Liberal Lies: HIV/AIDS treatment

In the eleventh century, it was discovered that if you isolate, or quarantine, a person with an infectious disease, that you limited the spread of the disease. This basic truth, isolation of the infected, has been used successfully since that time to limit the spread of many diseases. 

Public Health law reflects this successful treatment regimen, requiring people to submit to quarantine when they contract a communicable disease. 

Thirty-three states permit authorities to isolate people in their homes. In most cases there are no due process protections specified out in the law.

Forty-two states permit commitment to treatment facilities. Thirty-six states require a court order to commit someone to a facility. Several do not require a court order or a hearing. Generally court orders will be initiated by a petition from public health authorities requesting a hearing. Written notice to the person concerned is usually required, but the hearing may be held with or without the patient. Only thirteen states explicitly grant the right to be represented by counsel in any part of the proceedings. Of these, eleven will provide counsel to indigent individuals.

Release is accomplished when a determination is made that the person is no longer a threat to the public health, or no longer infectious. Some statutes specify criteria for release which may be vague ("no longer a danger to the public health") or specific (evidence in sputum tests that the person is no longer actively contagious). Ten states have no statutory time limits on the length of time a patient may be held without discharge or recommitment. In many states the only explicit due process protection afforded persons who are quarantined is the opportunity to petition the court for release.

In other words, most states are legally authorized and empowered to protect public health by isolation and quarantine of infected people. 

This practice has saved literally hundreds of millions of lives in history, perhaps even billions of human lives. 

This practice, the only successful means of dealing with a communicable disease, is not followed regarding one specific case of communicable disease. It is not followed with AIDS. 

In the 1980’s, when AIDS was first identified, we didn’t know anything about it. We had no clue how it was transmitted. Yet, the Politicians decided that it was not required to isolate and quarantine people, despite the fact that it is the only successful treatment for a disease, is that very course of action. Instead, the politicians and public health workers announced that AIDS was safe, you couldn’t contract it, despite the fact that we didn’t really know anything yet. 

For the first time in history, the transmission of a disease, the spread of a disease is not inter-human contact, but lack of funding. So while a Quarantine of the infected people would work, it’s not required, what is required, is more funding to prevent the spread. 

Liberals lie about this, they endanger the general population, and they blame Conservatives for causing the spread of AIDS through the lack of funding. This claim despite the fact that Bush’s administration has given more money to AIDS treatment than the Clinton Administration. 

GENEVA--Lack of political will and financial support continue to jeopardize global efforts to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS, the head of an international HIV/AIDS prevention project told participants in a satellite meeting of the XIIth International AIDS Conference.

"Throughout the world, millions of people are dying of a preventable disease because of apathy, denial and misguided public policy," said Dr. Peter Lamptey, director of the IMPACT (Implementing AIDS Care and Prevention) Project. "Political and business leaders must have the courage and the foresight to provide adequate funding for HIV/AIDS prevention and to support enlightened policies."

So why hasn’t the disease been wiped out, if the cure instead of Quarantine, is funding and Bush is giving more than Clinton? Because the answer isn’t funding, it’s common sense approaches to public health. 

Anyone with a sixth grade education has heard about Typhoid Mary. So why don’t we take the lessons of successful reductions and disease treatments and apply them to AIDS like we do for Typhoid? Simple. The liberal agenda item of pushing public acceptance of homosexuals would be affected. 

The next time an activist tells you that AIDS is spreading because of lack of funding, ask why we haven’t quarantined the infected. The answer you’ll get will surprise you, because that common sense and historically demonstrated successful treatment is the only one that is considered hateful by the left. 

It is apparently more hateful to keep people from getting sick, than it is to allow people to contract a contagious disease. It is apparently more hateful to try and limit the number of people with the disease, than it is to allow more people to contract the disease. 

Apparently I’m hate filled, because I think that taking the effort to limit the spread of the disease is worth it. Of course, life matters to me, I’m a conservative.