Current Perceptions of HIV

[gravitas]

Am watching Global National and there poll of the day is IMO very interesting and given the nature of PERB quite applicable. Needless to say that Global's focus on the topic is as a result of the 2006 AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Will be interesting to see the results on PERB and how they compare to those from Global's poll.

 

[afterplay]

Am watching Global National and there poll of the day is IMO very interesting and given the nature of PERB quite applicable. Needless to say that Global's focus on the topic is as a result of the 2006 AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Will be interesting to see the results on PERB and how they compare to those from Global's poll.

Your poll question is leading. I don't see how anyone would be comfortable saying they're HIV positive. Still, I could see mentioning it to those who need to know, albeit with some difficulty. After making disclosure to loved ones, how about not wanting to bring up HIV in conversation with those who don't need to know?

 

[Bartdude]

Seems to me society has not progressed at all with regards to this disease. I also saw, with interest, the new ads running in B.C. to try and counter the prejudice, ignorance, and callousness that still exists against HIV+ people.

While we have advanced to the stage where people are finally starting to believe that it's not just a gay disease....those living with HIV are clearly ostracized to the back of the bus of society. HIV is no longer a physical death sentence - but from what I can see, the social death is as certain as it was 25 years ago.

 

[xoxo Amie]

Your poll question is leading. I don't see how anyone would be comfortable saying they're HIV positive.

BUMP BUMP BUMP

& I think the topic is a good one but I have to agree that how the poll question is posed is leading.

Despite coming so far with public education, the stigma of HIV is still very real.

I hope to think the average person would act responsibly in informing the relavent people in their lives.

*not to hijack this thread but as a sidebar, this topic of responsibility is brought up the nurse when we SP's go get tested for HIV

 

[rat_fink]

Origins of AIDS

CBC broadcast a documentary called "The Origins of AIDS".
I love a good conspiracy theory, and this ones a duezy.
The premise is HIV came from SIV (ie chimpanzees) and in 1959 there was a race to develop a polio vaccine. Researchers in the then Belgian Congo used ground up monkey parts to culture the polio vaccine and thus the transmission from monkeys to humans.

The ethical and legal dillemmas are mind boggling. Also interesting is that most of the researchers are still alive. The journalist interviewed some of them, some initially admitted this was true, then everyone denied it.

I remember when I first became aware of the idea that HIV was transmitted from monkeys to humans and saying something like "what pervert would have sex with a monkey". If this theory is true, and it rings true, I'm ashamed of my ignorance today.

 

[BigBlue]

CBC broadcast a documentary called "The Origins of AIDS".
The premise is HIV came from SIV (ie chimpanzees)

Yeah, rf, I just watched that one, too. the SIV/HIV connection seems reasonable, if not certain. It seems that the virus mutated/crossed over between species in some way, either through cultures grown on chimp tissue, through natives butchering and consuming chimps for food, or some other means. It puts one in mind of the current "bird flu" and mad cow dilemmas, both diseases mutating/crossing over between species, much the same as SIV/HIV....it all seems to serve as more than a cautionary tale of the perils of encroaching/"monkeying" with (pun intended) the natural environment?!?

 

[rickoshadows]

The common green monkey, which is tagged as the origin, is also a common garden pest in much of Africa, which will scratch and bite smaller women and children working in the fields. This is also considered a possible route of transmission.

 

[LonelyGhost]

The common green monkey, which is tagged as the origin, is also a common garden pest in much of Africa, which will scratch and bite smaller women and children working in the fields. This is also considered a possible route of transmission.

sorry, but that's wrong: turns out the green monkey is not a carrier of
the SIV, but it is common in chimps ...

the guy who wrote the article for Rolling Stone had his whole article
trashed by the scientific community for saying the virus is carried
by the green monkey.