Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!uci-ics!ucla-cs!ST501020%BROWNVM.BITNET@oac.ucla.edu
From: ST501020%BROWNVM.BITNET@oac.ucla.edu (Bill Jesdale)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: (1796) Radical treatment?
Message-ID: <32465@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 1 Mar 90 21:08:24 GMT
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Copyright:    Copyright 1990, Sci.med.aids. Non-profit reproduction permitted.
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Archive-number: 1800

There have been a couple messages lately asking about radical 'cures'.

  Though I cannot say this with any medical backing, it seems to me that
a cure for Aids is very unlikely.  It seems to me that many people are
avidly searching for a one-shot drug or treatment to rid them of HIV. I
feel that a more realistic response to HIV infection is to strive to live
comfortably with it, and minimize its negative effects on our lives.
I humbly suggest that people try to get away from a cultural bias towards
fighting and attacking, and that we learn to live with ourselves and the
inevitability of death in a more healthy and supportive way.
It seems to me essetially very selfish to spend hundreds of thousands of
dollars on a 'cure' of limited actual benefit, when there is so much to
be done in prevention and education.

I can't help but think of the film Harold and Maude. Maude had so much
to teach us about dying gracefully, not torturing ourselves and our
friends.  If only Harold had had the sense to let her go, rather than
dragging her into the Hospital for a furtive attempt at her life.