AIDS, it is the black plague of our youthful generation. Not only is it spreading quickly, but it also can affect anyone and can be fatal. So why not concentrate all our time and money into research for this disease that is fairly new and we know little about? Well, Naomi Freundlich, science and technology editor for Business Week magazine, thinks we should do all we can to prevent the spread of AIDS. In her article "No, Spending More on AIDS Isn't Unfair", she explains the need for increased funding and research in this field. However, Michael Fumento, former AIDS analyst for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, thinks we are spending excessive amounts of money on the research of AIDS. In his article, "The AIDS Lobby: Are We Giving It Too Much Money?" he questions government spending on AIDS research and says it is getting out of control. He believes that the time and effort used on AIDS could be better used elsewhere in the medical field. Sandy Thurman, director of the Clinton administration's AIDS policy office, also shares some of her views on AIDS spending and how its not so easy to just put money wherever people want it.
Each author explains their views on the AIDS debate; they discuss the importance of AIDS research, the numbers of AIDS patients and their cost, and benefits of research to other fields. Freundlich and Fumento agree that it is important to study AIDS, because it is a threat to young and old alike, opposed to cancer and heart disease being mainly targeted at older people. But Fumento thinks that AIDS spending should be realistic, not just tailored to fit the needs of protesters and demanding organizations, simply to keep them quiet. They also both agree that AIDS is a new and upcoming epidemic that is becoming more of a problem with each passing year. Each realizes that the disease is no longer only confined to drug users and homosexuals. Thurman states that, "Frequently they are in poverty and have abusive relationships, and often have mental problems on to of that-the list goes on and on. So our clients today are much more complicated to treat" (Thurman 1). However, they do not agree on its importance compared to other diseases and medical problems in the United States. I feel that AIDS is a very important disease to be worrying about in today's society, because it is hurting all ages not just the older groups of people.
Because I was not a gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk.” People thought these stereotypes about contracting the virus. She describes to them clearly that AIDS is a disease for all humans and it does not discriminate. She identified with the audience’s humanity severally where she asked them, “are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human.” She reminded them that people infected with AIDS were just like any other human and they required care. She likened people who did not support the HIV positive with those who did not support the prosecuted Jewish population during the Holocaust. In the article “The Impact of Change”, AIDS is described as an epidemic that has it origin in Africa but it was greatly spreading in the U.S. Altman discourages the stereotype that AIDS is a disease for the homosexuals and drug
Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.
Nolen accurately uses evidence and testimony to offer us insight on poverty, AIDS, their connection, and their impact on each other. She correctly identifies that AIDS not only affects the lives of already impoverished people, but also sucks more people in to poverty by weakening their health and removing their opportunities. When a person is unhealthy much of the time and does not have the energy to perform daily actions, they are not able to earn ...
Moreover, Treichler maintains that although society has become more progressive in its understanding that AIDS is a heterosexual disease just as much as a homosexual one, this advancement does not necessarily disintegrate the “fantasy” surrounding the issue (i.e. ideas about “safer sex”, etc.) Apprehending what one learns from science will obviously be very beneficial to one’s grasping the concept of AIDS in its most basic form, but using this information self-consciously and pragmatically – and knowing that the sometimes contradictory information one takes in might not necessarily be utilizing the correct discourse signifying what AIDS “really” means – will allow one to make sense of the disease as a complete, organized whole.
Steven Epstein is a sociologist whose expertise lies in health care inequalities and research on human subjects. Published in 1995, Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge is a study of the politicized production of knowledge in the AIDS epidemic in the United States. This work shows Epstein’s interest in how expertise is constructed, the ways in which those who are considered “outsiders” can influence medicine, and how credibility is gained and lost. Epstein focuses on the question of how knowledge is produced through complex interactions among government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, scientists, medical people, and “treatment activists” to discover how knowledge about AIDS emerges out of what he calls "credibility struggles."
In paragraph two, three, and four, the author successfully familiarise the reader with the “creature” known as AIDS by utilizing the literary device of personification of the disease. This is seen when she refers to the disease as one who “win[s]” to the public, one who “travels” and one who is a “creature”. By referring to AIDS as a beast, Fisher conceives a villainous aura around the disease. The persona she creates instills the idea that AIDS is out to hurt anyone and anything, disregarding their traits and political stances. The audience now can relate to her argument better than before because it gives them the impression that AIDS can strike them as well and become more
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 spread of aids threatens our population daily. Lives lost to it number over 12 million, including 2 mil...
Mary Fisher delivered her speech “A Whisper of AIDS” on August 19th, 1992 in Houston, Texas. Fisher is the mother of two young children and is an advocate and victim of AIDS and HIV. Fisher delivers this speech in hopes to end the prejudice that surrounds AIDS and HIV. Fisher gives this speech to disprove false stereotypes about victims of HIV and AIDS. Fisher contracted this disease from her second husband proving that AIDS and HIV does not necessarily stem simply from hemophilia, gay people, doing drugs, or from promiscuous activity. Fisher argues that no one is safe from AIDS and HIV and anyone can become victim to this deadly virus.
(Allen et al., 2000) The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a clinical situation that requires the ethical principle Justice to be implemented. AIDS can be transmitted by sexual activity, intravenous (IV) drug use, and passed from mother to child. Due to the judgments and fears from the general population and some healthcare professionals, patients who have this disease may find themselves suffering from discrimination in many ways of their lives. This discrimination comes from the stigma placed by the factors in which AIDS is mainly spread. These factors are poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, prostitution, human-trafficking, which create the labels like the “drug user” or “homosexual”.
Nine years. It took nearly a decade, and more than two hundred thousand Americans’ deaths until a brave soul spoke up to encourage people to speak up about AIDS. “A Whisper of AIDS” was written to encourage people to “lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” (Fisher). The effectiveness of this speech lies in its addressing of a problem that has affected many people not only in the 1980s, more than thirty years ago, but has continued to even in the 21st century, and through its use of many rhetorical devices it makes for a convincing and heart wrenching speech.
"Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton
One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...
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.
There is more than enough data that shows the extent to which AIDS cripples millions of individuals and households around the globe. Also, there are verified methods we can take to address this pandemic. We, as citizens of the world, need to recognize the severity of this problem and take action. Those in power must better distribute resources so that more is spent on saving the families and lives of AIDS stricken patients.