Health authorities have uncovered an alarming surge in resistance to crucial HIV drugs.
Surveys by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal that, in the past 4 years, 12 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas have surpassed acceptable levels of drug resistance against two drugs that constitute the backbone of HIV treatment: efavirenz and nevirapine.
There is much weeping and wailing about this fact, with much speculation as to why it's happening. And not one single mention of the most obvious reasons:
The vast majority of people who contract HIV/AIDS do so through risky behaviors. Promiscuous sex and IV drugs. Giving people the anti-virals doesn't automatically stop the risky behavior. And that's not even touching the fact that these people have contracted a virus that is known for mutating rapidly enough that the human body can't keep up with it.
Drug-resistant HIV is around for the same reason that drug-resistant gonorrhea is around: Because people refuse to modify their behavior in order to avoid catching the disease. And it will eventually catch up and kill them, and all I will be able to say is "Well, sucks to be you, doesn't it?" Gonorrhea, like AIDS, is not non-selective. It's very selective. It's not airborne. You cannot catch it from a toilet seat. You can't get it from being around an infected person. You have to engage in a swap of body fluids with an infected person, and those activities that would transmit the disease are well known and highly researched. And if people once again start dying from these diseases, well... it's a horrible death, and I wouldn't want to die that way. But I'm not sticking my willie into anything that moves, either. In fact, I'm monogamous with my wife, and she's monogamous with me, which means the chance of either of us coming down with any STD is zero. We will never catch AIDS, we will never catch gonorrhea, we won't have the clap, we won't have syphilis. That's how it works.
Which means we will not be contributing to the drug-resistance of HIV. Because we don't engage in those behaviors.
2 comments:
You are of course, right on with this post. And you of course, would be tarred and feathered if you were to say this in the wrong company. It is not politically correct to expect someone to actually change their behavior, because to do so would be to force them to accept the fact that they are responsible for their own pain, and injuries, etc.
As to the monogamous part of your comment, I have been married twice. I have had sex with exactly 2 different people in my life, and don't expect to change.
When I see people write about telling their significant others how many sexual partners they have had in their lives, it just seems so foreign to me. I mean, to have to tell your fiance that you have been with 8 other women, or to tell your future husband that you have slept with 5 men besides them, I can't even consider it. I know, I am not a typical sort, and I married young for a man, and was divorced for 3 years, and then married my 2nd wife. But it seems no different than having someone say, hey, there is a hole in that wall there. Stick your willie in it, it will feel good. And you go and do so, without a care, or a worry. Even before AIDS, we knew about other nasty STD's that could kill you in horrible ways.
Free love, etc. of the 60's, did not turn out to be so free, I guess.
My mom, who attended high school in the 60's in Virginia, could not recall a single person in their school who had an STD.
Now, 1 in 4 high school students have an STD.
That sexual revolution has come round to bite people good and hard, all so that perverts and freaks could get access to the Cult of the Almighty Orgasm. And we are all far, far worse for it.
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