Our teacher in Mircobiology told us this story about AIDS:
There was a guy who went to the clinic and asked the doctor an advice on how not to acquire AIDS. The doctor gave him some options..
The doctor said that the guy could have the ABC.

A- Abstincence....
But the guy said that he cant do that since he wants to have sex but he doesnt want to have AiDS either. So, the doctor said,

B - be good/faithful...
But then the guy said that that could be possible but he really wants to have sex with several women so the doctor, gave him his last option...

C - Condoms..
The guy accepted that although he complained that some of the women he has had sex with dont like using condoms.... So the doctor was quite confused and exasperated so he said, "If those ABC did not satisfy you, you can do...

D- do it yourself... which means, in order not to acquire AIDS, you jjst have to do it yourself, through masturbation...and...

E - enjoy!

But seriously, our teacher told us that the best and only way to not acquire AIDS is to abstinate from sex and that is 100% sure way not to have AIDS.

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Oh, and a personalized message to ToeTrench: You already sound like you don't know very much about English, let alone Science. And if you are discouraging finding the cure-which I'm almost 100% positive you are-shame on you.

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Please, now, don't discriminate against other beliefs. Personally, I don't believe in the cure for any diseases either. I don't take Advil or any other medicine when I'm sick unless I'm forced- I believe that the pain is meant to be there for whatever reason.

And before you get defensive- My grandfather died of lung cancer. I still don't believe in finding a cure for lung cancer, he was meant to die from it. A cure for AIDS (like a cure for any disease) is only going to reduce the number of deaths and add to the rate of overpolulation.

As for "don't know very much about English"- Check out your first line:

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I believe the reason a lot of people do not support the fight against AIDS have two reasons:

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"for forever" is not that big of a deal. I can be a stickler for proofreading but this is an internet chat forum. Let the small mistakes go.

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By the way, anyone who actually plans on arguing for any period of time with the fool, notice he/she is the same person that has a quote promoting dropping out of school.

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Name calling won't further your cause. The educational system we have IS mediocre, but that is for another discussion.

berenelen...

I'm not meaning to be offensive or anything, so please don't take this as so.

I believe the major reason sub-Saharan Africans do not know very much about AIDS is because of the culture barrier. You are probably wondering wha the heck I'm talking about.. Because they speak another language, it is already very difficult for us to communicate between the two cultures perfectly. Secondly, the culture we would be speaking to is not as well educated, and these are the most apt to continure prostitution, etcetera. In this same aspect, it is almost impossible for an uneducated person to undestand that there is something so small that it can't even be seen-let alone something like that can make up who we are. (I know there is one culture that has somewhere between 30-45 words just to say/describe "cell". Now try AIDS with the same person...) It isn't so much we need to give out condoms, although that would be a wonderful idea, but that the culture barrier needs to be brought down.We have to level with the people first; put the information more into something they will understand, such as describing HIV as a type of spirit or something (many tribes are superstitious, as I have heard) the invades the body, when there is no protection, and will destroy your body and soul. While it isn't the whole truth, it may be something they can relate better to. If you have questions, feel free to ask. If you want to know more about culture barriers and are interested in that kind of thing, I suggest reading "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down".

I believe the reason a lot of people do not support the fight against AIDS have two reasons:

1. They believe they will never be exposed to the virus, and no one close them could be either.

And/or

2. They do not realize how close we are to a cure and/or vaccination against the HIV and/or AIDS virus.

You will undoubtedly want support for my theses, so, here it is:

First off, I am not saying that those two reasons are the only reasons a person would not support it, but that those are the two biggest reasons. With the first reason in mind, just think for a second... Well, I will just give you a few facts to start off with. A) In 1999 alone, 5.6 million people were newly infected HIV patients and only about 6 billion people inhabited the world. B) Roughly 16,000 people will be infected with HIV daily. C) The biggest stereotype is wrong; heterosexual
sex is the most common "method" of transmission. D) The virus is not gender-biased; it is currently infecting about 50% males and 50% females.

Now think again; do you really think you're ready to have "unsafe" sex. And that's another thing I personally despise: people think that a condom will save them from anything. Well let's get it out in the open; sheepskin condoms only prevent pregnancy, "sensitive" condoms are really only very thin condoms more likely to break than the normal kind and still the regulars can break too! So even "safe" sex isn't 100% safe! DON'T TAKE CHANCES!!! Okay, I'm starting to get off topic.. sorry. But the fact is, people often assume they are completely safe, there is no chance-yet they take chances. NEVER assume you are not apt, unless you are completely abstinent, completely drug-free and have never had a blood transfusion, among other things. (Actually, you don't even have to worry too much anymore about the whole blood donation thing.)

Whoa, and I'm only halfway through the lecture....

The second reason of why (in my opinion, anyways) some people do not want to invest in the prospect of a cure for/vaccination against HIV/AIDS is because they do not know much about how close we truly are to finding one. Let's face it, how many trials on humans do you believe have been worked on to find a cure or vaccination? I bet you wouldn't guess it on your first try... Why? Because the number of articles that are published about these experiments will not truly surface because they won't make the front page (or where the average person would be reading a lot) because it is "unimportant" in the media's eyes. We are a step closer to finding either a cure or vaccination, maybe even both, just by cancelling out one possible solution AND THE MEDIA DOES NOT CARE. (They only sell the news, they have no heart or soul unless they want to.)

