Is Aids Mainly In Homosexuals
Essay by 24 • September 30, 2010 • 449 Words (2 Pages) • 1,917 Views
"Is AIDS Mainly in Homosexuals?"
AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, has been around for a decade. A disease that over time shuts down a person's immune system causing the white blood cells to weaken, making them unable to protect the body from outside germs and infections.
Since the first case of AIDS was reported in medical literature in the late 1970's, people have been wondering what is the origin of this foreign disease?
Lisa Law stated in 2000's Sex Work in Asia that there are new debates on the origin of AIDS from prostitution.
Many other science experts believe AIDS arose from our ape predecessors (Lawson). The AIDS epidemic began spreading throughout the entire continent of North America by the year 1980 (Altman). Although it was unclear if the first person diagnosed with AIDS was in fact homosexual, the disease had spread more throughout the gay community causing people including the media to market it as a "homosexual disease."
As Dennis Altman said in the book AIDS in the Mind of America, "The perception of AIDS as a gay disease has real social and political consequences." Placing
the blame of AIDS on homosexuals caused the loss of lives through hate crimes and severe homophobia making them seem as second class citizens.
But little did the world know in the late 80's that more cases of AIDS were arising but this time in heterosexuals. By 1985 AIDS became less and less accurate to think of as a gay disease. Not only have people came to discover that AIDS isn't in just homosexuals but it isn't just a sexually transmitted disease.
4.3 million Heterosexuals diagnosed with AIDS have caught the disease from sharing injected needles (Rushing). The rate of AIDS began to rise among heterosexual substance abusers by 20 percent
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