How Has Aids Affected Our Society Essay
While the free essays can give you inspiration for writing, they cannot be used 'as is' because they will not meet your assignment's requirements. If you are in a time crunch, then you need a custom written term paper on your subject (how has aids affected our society)
Here you can hire an independent writer/researcher to custom write you an authentic essay to your specifications that will pass any plagiarism test (e.g. Turnitin). Waste no more time!
How has AIDS affected our Society?
Today more Americans are infected with STD's than at any other time in history. The most serious of these diseases is AIDS. Since
the first cases were identified in the United States in 1981, AIDS has touched the lives of millions of American families. This deadly
disease is unlike any other in modern history. Changes in social behavior can be directly linked to AIDS. Its overall effect on society has
been dramatic.
It is unknown whether AIDS and HIV existed and killed in the U.S. and North America before the early 1970s. However in the early
1980s, "deaths by opportunistic infections, previously observed mainly in tissue-transplant recipients receiving immunosuppressive
therapy", were recognized in otherwise healthy homosexual men. In 1983 French oncologist Luc Montagnier and scientists at the Pasteur
Institute in Paris isolated what appeared to be a new human retrovirus from the lymph node of a man at risk for having AIDS. At the
same time, scientists working in the laboratory of American research, scientist Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute, one of the
National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and a group headed by American virologist Jay Levy at the University of California
at San Francisco isolated a retrovirus from people with AIDS and from individuals having contact with people with AIDS. All three
groups of scientists had isolated what is now known as HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Lorusso 2
In 1995 HIV was estimated to infect almost 20 million people worldwide, and several million of those people had developed AIDS. The
disease is obviously an important social issue.
AIDS has caused many to rethink their own social behavior. People are forced to use caution when involving themselves in sexual
activity. They must use contraception to avoid the dangers of infection. Many people consider HIV infection and AIDS to be completely
preventable because the routes of HIV transmission are so well known. To completely prevent transmission, however, dramatic changes in
sexual behavior and drug dependence would have to occur throughout the world. Prevention efforts that promote sexual awareness
through open discussion and condom distribution in public schools have been opposed due to fear that these efforts encourage sexual
promiscuity among young adults. Similarly, needle-exchange programs have been criticized as promoting drug abuse. Governor Christine
Todd Whitman vetoed a bill in New Jersey that tried to create a needle-exchange program. She was accused of being "compassionless".
She replied that she could not allow drug addicts to continue to break the law. By distributing needles, she felt that she was, in fact,
encouraging them to break the law.
Prevention programs that identify HIV-infected individuals and notify their sexual partners, as well as programs that promote HIV
testing at the time of marriage or pregnancy, have been criticized for invading personal privacy.
Efforts aimed at public awareness have been propelled by community-based organizations, such as Project Inform and Act-Up, that
provide current information to HIV-infected individuals and to individuals at risk for infection. Public figures and celebrities who are
themselves
Lorusso 3
HIV-infected or have died from AIDS-including American basketball player Magic Johnson, American actor Rock Hudson, American
diver Greg Louganis, American tennis player Arthur Ashe, and British musician Freddie Mercury-have personalized the disease of AIDS
and have thereby helped society come to terms with the enormity of the epidemic. In memory of those people who died from AIDS,
especially in the early years of the epidemic, a giant quilt project was initiated in which each panel of the quilt was dedicated to the
memory of an individual AIDS death. This quilt has traveled on display from community to community to promote AIDS awareness.
The U.S. government has also attempted to assist HIV-infected individuals through legislation and additional community-funding
measures. In 1990 HIV-infected people were included in the Americans with Disabilities Act, making discrimination against these
individuals for jobs, housing, and other social benefits illegal....
MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 24 May, 2012 from
<http://essaymania.com/159204/how-has-aids-affected-our-society>
More College Papers
Gynecolegy and health essay
Of all gynecologic malignancies, ovarian cancer continues to have the
highest mortality and is the most difficult to diagnose. In the United States
female population, ovarian cancer ranks fifth in absolute mortality among
cancer related deaths (13,000/yr). In most reported c
Epidemiology of Varsity Sports essay
Epidemiology of Varsity Sports
Varsity sports is in many schools as important as academics, especially in the United States. These schools rely a great deal on the
success of their teams for financial stability and enrollment interest. The athletes as well take their sport very s
Ambulatory Cancer Treatments essay
I.
Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. If the spread of these abnormal cells is not
controlled, cancer can cause death. Most cancers take the form of tumors, although not all tumors are cancers. A tumor is simply a mass
o