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| Re: Ann Coulter: They Blinded Us With Science (757883) | |||
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Re: Ann Coulter: They Blinded Us With Science |
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Posted by JayZeeBMT on Sun Mar 27 11:50:54 2011, in response to Ann Coulter: They Blinded Us With Science, posted by Jeff Rosen on Sun Mar 27 08:13:48 2011. When the notorious Life magazine cover ran in the summer of 1985 (I remember it well), there was a scare that the HIV virus had mutated and become airborne--which, if true, would have meant humanity was suddnly facing the greatest plague since the Middle Ages. There would have been (and to some extent, there was) a immediate, extremely violent backlash against gays, which would have done nothing to slow the spead of the disease. That gay men, especially gay men of color, are still the majority of people living with HIV and AIDS are down to several factors, none of which Ms. Coulter addresses or dares to acknowledge.The main reasons for this include: Lack of access to HIV/AIDS prevention education among gay men. the New York City Department of Health and Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) spend tons of their own money every year to do on-site rapid HIV testing, widespread advertising on prevention, condom and other prophylactic distribution, and clinical research. But it's not nearky enough, the incidence of new infections is still rising annually in the city. Let's not forget, this is just NYC. The federal Centers for Disease Control has reported that new HIV infections among heterosexuals is climbing sharply as well, and that this, too, is due to the message about prevention failing to get through. Social stigmatization of LGBTs is another big reason the HIV epidemic continues to haunt us, more than 30 years after it began. Homophobia and institutionalized pathologization of homosexuality in churches, schools, the mainstream media, and even at home, continues to force millions of people into the closet, where messages about HIV prevention don't reach them. If you are getting emotionally kicked in the teeth all the time, over who you are sexually attracted to, who you love, and who you are, you will often fight the pain by "self-medicating" with alcohol or drugs. In such a diminished state, you won't be thinking about safe sex when you have sex. Hatred is still the biggest HIV dieease vector of them all. Finally, HIV patients atre not sympathetic figures to those who make budgetary decisions. Coulter gratuitously says "scientific facts wrre ignored", without citing a single study or peer-reviewed academic paper to support her assertion. Funding is what cures diseases--and in today's economy, funding for HIV research is at an all-time low, dollar for dollar. Coulter also only cites articles and CDC reports from over two decades ago, when HIV was still poorly understood, and public hysteria over it was at a new high. Without funding, the face of HIV will continue to appear gay and minority for the foreseeable future. But there's one telling fact Coulter won't ever admit to: it's still true today, that HIV is such a loathsome disease, that when straight, often wealthy, people--particularly men--die of AIDS, theur families bring pressure to bear, so that the cause of death for these people becomes "cancer" or "heart failure"--anything except AIDS. That, too, has been going on for 30 years. |
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