AIDS​—A New STD?

“In my professional career, I have never encountered a more frustrating and depressing situation,” Newsweek quoted Dr. Peter Mansell as saying. He referred to the disease that has captured world attention: AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The term describes a shutdown of the body’s immune system. Its victims thus succumb to rare forms of cancer and pneumonia.

How far has AIDS spread? Thus far, over 4,000 casesb have been reported in the United States alone. At least 32 other countries have also reported incidents of the disease. Countries thus far relatively unaffected, such as Japan, have geared up to deal with it​—just in case.

AIDS victims appear to have a staggering mortality rate. Over 60 percent of those first diagnosed as having it died within a year. Some, however, fear that all AIDS victims will eventually die of the disease. Yet the syndrome starts off innocently enough with flulike symptoms, fatigue and weight loss. Unfortunately, as Dr. Frederick P. Siegal observes: “By the time most physicians see AIDS patients, the ball game is over.”

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), active homosexuals (with multiple partners) have the greatest risk of contracting AIDS. Also at risk are hemophiliacs and abusers of intravenous drugs.c But since roughly 70 percent of the AIDS victims were homosexuals, it is strongly suspected that the disease is in most cases sexually transmitted.

AIDS Panic

“Fear is spreading much faster than the disease,” said Discover magazine. No doubt headlines such as “Mere Contact May Spread AIDS” have promoted this fear:

● Hospital workers have refused to treat AIDS patients.d

● Morticians have been reluctant to embalm the bodies of AIDS victims.

● Police in San Francisco, California, were issued resuscitation devices and rubber gloves to avoid AIDS infection while rendering first aid.

● Technicians refused to hook up a microphone for an AIDS victim scheduled for an interview on a TV talk show. The purpose of the show? To allay fears about AIDS.

● AIDS hot-line services “have been flooded with calls asking if the disease could be contracted from holding subway straps or using toilet seats used by gays.”

The gay community, however, felt the greatest impact. Gay bars and bathhouses reported a lull in business due to people’s fear of contracting AIDS. And since homosexuals with multiple partners are at the greatest risk, some even made drastic changes in their life-style. Few, if any, were scared straight (heterosexual). But some have avoided anonymous sexual contact and settled into “monogamous” relationships.

It is the AIDS victim, however, who suffers the real anguish. Treated as outcasts by neighbors and workmates, shunned by lovers, AIDS victims must also bear the burden of having an incurable disease. “It just hangs over your head,” said one AIDS victim. “There is always the overriding uncertainty that on any day you’ll come down with something new that your suppressed immune system can’t repel.”

So while the public’s reaction may to some extent be an overreaction, fear of AIDS is not unfounded. AIDS is an insidious killer. And reports that it can spread to the public at large through blood transfusions have ignited further fear and resentment. (See box on page 9.)e Homosexuals thus find themselves victims not only of hostility but of a life-style fraught with peril.

[Box on page 9]

AIDS and Blood

First it was the hemophiliacs. The treatment for their malady (clotting factor VIII) is derived from the blood of hundreds of donors. So when some hemophiliacs contracted AIDS, blood immediately became suspect. Then an infant who had received a transfusion from an AIDS victim also contracted the disease. Though the chances of getting AIDS from a transfusion seemed slim, the CDC nevertheless warned that “members of groups at increased risk for AIDS [primarily homosexuals] should refrain from donating plasma and/​or blood.”

Getting voluntary compliance from blood donors, though, has been easier said than done. And the homosexual community has cried “Discrimination!” to suggestions that they be banned from donating blood. European doctors have therefore talked of banning imports of U.S. blood products, and some patients have refused blood transfusions!

Fear that AIDS may be contracted by sharing needles even caused a temporary panic among blood donors. A spokesman for the Greater New York Blood Program told Awake! that blood donations went down 25 percent during the month of July 1983. And this in spite of the fact that the needles used are sterilized and hermetically sealed before use, and then broken and discarded after use.

While the newly announced test for screening blood may protect the blood supply from AIDS contamination, the AIDS scare has served to remind the public that transfusing blood is a practice that carries with it some serious risks.