Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucla-cs!usenet From: gerri@watson.ibm.com (Gerri Oppedisano) Newsgroups: sci.med.aids Subject: Newsweek article .. also note attached below Message-ID: <1991Jun27.155347.15084@cs.ucla.edu> Date: 27 Jun 91 13:34:04 GMT Sender: usenet@cs.ucla.edu (Mr. News Himself) Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department Lines: 130 Approved: phil@wubios.wustl.edu Note: non-commercial reproduction. Nntp-Posting-Host: squid.cs.ucla.edu Archive-Number: 3302 Now, wait one minute and let's be a little bit realistic. I think that it's understandable and it doesn't surprise me in the least that Ms B feels more victimized than the person who contracted AIDS from engaging in the activities that are much more commonly tied to AIDS and HIV. For a while there was a big Political Correctness debate here talking about how there should not be any utterance of a High Risk Group, there are only High Risk Behaviors and people should refer only to High Risk Behaviors and not associate a particular group with these behaviors. Two big high risk behaviors are IV drug needle sharing and unprotected sex. Sex and IV drug usage are so commomly tied into AIDS that even those well informed people who practice safe sex have a small fear of the possibility of contracting AIDS. In general, people engaging in these activities should be prepared. Going to the hospital to get your baby delivered is not considered a high risk activity. Barely anyone is prepared to accept contracting AIDS from this, and I don't understand your feeling that people should.. You want people NOT to be hysterical? I think if just about any situation which puts me in contact with another person is a possibility for contracting AIDS I'd be pretty paranoid. People do not expect Doctors who have an infectious disease to openly expose this disease to their patients. It's a normal expectation. Now whether this woman in fact contracted her AIDS from this doctor and whether he did in fact come in contact with her without using protective gloves, I really don't know. But if this doctor does have AIDS and did stick his/her fingers in her mouth with open soars on his/her hands and examined her vagina under the same condition then the doctor IS acting unrightfully. How can you disagree with that? At any rate, contracting AIDS from your doctor delivering your baby is uncommon and is a special case as far as I'm concerned. And I could say in my well informed mode that although I might understand how the transmission took place in retrospect I would still be much more upset, bitter and resentful had I contracted AIDS from getting my baby delivered than from having sex. I think if you expect people to be prepared for contracting AIDS no matter what they do and under almost any circumstance you're being very unrealistic, and I also think you are the one who is being self righteous. I didn't see the Newsweek article and perhaps it was written in such a way as to make people angry or paranoid, which I don't think is right, however this woman Ms B is angry and Newsweek is printing her viewpoint. People are free to interpret the situation any way they want. It's a free coountry.. freedom of speech, expression etc.. Why do you feel so free to your opinion and at the same time denying Ms. B hers? gerri@watson.ibm.com ****** The following is a COPY ***************************** Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 13:25:54 pdt Reply-To: "Sci.Med.AIDS Newsgroup" Sender: "Sci.Med.AIDS Newsgroup" From: "Support Account for SCI.MED.AIDS" Subject: (3299) Drs. & AIDS/Newsweek To: Multiple recipients of list AIDS >From: Newsgroups: sci.med.aids Approved: phil@wubios.wustl.edu Subject: Drs. & AIDS/Newsweek Date: Wednesday, 26 Jun 1991 14:32:59 EDT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center Note: Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening. Permission granted for Note: non-commercial reproduction. Archive-number: 3299 I have just finished reading the cover story in the July 1, 1991 issue of Newsweek, "Doctors and AIDS". My immediate reaction is that despite presenting both pros and cons on testing of medical personnel and disclosure of test results, the most likely result will to be terrify the public and inflame popular opinion to the point where rational discussion of the issue will not be possible. Perhaps the most "dramatic" part of the article is the story of Dr. Philip Benson. Dr. Benson is described in the article by one patient as having "oozing sores" on his hands and arms when he examined her newly born infant, and examining the child's mouth and vagina while ungloved. A TV station has a film which purports to show Dr. Benson delivering a baby while gloved, but with "sores' on his bare arms. Considerable attention is given to describing the condition of Kimberly Bergalis in the terminal condition of AIDS. It is my feeling that the material presented on Dr. Benson and Ms. Bergalis is likely to freak most readers right out of their wits if they do not have some first-hand knowledge of AIDS. I found myself struggling to control anger against Ms. Bergalis as I read her comments about her condition in the article. In another newsgroup I refrained from entering a discussion concerning her letter to Florida health officials which was released to the press by her parents because I felt that its contents were not extreme. I feel quite different about her comments (other than the letter) as quoted in article. And, I feel that Newsweek which opens this article with her story and quotes from her shows a decided lack of overall perspective. Having seen dozens and dozens and dozens of men and women die of AIDS, some of them as young or younger than Ms. Bergalis (she is 23), I can say that there is nothing especially gruesome or more poignant about her condition and her fate than there is about the fate of those many others who have sickened and died with AIDS. Yet I got the impression that Ms. Bergalis and Newsweek thinks there is. Chop my fingers off, but here goes: There is nothing special about Kimberly Bergalis, and if she doesn't know it and Newsweek doesn't know it -- who's fault is that? It's the Ryan White Cry-athon for for the Great Straight White World to get all teary and self-righteous over. I could show Ms. Bergalis and Newsweek two 23 year olds about twenty blocks from here who are in the same condition as she is. They didn't ask to have AIDS any more than she did. The difference is that they don't think what is happening to them is special. Somehow they have made a connection in their 23 years which this woman has not, they know that they are dying of AIDS and not of a disease called Innocent Victim. Ms. Bergalis seems to be suffering as much from the latter. She has had a chance to find out what death by AIDS is in the 23 years she has been alive; Newsweek and the rest of the media has had the opportunity deflate the myth of Innocent Victim. As far as I am concerned both parties must take a great deal of the responsibility for the bitterness surrounding her dying, and for the mischief that it will let loose among us. Jack Carroll <^>v Via SCI.MED.AIDS => AIDSNEWS gateway / aids@cs.ucla.edu