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Is the end of AIDS in sight?

economist.com

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Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#131

Post by mock-possum »

cltby wrote: post #57
mathewsanders wrote: post #52

> They can take pre-exposure prophylaxis (prep), a kind of drug that reduces their chance of contracting it by 99% or so. This comes as a daily pill, and is popular among gay men in rich countries. The article takes a global focus (which makes sense since most new HIV diagnoses happen outside of the United States), but even the United States has over 30,000 new HIV infections per year. In 2021 feds mandated that insu…

Rather depressing that we're subsidizing wanton sexual indulgence to the tune of $30k/year/person.

Dude.

Have a heart.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#132

Post by hinkley »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19

As a gay man well into middle age, whenever I get somewhat depressed about the state of human affairs, I think about the incredible improvements in AIDS treatment and prevention and I feel a little better. It's hard for people who didn't live through it to really understand what a terrifying time the 80s and 90s were. First off, the general message of sexual education was pretty much "If you have sex, it's probably g…

I suspect you've blotted out some of the worst of the early years, when lots of people didn't understand that it could only transmit through bodily fluids. People were afraid of the idea of being in the same room with someone with HIV. We had education campaigns about this. PSAs. Character arcs in prime time TV shows. Maybe that period was short in California, but it was spread out over years in the midwest.

I'm not convinced that the trauma of Covid for some adults wasn't re-experiencing the trauma of the AIDS epidemic. Here's another scary disease and we don't know how it's communicated and it's killing people and ruining their lives. Will it still be killing people in ten years? Ebola and a few others threatened to do the same, but they never actually arrived.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#133

Post by DiggyJohnson »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #46
TZubiri wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aids is definitely the strongest sexually transmitted virus out there. But don't you think that there will always be sexually transmitted diseases associated with promiscuity? Not to say that aids is only transmitted through promiscuity, but superspreading is highly relevant. It is my understanding that gay people have more sex partners than than straight people, so it's likely that these diseases will disproportiona…

Promiscuity does not propagate sexually transmitted diseases. You are working off of a false stereotype which has limited the capacity of your rational thought, and as a result, you imagine a world which does not exist, and propose solutions which will not work. This is a common problem with HN people. They come up with this one idea that kind-of makes sense, and then stop thinking, and shape their whole thought proc…

STDs are spread through sexual activity, and the more partners you have will increase the transmission rate. Gay men are well documented to have on average more sexual partners than other sexualities. Both of these are… obvious and well documented, depending on your experience or understanding of the literature (take your pick).

Obviously HIV can be spread by other vectors, that doesn’t make what I’ve said above not true. This is one of the most illogical comments I’ve seen in awhile, purely wishful thinking. Promiscuity is fine, but don’t be naive.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#134

Post by musicale »

x0x0 wrote: post #68
EatingWithForks wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference with AIDS is that AIDS at the time condemned you to a slow, horrible, visible decline, in which your death was celebrated via a radio talk show host that at the time had an entire regular segment to name and mock the people who died. Like, this doesn't apply to people who get cervical cancer from HPV or other similarly tragic outcomes of acquiring an STD. The cruelty on the scale is way above anything.

Don't forget Reagan's press secretary mocking the so-called "gay plague" https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9828348/ronald-reagan-hiv-aids

There was also Reagan's surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, who seems to have taken HIV/AIDS seriously and opposed stigmatization:

https://www.hiv.gov/blog/in-memoriam-c-everett-koop/

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#135

Post by flangola7 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #107
irrational wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, we all know that doesn't happen, mostly because of the state of healthcare in the USA. My brother got colon cancer, so I tried to get a colonoscopy (I'm over 50), they refused unless I saw a primary care doctor first, well the first available appointment was 6 months out. After that I got a colonoscopy appointment, another 6 months out. Ridiculous reality.

I think there are plenty of problems with US healthcare, but I don't think this is one of them. Standard of care in the US is to get screened for STDs at least annually for sexually active people, and more frequently depending on your risk factors. Being on PrEP involves mandatory testing for STDs every 3 months. There are also tons of free clinics where people can get checked for STDs.

