Spitting HIV
This may be old news to some of you, but when I learned that Alex*--who scours the internet infinity times a day leaving eye tracks on infinity sites—had not picked up on this story I thought it might be worth bringing up.
Once upon a time, forever ago in 2004, there was a congressman (Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif) who exposed some less-than-accurate proclamations that faith-based organizations were making on the government’s dime regarding the dirtiness that is sex. Of the 13 most commonly used “abstinence rocks” nationwide programs, 11 were found to be disseminating questionable factoids about STDs, pregnancy, birth control, etc. Since the report came out, its validity and accurateness has been called into question—that is, Waxman has replaced questionable statistics with more questionable statistics. No one can agree if teen sex is a factor in teen suicide, or if mutual masturbation can cause pregnancy (are we seriously even considering this one?), or whether condoms fail 31%, 14%, or 2% of the time…Whatever. Everyone knows statistics can be a tricky business distorted by bias and differing prospectives. The interesting part of this story is that when, in light of these false government-backed claims George Stephanopoulos asked Senate Majority Leader Doctor Bill Frist whether HIV and AIDS could be spread through tears and sweat he said, “I don’t know.” Seriously? Does he really not know? Because, well, he’s a doctor and I’m an Editor and even I know. To his credit, he eventually came out and said that it would be very difficult to do and that there are easier things to spread through sweat and tears than HIV or AIDS—like body odor and wetness. Or just saltiness.
Of course, my first question is who is he defending? Why does he hesitate to refute the claim outright? Then again, maybe he's side-stepping it because he really isn't sure, and he doesn't want a big fat F on the pop quiz. I can’t figure it out…So, here’s the interview if you’re curious. It’s really long and the part pertaining to this subject begins a little after 10 minutes.
--JB
*Alex is my fiance and he invented the internet (addiction).
posted by JB @ 1:24 PM
1 Comments:
Ahh yes. The Bill Frist Interview. I remember that one. I actually coughed out my coffee the first time I saw that part of the interview to which you’re referring.
You're asking the right questions. He is side-stepping the issue. He has constituents and leads a party that wants to push abstinence hard. But, he's also a Senator and a medical doctor. In fact, in this case, those roles should be his primary concern and he should do what’s right. He should adamantly state that it’s nearly impossible to contract HIV that way so that there’s NO doubt about the reality of the risk. That’s what our leaders and doctors should be doing—being honest.
It’s interesting that you bring this up BEFORE addressing any unicorn-related issues.
- Nan
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