Saturday, January 8, 2005 at 2:26 PM Let me start by saying I hate that douchebag, Bill Frist. As a medical student, though, I believe is statement is accurate. The AIDS has found to be present in tears, saliva. The only question is how much a viral load is required to cause infection. It's true that it is not "definitely known" how well condoms prevent AIDS (Certainly better than 15% chance, Mr. Frist), exactly how transmissible sweat or tears are, etc. By the way, who the hell would participate in the research for that? Would you volunteer to see how much AIDS tears you'd ingest before getting it? And it's unethical. It simply can't and won't be done. We believe that sweat and tears aren't very transmissible because virtually all infections can be traced back to a sexual encounter with an infected individual, IV drug use, sex with an IV drug user, blood transfusions (prior to 1985?, i think), any other blood-to-blood transmission (piercing tools, needles, infected dental equipment), or mother-to-child transmission at birth/breastfeeding. You don't hear of ophthomologists mysteriously coming down with the disease. We didn't hear about all the basketball players that Magic Johnson played with coming down with HIV. The evidence is anecdotal at best, and although Frist is a puppet of the extreme right, and I hate his politics, this statement wasn't egregious. The HIV transmission rate in the U.S. fell from 100% in the early 80s to 4% today -- and does anyone here think it is because of abstinence? No, it was from prevention programs, education, and condom use. Most of the time, I'm ashamed that Frist was a doctor (I doubt he practices much anymore). But fortunately, the lack of information allows him to make a claim, that is probably false, but not proven to be. PPM —Passionate, Passionate Man |
