Since 2002, rich nations have given tens of billions of dollars in assistance to poor countries to stop the spread of AIDS; more billions have been spent on drug development. Now, a $73 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health has discovered that treating HIV-infected individuals with antiretroviral drugs early on dramatically reduces the chance that their sexual partner will contract HIV.
Here’s another way not to infect your partner: use a condom and don’t have the promiscuous sex that leads to HIV infection in the first place. But such low-tech solutions have never been popular among AIDS advocates; they come too close to stating the obvious: AIDS is a completely avoidable disease that results overwhelmingly from sexually irresponsible behavior. Instead, AIDS is treated rhetorically among activists and the public health elite like an airborne or genetic disease that strikes individuals randomly.
Expect this recent test result to increase pressure on rich countries to step up their funding of costly drug regimens in Africa that depend on patients exercising the personal responsibility in their drug taking that they fail to display in their sexual behavior. Meanwhile, patients who suffer from rare genetic diseases over which they have no control can only hope that one-millionth of the funding and public attention that have gone into AIDS prevention will get channeled into medical research addressing their own conditions.
Interesting literature on this subject:
Oesterdiekhoff, G. W. & Rindermann, H. (2007). The spread of AIDS in developing countries: A psycho-cultural approach. Journal for Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 32(2), 201-222: http://www.uni-graz.at/pslgcwww/rindermann/publikationen/07JSPESOeRi.pdf
Rindermann, H. & Meisenberg, G. (2009). Relevance of education and intelligence at the national level for health: The case of HIV and AIDS.Intelligence, 37/, 383-395: http://www.uni-graz.at/pslgcwww/rindermann/publikationen/09IntAids.pdf
A poor African woman may well lack the power to tell her husband “no”. She presumably has greater ability to follow a drug regimen, given availability.
All of what you say is true, Heather.
It is also true that men are never going to stop screwing their brains out, and condoms are despised as, at best, a necessary evil even here in the West.
Your assertion that AIDS is “completely avoidable” is wrong. You can follow all the rules and still end up with AIDS (for instance, if your mother has AIDS, your partner cheats or your blood transfusion is contaminated.)
I can see your point about the quantity of money spent on this one disease, but really there are some valid counterarguments against your “completely avoidable” argument: when someone is powerless (the African example above, rape cases, etc.), when a condom breaks, etc.