Essay on Aids Editorial

Free Aids Editorial papers

AIDS: A U.S.- Made Monster?
PREFACE In an extensive article in the Summer-Autumn 1990 issue of "Top Secret", Prof J. Segal and Dr. L. Segal outline their theory that AIDS is a man-made disease, originating at Pentagon bacteriological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. "Top Secret" is the international edition of th

AIDS AS AN INVADER
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS, is a silent invader. The first cases of this disease were reported in the early 1980’s. AIDS is caused by the infection known as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which is a microscopic organism that can grow and multiply inside living cel

AIDS is the worst case disease scenario. It is sexually transmitted and invokes almost complete conversational avoidance concerning the most intimate act. It hits young adults just as the society had completed investing in their training and before any payback can occur. It kills slowly and incurs high treatment and care costs even as the victim had time to bear two, three, even four children to be left orphaned. AIDS attacks the immune system, making it almost impossible for people in undeveloped countries to fight opportunistic disease and live to or exceed full life expectancy. Richard Holbrooke, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, calls it the world’s biggest problem.

Of the thirty-four million people around the world who are infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, nearly seventy-five percent are in Africa and will die in the next five to eight years. In some African nations, fully one-fourth of the population is infected. In surveys of seventeen African nations, more than one-half of all those aged fifteen to nineteen could not identify a single method of protecting themselves against the virus. AIDS is causing the death of many young adults. The crisis is so immense that 300,000 residents are walking around with the virus and do not know it. “Our initial reaction was public education about the disease and how it is spread,” Botswana Health Minister Joy Phumaphi says, “but that was not enough for people to initiate behavioral change.” Behavior and culture are the primary reasons AIDS is spreading like wildfire through the heterosexual community. While HIV is stigmatized because the population believes it is an indication of unacceptably loose morals, in fact the culture in many African nations openly tolerates both rampant male promiscuity and the routine exchange of sex for money by women. There is also a myth that sex with a virgin will cure a person of the disease, which leads to the rape and infection of children as young as two.

In Africa, there are complex cultural, social, economic, and political factors behind the devastating speed of this disease’s advance. Many analysts believe that the rampant spread of AIDS on the African continent is due to poverty and lack of education. Already in Uganda’s hardest...