based upon facts.

I think global AIDS policy is not enough because we failed to control HIV/AIDS virus. We want to more & more struggle to control of HIV/AIDS virus.

I think global AIDS policy is not enough because we failed to control HIV/AIDS virus. We want to more & more struggle to control of HIV/AIDS virus.