Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login
The John Byrne Forum
Byrne Robotics > The John Byrne Forum << Prev Page of 5 Next >>
Topic: HIV Quarantine? Post ReplyPost New Topic
Author
Message
Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 4:19am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

ITEM: Mr. Byrne is right; there is no subject that cannot be discussed by reasonable, intelligent people. Although this independence business... :)

ITEM: Mr. Byrne - it seems that people are not willing to discuss gun control. It DEMANDS discussion... but it's "never the right time."

ITEM: Isolation and quarantine might well have served to control, or even eliminate, AIDS and HIV at the time had action been taken quickly enough. But there are a couple of issues.

First, there is a stigma associated with having a disease or condition that requires separation from the "normal" segment of society. This, of course, makes it hard to find those with that disease... because no one wants to be isolated that way. 

COROLLARY: There's main stream Religion in the background, pitching in that the Old Man in the Nightrobe has done this intentionally because these people MUST DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED FOR SOMETHING. Because He is NEVER WRONG. And that part is horribly hard to get past. In a slightly similar vein, go tell a veteran's family, which has always been a good Christian family, that their child was killed because war is wrong and God wanted that child dead. I hate to say it, but Religion seems to often have been of the mindset of "You don't need treatment; we'll WISH your condition away" and thought that it would realistically work.

Second, I have never been in isolation or quarantine for ANY purpose, so I don't know how such treatment functions - but I have never heard of such treatment involving dignity, respect, or kindness. I have known people in senior care facilities who are PAYING for care and PAYING for treatment and who are treated like nuisances at best, and garbage at worst. These stories are so prevalent that we know they are the truth. Who would want to try to abide such conditions, even if necessary to their own lives?
Back to Top profile | search
 
Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14811
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 4:45am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Isolation and quarantine might well have served to control, or even eliminate, AIDS and HIV at the time had action been taken quickly enough.

-----

It definitely would not have eliminated it for the reasons identified on the previous page. By the time doctors were first able to identify it, it had already spread to five continents. And many of its earliest sufferers were already part of an underground community.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12406
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 6:04am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I was looking at New York Times reporting on AID/HIV from 1981. 

In June, they reported "five cases of an unusual pneumonia in Los Angeles." No reference to gays.

In July, they reported "a rare skin cancer" in "41 homosexuals."

By August: "Two rare diseases have struck more than 100 homosexual men in the United States in recent months, killing almost half of them, and a medical study group has been formed to find out why." 

And yet, by December: "Researchers report in The New England Journal of Medicine that harmless viruses and bacteria can often cause fatal illnesses in homosexual men."

So little was known at the start. 
Back to Top profile | search
 
John Byrne
Avatar
Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132129
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 6:20am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Among the more insane parts of the early days of the AIDS crisis were these:

• There was a lot less concern than there should have been as it was seen as strictly a "Gay disease". The prevailing heterosexual attitude seemed to be "who cares!"

• Because of this perception there were protests from various Gay organizations, demanding that donated blood not be screened as this was "testing for homosexuality". (Already the privacy issue was making itself known.)

• The attitude seemed to be that there was nothing to be done, so nothing was done. This was a false perception, and in respone NEWSWEEK published figures showing that AIDS research was receiving more funding than all forms of cancer combined. (To put this in context, AIDS at that time was killing 50,000 people per year, while lung cancer alone killed 600,000 in the same period. AIDS research also recieved more funding than heart disease, which killed 50,000 every six weeks.)

• Largely due to the "right of privacy" issue, HIV and AIDS quickly made its way out of the Gay Community, and heterosexuals of all ages started being diagnosed with the disease. The most prominent case was, for some time, that of Kimberly Bergalis, a 23 year old who was infected by her dentist. He had performed surgery on her without informing her that he was HIV positive. In other words, she was not even given a choice.

• An extensive program of instructon in the use of various prophylactic devices made tremendous inroads into curbing the spread of the disease, tho this was done over the protests of many Catholic organizations.

