5 ms·
Ask HN: What would be negative implications of HIV becoming a curable disease?
Would be interesting to explore how society will change and be affected since HIV is mostly tied to homosexuals.
- tokenadult 16y agoCuring a disease is always a good idea. And I think your statement "HIV is mostly tied to homosexuals" is factually incorrect, especially on a worldwide basis.
- carbocation 16y agoNothing that has been discussed on HN lately will, likely, lead to an HIV cure. HIV is notoriously difficult to eradicate due to the fact that it stays dormant inside of immune cells for years. This is why the only cures that you hear about are those that have been induced via bone marrow transplant (which were done for other reasons, not for HIV; BMT is highly dangerous and the risk/benefit is strongly against doing this for cure of HIV alone). I don't think that your statement about homosexuals is the most useful statement one could make about the HIV epidemic in the United States. There are various groups that suffer more from HIV than others: homosexuals, yes, but also ethnic minorities (blacks have 7x the incidence that whites have). This may just be semantics, but in my opinion HIV isn't really "mostly tied to homosexuals." It is true that a majority of new cases of HIV (57%) are due to male-to-male sexual contact, but that still leaves a vast 43% of the pie for heterosexual contact and IVDU. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/factsheets/incidence.htm http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/factshe...
- anigbrowl 16y agoHaving to listen to people who complain about how many homosexuals there are, and how inconsiderate it is of them to go on living and being homosexual at everyone. Other than that, I can't think of any.