Scientists and researchers across the globe have been puzzled ever since AIDS and HIV first made their appearance in the 1980s. This epidemic has been the subject of many arguments and fierce debates throughout recent history, with everything from a promiscuous flight attendant to a suspect vaccine program being blamed. HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus that kills your body’s necessary ‘CD4 cells” (aka T-helper cells), which keep your body healthy and fight off anything that may be threatening to your life. AIDS, the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, is the result of the progression of HIV, where the immune system of the body is completely destroyed.
Background Information and History
The AIDS virus was first discovered in New York and California in the early 1980s when many gay men started to show signs of questionable infections that were seemed incurable by any antidote. It was observed for quite some time that all of the gay men were showing symptoms of the same syndrome.
The discovery of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, was made very soon after the discovery of AIDS. Multiple studies and research findings have concluded that HIV causes AIDS. HIV is what is called a lentivirus, which attacks the immune system. “It is called the lentivirus, which means “slow virus” because it takes a long time to affect any part of the body. The lentivirus has also been found in various animals including: cats, sheep, horses, and cattle” (Kanabus, 2010). The lentivirus, according to recent studies, is found to be stemmed from the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) which affects monkeys (Kanabus, 2010).
There are three main theories that are attributed to the origin of HIV/AIDS. The first theory is the Contamin...
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• Kanabus, A. (2010). The origin of AIDS and HIV and the first cases of AIDS. Retrieved May 10, 2010 from http://www.avert.org/origins.htm.
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AIDS/HIV was first recognized as a new disease in the US when clinicians in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco began to see young, homosexual men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) and Kaposi 's sarcoma (KS), unusual diseases for young adults which were not known to be immunosuppressed. These discoveries led to increased fear throughout the US since many people didn’t know what caused AIDS, how it could be contracted, or even what to call it.
HIV is a serious issue that is commonly pushed off and considered an irrelevant topic. In “AIDS, Inc.” by Helen Epstein, the topics of lifestyle brands and government funded organizations were discussed, and provided readers with an understanding of the depths of the disease. The excerpt discusses programs (i.e. loveLife) that had the potential and opportunity to save and inform many lives, but failed to do so, which continues to be a problem today. Our government is capable of helping and educating those who are infected, and anyone who could become infected. Instead of acting like having the disease is something to be ashamed of, governments should fund clinics that provide free HIV testing and free protection to all genders, create a structured
2) Moore, J. (2004). The puzzling origins of AIDS: Although no one explanation has been universally accepted, four rival theories provide some important lesson. American Scientist, 92(6), 540-547. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/stable/27858482
If one compares the epidemiology and social impact of these diseases they prove to be quite similar. The current AIDS epidemic has the potential to be the most dangerous and destructive plague of the millennium. No one knows exactly how the AIDS virus erupted. However, one presently dominant theory states that AIDS originated from monkeys in Africa
The history of Syphilis itself is one tangled and wrapped up in the histories of other diseases, social movements, and sciences. To...
AIDS is slowly becoming the number one killer across the globe. Throughout numerous small countries, AIDS has destroyed lives, taken away mothers, and has left hopeless children as orphans. The problem remains that funding for the diseases’ medical research is limited to none. In the country Brazil, HIV/AIDS has been compared to the bubonic plague, one of the oldest yet, most deadly diseases to spread rapidly across Europe (Fiedler 524). Due to this issue, Brazil’s government has promised that everyone who has been diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS will receive free treatment; however, this treatment does not include help in purchasing HIV medications, that “carry astronomical price tags” (Fiedler 525). Generic drug companies have been able to produce effective HIV medications that are not as costly if compared to the prices given by the huge pharmaceutical companies. In contrast, the U.S. government has now intervened with these generic companies hindering them from making HIV medications, which may not be as efficient if made by the pharmaceutical companies. Not only are these drug companies losing thousands of dollars against generic drug companies, but also tremendous profit that is demanded for marketing these expensive drugs as well. “How many people must die without treatment until the companies are willing to lower their prices, or to surrender their patients so generic makers can enter market? (Fiedler 525).” With this question in mind, what ways can we eliminate the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world? With research, education, testing, and funding we can prevent the spread of HIV to others and hopefully find a cure.
