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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13818
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While we know that many, most, cases of HIV allow the development of AIDS my limited knowledge says that one is a viral disease, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and the other is a Syndrome, a collection of diverse symptoms too hard to classify.
That one is HIV+ is by no means the guarantee that one will develop the syndrome, especially with modern medicines.
Am I alone in feeling that AIDS is viewed by society as a terrible stigma and an inevitable death sentence whereas being HIV+ is viewed subtly differently? Or am I just a pedantic old fart who thinks that the two ailments are separate?
I believe that the distinction between the two is important. I know that,were I to receive the news that I was HIV+ I would automatically assume that AIDS was likely, but I would not feel the same despair as knowing that or thinking that I had AIDS for sure. I remember the simple shock of discovering I was diabetic. That was bad enough, though it hardly affects me.
So why do we allow the media to refer to HIV/AIDS? Are we so lazy that we can't make the distinction between the two, usually but not necessarily linked, complaints? Or are we just plain stupid? Or is it me?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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