The safe sex message is one that bears repeating. We should be constantly looking for new ways to get the message across so that it doesn't just go in one ear and out the other. This morning I read an interview with Pekka Pushka in New Scientist. This is the man responsible for reducing deaths from coronary heart disease by 80% in the North Karelia region of Finland. It involved the population of that region making massive lifestyle changes and Pekka kept pushing the issue. He kept up the momentum and he didn’t let it go. Eventually people did begin to make changes to the way they lived and the death rate dropped dramatically. You can adopt a similar approach when it comes to promoting safe sex. It always has to be on the agenda.
Obviously pushing safe sex isn’t going to be enough on its own to halt the spread of HIV. When it comes to sex, people often act in the heat of the moment - that’s why there are unexpected pregnancies and affairs and people getting blind drunk and waking up next to total strangers.
There are also forces working against it. If someone in the church questions the efficacy of contraception or makes unfounded claims that the HIV virus is capable of passing through microscopic pores in condoms then there are people in Africa, where religion is still practised very deeply, who will believe it. These kind of off-hand statements which seldom have any grounding in hard science serve to undermine safe sex programmes often in very vulnerable areas.
On the satirical show Brass Eye there was a spoof audience debate in which Chris Morris distinguished between those who had "Good AIDS" (haemophiliacs, blood transplant patients) and those who had "Bad AIDS" (homosexuals, drug users). It was a very insightful piece of comedy picking up on a strain of public opinion that there are some people living with AIDS or HIV who deserve no pity and should be treated like pariahs.
You can sit and moralise about AIDS all you want. While you are doing that HIV is mutating into more virulent and more resistant forms and chemists such as Eddy Arnold, who deal with practicalities, are looking for workable methods of fighting the disease. They need more money and more support and they should be regarded as heroes.
When it comes to tackling AIDS, there needs to a coordinated global effort similar to the way that we fought to eradicate Polio and Small Pox, or the way in which we are currently attempting to contain a potential bird flu pandemic.
Last edited by backwards7; 2005-02-13 3:40 PM.
