Subject: Letters to the Editor: AIDS: Falsehoods and Realities Date: Published: 8/24/92 (186 lines) Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Letters to the Editor: AIDS: Falsehoods and Realities Re Irving Kristol's Aug. 6 editorial-page article, "AIDS and False Innocence": For the first few decades of my life, my otherwise well-educated family found it necessary to hide the fact that one of my siblings had epilepsy. Other relatives and friends as recently as the 1950s still hid the occurrence of cancer or mental illness -- for fear that society saw these illnesses as evidence of some vague moral failure within the family. This uncivilized practice of blaming the victims of disease for their situation has once again raised its ugly head in Mr. Kristol's article. Aside from the fact that he relied on a number of outright falsehoods to make his case, he missed the fundamental point: Society has evolved beyond the medieval mind-set that links illness and moral blame. AIDS is not now, nor has it ever been "more generously funded than research on cancer." The Bush administration made a similar faux pas in presenting its 1993 budget proposal, only to print a retraction the next day after looking at its own figures, which showed cancer research receiving just under twice the amount allocated for AIDS research. Even if it were true, there would be sound public health reasons for doing so. Unlike cancer, heart disease or any of the other major killers, AIDS is an infectious disease whose boundaries are not understood, and it continues to grow at unacceptable rates. A second error is Mr. Kristol's assertion that people with AIDS knew that their behavior would lead to this disease and knowingly chose it. The cause of AIDS was identified as a sexually transmissable virus only in 1984 and the first blood test for diagnosis became available in 1985. Because it takes 10 years on average for AIDS to develop after initial infection, simple arithmetic demonstrates that the vast majority of people with AIDS today were infected before they knew what hit them. Despite this, major cuts are being made in AIDS prevention funds, crippling already inadequate education efforts. Mr. Kristol seems to think it is futile to teach safe sex to our young, that we must instead demand that they suppress their sexual instincts until some vague magic moment when all risk is gone. Any AIDS educator will attest that, however challenging it may be to teach the necessity and behaviors of safe sex to the young, it is a far more realistic and achievable goal than trying to convince them to forgo sex altogether. Once Mr. Kristol and his supporters decide it's acceptable to blame people for their illnesses, just where will they stop? The fact is that many, if not most, of our deadliest diseases often include behavioral factors that could be eliminated or reduced -- if we are willing to regiment all aspects of human conduct. Fortunately, most of society has grown beyond the politics of blame and learned that once we proceed down this path, it inevitably leads to our own front doors. Martin Delaney Executive Director Project Inform San Francisco --- Mr. Kristol's article finally put into words my thoughts ever since reading the Aug. 3 Newsweek referred to in his article. What really bothered me about the Newsweek article was that the young girl who had had sex with 24 men in 12 months describes herself as a "good, everyday person." Obviously, her parents, school and society have taught her that this is the way good, everyday people act. I blame them, not her. If only there were an easy answer to this heartbreaking dilemma. Mr. Kristol's description of the liberal-progressive ideologues, and their resentment of "sexual repression," perhaps says best what is wrong with our society. Their idea of acting sexually responsible is to use condoms. Peggy Briggs Hacienda Heights, Calif. --- Mr. Kristol asks, "Why is Magic Johnson regarded by our media as some kind of moral hero, even a role model for the young?.... Magic Johnson cannot claim the status of innocent victim." Mr. Johnson is a fellow member of the National Commission on AIDS, and I have never heard him imply that he was an "innocent victim" or "hero." Mr. Johnson's heroism comes from his public-spirited decision to respond to his infection with openness, authenticity and a massive investment of his own persona to stop HIV from reaching others. He has shared his fears, his remorse and his courage, and continues to be a productive member of our society while living with HIV. A judgmental approach is not effective public health policy, as 4,000 years of trying to eliminate sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies have taught us. Children are having sex, and the true issue is what are we going to do to help save their lives. Rev. Scott Allen Member, National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Washington --- Mr. Kristol accurately targets what is surely the most surreal aspect of this insidious plague. The idea that the victim of a behaviorally induced terminal illness bears no responsibility for its effects is a powerfully attractive falsehood. Imagine the equally ludicrous corollary of millions of cigarette smokers denying culpability for their increased risk of lung cancer and insisting on governmental liability to fund a cure that would allow their puffing to continue unabated. Jeffery R. Coatney Linwood, Kan. --- Perhaps the greatest obstacle to early intervention against the spread of AIDS is presented by people such as Mr. Kristol who choose to see the issue as a moral issue rather than one of public health. It is no coincidence that those countries that didn't flinch from education and prevention programs have far fewer incidents of AIDS than the U. S. My gay brother died of AIDS this spring. I know his infection occurred before he had the opportunity to understand he was engaging in lethal behavior. It doesn't matter now and it never did. When you love someone with AIDS you deal with the fact of his illness rather than the cause of it. Tom Ehrenfeld Cambridge, Mass. --- Mr. Kristol tells us that although teenagers can't master the simple mechanics of putting on a condom before intercourse, they can master an abstract concept called "fidelity" that will somehow change their sexual behavior. Of course, if Mr. Kristol acknowledged that both the behavioral change he ridicules and the behavioral change he fantasizes are equally unobtainable, he'd have to call for the only remaining alternative: a redoubled federal effort to find drugs that will prevent and cure AIDS. Robert Rafsky Brooklyn, N. Y. --- Mr. Kristol hits the nail on the head. I am a former member of an AIDS treatment program. It was always a mystery why AIDS patients saw themselves more deserving of concern than others equally ill. Supporting this was the maudlin sentimentality of some of the professionals serving them. Actually this question involves a larger issue, that of the failed responsibility everyone has in maintaining his own health. How often the accusation of inadequate medical care is a cover for ignoring obvious rules of health maintenance. Paul S. Johnson, M. D. Fetteville, N. C. --- I share Mr. Kristol's doubts about Magic Johnson's eligibility to be either moral hero or role model for the young. I'm equally uncertain regarding the "innocence" of those who contract AIDS as a result of anal sex or sharing needles. And I am uncomfortable with their demands for more expensive efforts to find a cure and provide care for people who insist on their right to be promiscuous, despite abundant evidence that they're on a slippery path. From this solid and secure platform, however, he plunges headlong into the untenable: that it's all the liberals' fault. Does Mr. Kristol really believe that liberals have a monopoly on sexual freedom? John M. Ravage Savannah, Ga. --- Mr. Kristol asks why AIDS victims are "cocooned in innocence and endowed with indignant self-righteousness?" I would suggest that this is more of a political question than a matter of value judgment. AIDS is a disease that affects homosexuals, drug addicts and minority populations disproportionately to the rest of society. These are groups that tend to be disenfranchised from the political mainstream, and in the case of drug addicts and minority populations, from the economic mainstream of American society. These individuals find themselves in a situation where headline grabbing and potentially inflammatory behavior are seen as a more viable, if not the only, means of gaining society's attention. It would seem that the question of individual innocence or guilt would have very little to do with this. Mr. Kristol is certainly right that abstinence or monogamous sexual behavior is the most effective means of avoiding exposure to the HIV virus. However, the educators, public health officials and health care workers dealing with the disease on a front-line basis must use whatever means are available (i.e. condoms) to slow, if not prevent, the spread of HIV infection in individuals who persist in high risk behavior. If the current mechanisms continue to fail in preventing the spread of HIV infection, then ultimately principles of Darwinian selection will diminish the size of the populations persisting in high risk behavior. Gregory A. Shove, M. D. Racine, Wis. [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]