George Will On The Struggle To Contain AIDS

June 5, 2006 -- "In the period October 1980-May 1981, five young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at three different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died."

- Ctrs. for Disease Control
June 5, 1981

THOSE words 25 years ago announced the arrival of something most Americans thought anachronistic - an infectious-disease epidemic. At first it was called GRID - gay-related immune deficiency. In September 1982, CDC renamed it acquired immune-deficiency syndrome - AIDS.
Its worldwide toll has already exceeded the 20 million killed by the 14th- century bubonic plague. By 2020, it probably will have killed more than has any epidemic in history, with most fatalities in sub-Saharan Africa, where it probably began about 75 years ago after some people who ate wild chimpanzees in Cameroon became infected with a low-virulence progenitor of the virus that causes AIDS."

Um, sure, George, okay. Monkey-brain pate had been going on for thousands of years but in one swell foop a contagion was contained within. Sure. ALL virus and bacterium are in-your-face proof of evolution, but I really don't think that eating monkeys was what suddenly caused the AIDS epidemic. But let's let George limp on:

"The 14th-century Black Death killed one-third of Europe's population, but it was in the air, food and water, so breathing, eating and drinking were risky behaviors. AIDS is much more difficult to acquire. Like other large components of America's health-care costs (e.g., violence, vehicular accidents, coronary artery disease, lung cancer), AIDS is mostly the result of behavior that is by now widely known to be risky.

The U.S. epidemic, which so far has killed 530,000, could have been greatly contained by intense campaigns to modify sexual and drug-use behavior in 25 to 30 neighborhoods from New York and Miami to San Francisco.

But early in the American epidemic, political values impeded public-health requirements. Unhelpful messages were sent by slogans designed to democratize the disease - "AIDS does not discriminate" and "AIDS is an equal-opportunity disease."

Back in the grand old days of the Black Death...and I'm surprised we can even refer to it that way, as opposed to a more politically correct version such as the Non-White Death...the way to cure such afflictions was to pray, then pray some more. Yes, the dead were burned when possible but houses of worship were chockerblock with parishioners clutching money and gifts in an attempt to bribe the deity of their choice into bestowing the blessing of health upon them. Not that many modern day proponents of divine intervention are less dogmatic in their presumption of the powers of prayer, but it takes a rare individual to turn down a vaccine in favor of beseechment, thus assuring their biological right to propagate, an imperative superceding even the belief of invisible men living in the clouds. And yes, I digress, but how better to piss off the Pat Robertson-types?

Click the headline link for the full scoop from George.