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The AIDS epidemic and when people didn't know as much

Discussion in 'Physical & Sexual Health' started by Tightrope, Jan 1, 2014.

  1. Tightrope

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    I am thinking of the friends and acquaintances one would have known about if they lived in a large enough area who passed away due to complications from AIDS.

    They didn't have the right drugs, or combinations of drugs, to keep them alive. I definitely have several acquaintances I know of, but only one friend who died from it. In retrospect, he was not a good friend, in that he was always looking for the best social opportunity and was also lazy in college, who then surfaced 3 years after blowing me off to tell me he had a diagnosis of full-blown AIDS and wanted to see me. After he reneged on a get together at the last minute, I wrote him off. I was hesitant but went to see him. He looked a little bit thinner, but fine. He died 9 months later. I remember getting the card that he had passed and just being in a state of stupor. It didn't seem possible.

    The question is, and it's just plain wondering about probability, how promiscuous people must have been to acquire HIV in the times when kids or young adults would not have been that informed? I've heard that the probability from one unprotected act of barebacking act is not as high as one might suspect, though that is the riskiest activity among sexual activities. Has the medical community figured out, on average, how many sexual partners or sexual events those who became infected probably had?
     
  2. hatiko

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    It is always so sad. I recently heard a news of someone on facebook who does of leukemia, and that made me really upset.:icon_sad: The AIDS story is particularly tragic, because millions of loves could be saved if Reagan wasn't a stupid Hollywood jerk. He thought AIDS only affects gays, and that's how HIV was overlooked when it wasn't too late yet.

    Any epidemiologist would say, if your partner had sex with others, that means you had sex with all of them too. Because germs spread, and never go away. Certainly those abusing sex and drugs are high risk, but I don't think anybody can tell you a numerical probability.