There are currently an estimated eight general, possible ways-not even specific drugs, injections etc.-that we could get rid of AIDS through microbiology. Does the average American know this? I highly doubt it. I encourage you to research this on your own, but if you believe there is no way it was meant to be [to find a cure/vaccination] than you are too uneducated about this topic to be speaking. Science in general is making leaps and bounds by the day-tomorrow we could discover an inherited protein that would fight AIDS. (By the way, if you didn't know this, there is a specific protein that some people's bodies do manufacture that holds off the HIV infection from developing into AIDS.) If we say it isn't so, than we are being ignorant. If we believe it isn't so, than we are stupid.

Oh, and a personalized message to ToeTrench: You already sound like you don't know very much about English, let alone Science. And if you are discouraging finding the cure-which I'm almost 100% positive you are-shame on you.

By the way, anyone who actually plans on arguing for any period of time with the fool, notice he/she is the same person that has a quote promoting dropping out of school.

Don't search for a cure? We are at a pint in time where furthering science is valued. We have money invested in it and we keep finding more and more things out. Not looking for a cure just seems silly. How do we know that finding a cure for AIDs won't lead us to finding a cure for something else or teach us something new about human body reactions or something else?

I don't think we should ever not try and learn about something when there is an opportunity.

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Dont search for something that is meant to be lost for forever.

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And how do you know what is meant to be lost forever?

If u want to stop AIDS go to freedonation.com and click up to 160 times to support the fight againist cancer and AIDS. Along with other websites such as care2.com and thehungersite.com and ecologyfund.com to help save the rainforest so we can find cures this is what the youth can do. We need to fund more research into STDs yes but we also need to educate our peers on how to also make a difference in our communties. We also need to perhaps make food drives for americas second harvest who distrubutes food to all kinds of people including those with AIDS and cancer and also hungry children. Remmeber go and click and be heard. Sound off. Please reply

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Or maybe we can't find a cure because people are too dimwitted to try and help?

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Personally I find people who waste their time to try and find a cure dimwitted. Dont search for something that is meant to be lost for forever.

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If we cant find a cure, it was not meant to be.

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Or maybe we can't find a cure because people are too dimwitted to try and help?

Nothing should be done to help. If people get the disease, I believe they're meant to die from it. Everything happens for a reason. If we cant find a cure, it was not meant to be.

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Everyone already knows about it, it's just their choice to use protection.

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Actually a LOT of people don't know the full information and statistics on STDs and HIV/AIDS. I didn't know the full info until I was 15. That's too late. There still needs to be more and more education.

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I think our main problem with HIV/AIDS is not in the U.S. but in other countries like South Africa.

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So so so so.... very true. There are about 600,000 (?) cases of HIV/Aids in the U.S. I believe and yet millions have STDs. While not so fatal, it still is something that needs to be addressed. HIV/Aids while it needs to be taught in the U.S., shouldn't be the main topic in sex ed.

In Africa, where there are many more cases of AIDS, HIV/Aids needs to be taught everywhere. Condoms need to be passed out (sadly, prostitution is a way of life and can't be stopped until major reform happens). They need to be easily accessible to everyone free of charge. But still education is key.

What is there to do? Nothing, really.

Teens in the U.S. are being taught about AIDS and STDs all the time. I don't know how much more we can teach them. I was taught in the 7th grade by my nurse...Everyone already knows about it, it's just their choice to use protection.

There are always people that don't follow or want to believe that they can get a STD. There isn't much more I think we can do in the U.S. These other countries actually know nothing about AIDS and don't know about abstinence or how to use protection during sex. they don't have Planned Parenthood's on every major intersection in the city. They don't have free clinics where they can get tested. This is a major problem in my eyes.

You can't shelter teens forever They already know about sex and in my opinion, the earlier they know about the risks and eerything the better they are. The more we "censer" america...I don't think that's better. We can't hide what's going on. (movies are rated so that parents can decide what their children should see...that's as far as we need to go with that in my opinion on that at least).

I second jennyjean on this issue. Americans have been told and told that AIDS is dangerous and deadly, but some people are still thinking that theyre "immune" to the disease or that they "cant catch it".... We need to educate people in Africa, not here in the US, because more people there have AIDS than here

First, I think that we should start educating the youth in America and stop promothing sex in the media/entertainment(music and movies). We act like it's okay of us as teens and preteens to see that. Once we get educated about abstintence in America we can get educated about underprivileged countries where HIV/AIDS is an epidemic. We have to be educated first before we can do anything ourselves.

I think our main problem with HIV/AIDS is not in the U.S. but in other countries like South Africa. I think instead of worrying about the americans so much because they are getting the education that they need to learn about how they can prevent this...We should go to these other countries where AIDS is more rampant and educate them. They are the ones that should be educated because it is so widespread there. I think it's like 70 percent of the population has AIDS. I'm not sure of the facts though.

Teens in the U.S. are being taught constantly about abstinence and having protected sex. We need to educate others now.

HIV/Aids needs to be taught about, but there are other STDs that are more dominant in the U.S. HIV/Aids is more rampant in other countries.

One word- education.

iceland don't the teachers in the US do that??? i mean here we do get this education! and probably even due to this there are happily less then 0.01% infected!

-----"""Blame homophobic Reagan."""

Smart Bauhaus, that's what I do! We should have taken care of this in the 80's when it was still called G.R.I.D.S (that stands for Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome). And what did Reagan do about it those 8 years he was in office? He never once addressed the issue. So it spread from an unknown virus killing hundreds of gays, to thousands of them, to tens of thousands, (and yet Reagan refused to address the issue, not even once commenting on it) to gays and straights, to what we have now, a mother****ing bigass problem with no cure!

"Gay pride? What in the hell do they have to be proud of?!" -Nancy Reagan.


I think, to prevent AIDS, we should show what a big problem it is. This means teachers informing the students there are now millions and millions of people infected, and that we haven't found the cure in 20 years of looking, and that it's a killer disease not worth the risk.