In short, just about everything wrong that could be done, was done.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 6:36am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Michael Roberts - "by the time doctors were first able to identify it" - so if they had identified it earlier, i.e., quickly enough, then perhaps it might have been contained.

Unfortunately, timing and obscurity hurt; and additionally, that WAS forty years ago as far as medical procedures and processes were developed. 
Back to Top profile | search
 
Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14811
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 7:08am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

so if they had identified it earlier, i.e., quickly enough, then perhaps it might have been contained.

----

Again, we are talking about a disease with a long incubation. The median period from HIV infection to AIDS is 10 years. Identifying it "quickly enough" to prevent a pandemic would have involved a time machine.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15726
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 7:42am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

The first HIV test didn't get developed until a few years after people had starting cropping up with AIDS symptoms in noticeable numbers. So, you could have quarantined those with AIDS, but would have no idea about those who were HIV positive but had not yet contracted AIDS.

Hepatitis C is a disease with a similar epidemiology to HIV and has been difficult to combat because of its lengthy incubation period, anything from 2 weeks to 6 months, with the vast majority of people showing no signs of infection initially. This means the readily-identified sick are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, far outnumbered by the unidentified infectious.

HIV has a vastly longer incubation period, in the order of years. For a quarantine to be effective you'd need to know about the infection early on in its spread and be able to identify who has it quickly after infection. Neither of these conditions were in place for the AIDS crisis, so I think a quarantine would have had little to no effect.
Back to Top profile | search
 
Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 7:51am | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Unlikely, of course, since AIDS very quickly transformed into a civil rights issue

---

I honestly don't remember all the "right to privacy" stuff you're talking about. I do remember groups like ACT UP forming to demand that the Reagan administration (a) acknowledge that the AIDS crisis was actually happening, and (b) that it take it seriously and DO SOMETHING about it.

If you have links to articles that discuss the "right to privacy" issue then I'm happy to read them. As for blood screening -- to this day, I think, if you're a man who's ever had sex with another man you're not allowed to give blood, even if said blood lacks any disease. That really is homophobia, a belief that AIDS is specifically a "gay thing."
Back to Top profile | search
 
John Byrne
Avatar
Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132129
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 8:05am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

If you have links to articles that discuss the "right to privacy" issue then I'm happy to read them

••

Is your Google link broken?

+++

As for blood screening -- to this day, I think, if you're a man who's ever had sex with another man you're not allowed to give blood, even if said blood lacks any disease. That really is homophobia, a belief that AIDS is specifically a "gay thing."

••

And I suppose it's racist to test for sickle cell anemia, since that's a "Black thing"?

Back to Top profile | search
 
Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15726
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 8:15am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

And I suppose it's racist to test for sickle cell anemia, since that's a "Black thing"?

------------------------------------------------

Testing blood is objective and not racist or homophobic.

A blanket refusal to take blood from black people because they are black would be racist. The FDA used to have a "lifetime deferral" for any man that had ever had sex with another man. This is now a one-year deferral (that is, you can now donate if you haven't had sex with a man in over a year).

I feel they should just test the blood!

Back to Top profile | search
 
John Byrne
Avatar
Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132129
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 9:26am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

A blanket refusal to take blood from black people because they are black would be racist. The FDA used to have a "lifetime deferral" for any man that had ever had sex with another man. This is now a one-year deferral (that is, you can now donate if you haven't had sex with a man in over a year).

I feel they should just test the blood!

•••

And thus we return to the complaint that doing so is "testing for homosexuals."

We still have an unfortunate cross section of those who think AIDS is a Gay problem, and homosexuals who wish to keep their orientation secret.

Back to Top profile | search
 
Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Avatar

Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14811
Posted: 23 October 2017 at 11:34am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Just screening the blood in blood banks was the acceptable level of use by those parties initially concerned that the AIDS test would be used as a means to screen for and identify gay men.
Back to Top profile | search
 

<< Prev Page of 5 Next >>
  Post ReplyPost New Topic
Printable version Printable version

Forum Jump
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot create polls in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

 Active Topics | Member List | Search | Help | Register | Login