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Your message seems, at least to me, to be quite judgmental. I'm interested in helping people who make bad choices and people who have bad luck. It's not clear

by jMyles 7y ago

Your message seems, at least to me, to be quite judgmental. I'm interested in helping people who make bad choices and people who have bad luck. It's not clear to me that one group deserves more compassion than the other. The comparison to cancers is a bit odd - HIV is generally not regarded as a lifestyle disease, while of course many cancers do have a lifestyle component. HIV is communicable; the time and money spent to target specific populations in an effort to reduce incidence of a communicable disease of course pays dividends in that fewer people will subsequently be infected. And looking further down the road (albeit perhaps with optimistic glasses), with enough effort, it may be possible to eradicate it without our ever having discovered a true cure. So it makes at least some sense to work in that direction, but those efforts of course have a high cost.

bluGill 7y ago
I find it odd that HIV is not a lifestyle disease. Everything I know about it says that someone is at zero risk if they take lifestyle precautions. Is there some risk to someone who doesn't do drugs and is in a monogamous relationship? That is they might catch it from someone near them (like the flu from a cough). Or is the definition of lifestyle disease different from what I intuitively think it is, so HIV doesn't qualify. I'm with you on helping people who have made bad choices. However I do agree with the poster above: HIV seems to be getting an out sized share of research compared to other things that kill more people.
- jMyles 7y ago
  > I find it odd that HIV is not a lifestyle disease. When I think of a "lifestyle disease", the first thing that comes to mind is type 2 diabetes. The actual disease is part of a lifestyle of chronic behavior that is linked to this particular bad health outcome. Someone can contract it regardless of their lifestyle. Sure, there are potential lifestyle components to the way that the HIV virus is transmitted. Some people exposed to this pathogen will contract HIV. Of those, some will develop AIDS. But that doesn't mean that the lifestyle is the cause of the disease; the pathogen is the cause. As for the higher-level judgment: some people want to do drugs, and most people aren't in (and don't want to be in) monogamous relationships. The health of these populations is just as valuable as any other, no? It's perfectly possible to do both of these things and be healthy; the fact that some pathogens can be transmitted via these media makes it worth fighting these pathogens (while also of course educating people to engage in these activities more safely). > HIV seems to be getting an out sized share of research compared to other things that kill more people. Oh, yeah, if that's the point, I absolutely agree with that. An easy place to start is traffic fatalities. It's not difficult to reduce these, but it costs both money and willingness to change driving habits. And of course traffic accidents kill many, many more people than HIV. And heart disease. And opiod overdoses. And medical malpractice.

by jMyles 7y ago

bluGill 7y ago

I find it odd that HIV is not a lifestyle disease. Everything I know about it says that someone is at zero risk if they take lifestyle precautions. Is there some risk to someone who doesn't do drugs and is in a monogamous relationship? That is they might catch it from someone near them (like the flu from a cough). Or is the definition of lifestyle disease different from what I intuitively think it is, so HIV doesn't qualify. I'm with you on helping people who have made bad choices. However I do agree with the poster above: HIV seems to be getting an out sized share of research compared to other things that kill more people.

jMyles 7y ago
> I find it odd that HIV is not a lifestyle disease. When I think of a "lifestyle disease", the first thing that comes to mind is type 2 diabetes. The actual disease is part of a lifestyle of chronic behavior that is linked to this particular bad health outcome. Someone can contract it regardless of their lifestyle. Sure, there are potential lifestyle components to the way that the HIV virus is transmitted. Some people exposed to this pathogen will contract HIV. Of those, some will develop AIDS. But that doesn't mean that the lifestyle is the cause of the disease; the pathogen is the cause. As for the higher-level judgment: some people want to do drugs, and most people aren't in (and don't want to be in) monogamous relationships. The health of these populations is just as valuable as any other, no? It's perfectly possible to do both of these things and be healthy; the fact that some pathogens can be transmitted via these media makes it worth fighting these pathogens (while also of course educating people to engage in these activities more safely). > HIV seems to be getting an out sized share of research compared to other things that kill more people. Oh, yeah, if that's the point, I absolutely agree with that. An easy place to start is traffic fatalities. It's not difficult to reduce these, but it costs both money and willingness to change driving habits. And of course traffic accidents kill many, many more people than HIV. And heart disease. And opiod overdoses. And medical malpractice.