The government played a major part in the AIDS situation. The government’s blood banks did not wish to check blood with a test developed by the CDC because it was not “cost-efficient.” The government also neglected the CDC of large sums of money needed in the pursuit of a cure or vaccine in the disease and thought more of dollar signs that the lives of people.
In the early 1980s deaths by opportunistic infections, previously observed mainly in organ transplant recipients receiving therapy to suppress their immune responses, were recognized in otherwise healthy homosexual men. In 1983 French cancer specialist Luc Montagnier and scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris isolated what appeared to be a new human retrovirus—a special type of virus that reproduces differently from other viruses—from the lymph node of a man at risk for AIDS (see Lymphatic System). Nearly simultaneously, scientists working in the laboratory of American research scientist Robert Gallo at the National Cancer Institute 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 isolated what is now known as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS.
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (Gallant49).During this time, many people were contacting this disease because it was not discovered yet and people did not have knowledge about it.Scientists believe HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western Africa. Humans contracted this disease when they hunted and ate infected animals. A first clue came in 1986 when a morphologically similar but antigenically distinct virus was found to cause AIDS in patients in western Africa (Goosby24). During this time, scientists had more evidence to support their claim about this disease. Once discovered this disease was identified as a cause of what has since become one of the most devastating infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history (Goosby101). This disease was deadly because it was similar to the Black Death, it was killing majority of the population. Since its first identification almost three decades ago, the pandemic form of HIV-1 has infected at least 60 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths ...
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
The AIDS epidemic has reached disastrous proportions on the continent of Africa. Over the past two decades, two thirds of the more than 16 million people in the world infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, live in sub-Saharan Africa. It is now home to the largest number of people infected, with 70 percent of the world’s HIV infected population. The problem of this ongoing human tragedy is that Africa is also the least equipped region in the world to cope with all the challenges posed by the HIV virus. In order understand the social and economic consequences of the disease, it is important to study the relationship between poverty, the global response, and the effectiveness of AIDS prevention, both government and grass roots.
time as well as forward. They determined that the first cases of AIDS in the
Lastly, I would like to mention something that should be mentioned for the sake of mentioning. As said in the book as well in class, there have been multiple cases of sexual deviance between two males. This cause of AIDS, I found, was not mentioned enough in the book. Although there may be contributing factors as to why it wasn’t, I personally feel that this would be a major factor to the cause of the infection. “Scientists proposed that Haitians may have contracted the virus from monkeys as part of sexual practices in Haitian brothels . . . AIDS might be transmitted between Haitians by voodoo rites, the ingestion of sacrificial animal blood, the eating of cats, ritualized homosexuality.” (Farmer 224) All in all, AIDS & ACCUSATION, however criticized the book may be, inevitably captures the essence of anthropology.
I have researched this topic through various sources and compiled pertinent information to provide adequate information on this. topic. The sym First of all, AIDS is caused by the retrovirus HIV. HIV stands for human immunodef- iciency virus. AIDS itself stands for acquired immune deficiency.
In 1981, a new fatal, infectious disease was diagnosed--AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). It began in major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. People, mostly homosexual men and intravenous drug users, were dying from very rare lung infections or from a cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma. They have not seen people getting these diseases in numerous years. Soon, it also affected hemophiliacs, blood recipients, prostitutes and their customers, and babies born from AIDS-infected women. AIDS was soon recognized as a worldwide health emergency, and as a fatal disease with no known cure, that quickly became an epidemic. When high-profile victims began to contract the virus, such as basketball star Magic Johnson, the feeling spread quickly that anyone, not just particular groups of people, could be at risk. AIDS impairs the human body’s immune system and leaves the victim susceptible to various infections. With new research, scientists think that the disease was first contracted through a certain type of green monkey in Africa, then somehow mutated into a virus that a human could get. AIDS is a complicated illness that may involve several phases. It is caused by a virus that can be passed from person to person. This virus is called HIV, or Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. In order for HIV to become full-blown AIDS, your T-cell count (number of a special type of white-blood cells that fight off diseases) has to drop below 200, or you have to get one of the symptoms of an AIDS-induced infection.