Testing only once in 3 months is insane to me

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#136

Post by foldr »

chimeracoder wrote: post #78
foldr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that limiting amount of partners is a vital part to combating sexually transmitted diseases It's much more important to have safe sex. Condoms and PrEP work. Every thread on HN about HIV/AIDS seems to attract at least one person who feels obliged to say something about how promiscuous gay people are. I don't think these comments often come from a good place. (For example, you have previously made a rather in…

> Every thread on HN about HIV/AIDS seems to attract at least one person who feels obliged to say something about how promiscuous gay people are. I don't think these comments often come from a good place. Just the one? If only. Every time there is a story on HN that is even tangentially related to either HIV or LGBTQ+ sexual health, it inevitably devolves into a morass of misinformation and thinly-veiled homophobia.…

I was understating, for sure. Civility (or the veneer thereof) is HN’s major exploit vector.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#137

Post by [deleted] »

chimeracoder wrote: post #78
foldr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that limiting amount of partners is a vital part to combating sexually transmitted diseases It's much more important to have safe sex. Condoms and PrEP work. Every thread on HN about HIV/AIDS seems to attract at least one person who feels obliged to say something about how promiscuous gay people are. I don't think these comments often come from a good place. (For example, you have previously made a rather in…

> Every thread on HN about HIV/AIDS seems to attract at least one person who feels obliged to say something about how promiscuous gay people are. I don't think these comments often come from a good place. Just the one? If only. Every time there is a story on HN that is even tangentially related to either HIV or LGBTQ+ sexual health, it inevitably devolves into a morass of misinformation and thinly-veiled homophobia.…

[deleted]

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#138

Post by egorfine »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19

As a gay man well into middle age, whenever I get somewhat depressed about the state of human affairs, I think about the incredible improvements in AIDS treatment and prevention and I feel a little better. It's hard for people who didn't live through it to really understand what a terrifying time the 80s and 90s were. First off, the general message of sexual education was pretty much "If you have sex, it's probably g…

I have spent my adult life in a community that experiences higher-than-average HIV/HepC exposure, and well remember the "Great Die-Off" of the early-to-mid 1990s. To anyone that missed out, dying of AIDs is horrible. The West has the luxury of expensive drugs to treat it, but much of the developing world doesn't have that, and they are still dying like flies, with very little of the transmission happening through hom…

I am afraid to ask but what is similar between AIDS and Fentanylopocalypse? Surely no one choses to get HIV. Surely drug usage is a choice once made. What is the link between the two I am missing here?

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#139

Post by fragmede »

egorfine wrote: post #138
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent my adult life in a community that experiences higher-than-average HIV/HepC exposure, and well remember the "Great Die-Off" of the early-to-mid 1990s. To anyone that missed out, dying of AIDs is horrible. The West has the luxury of expensive drugs to treat it, but much of the developing world doesn't have that, and they are still dying like flies, with very little of the transmission happening through hom…

I am afraid to ask but what is similar between AIDS and Fentanylopocalypse? Surely no one choses to get HIV. Surely drug usage is a choice once made. What is the link between the two I am missing here?

The mindset is that people that got AIDS got it from (gay) sex that they chose to have.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#140

Post by fjgvcjygjvh »

535188B17C93743 wrote: post #65
cltby wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather depressing that we're subsidizing wanton sexual indulgence to the tune of $30k/year/person.

So queer people should remain celibate? Other methods of protection fail. People lie about the status. People don't know their status. Know what's ridiculous is that these drugs cost so much money and companies like Gilead can engage in "revenue maximization" schemes at the cost of the health of US citizens... and then apparently win lawsuits with their Big Pharma war chests.

If the 30k per figure was accurate (I don't think it is?) it would be certainly unreasonable for the rest of the society to subsidize it.

So I guess, no. But they shouldn't expect other people to finance their sex lives.

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