Almost missed this one: Today is World AIDS Day (it’s founded by the World Health Organization founded back in 1988 to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic and to honor the persons who have died from HIV/AIDS).
Chicago Now has a gallery of influential and famous people who have died from the disease. Do you recognize these four? Answers in the comment.
Link – Thanks Mu!
Alex
1. Ryan White, an American teenager who became infected by HIV because of blood transfusion for his hemophilia. At the time, little was known about HIV and AIDS and Ryan expelled from school (thus becoming a poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States).
2. Scientist and prolific author Isaac Asimov, who got an HIV infection through blood transfusion during heart surgery.
3. Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen.
4. Robert Mapplethorpe, an American photographer who triggered controversies with his publicly funded artworks depicting erotic homosexuality.
unsure
You mention how the first two people contracted aids, but not the second two. I’m not pointing that out to be snarky, just wondering what that says about us…
striatic
it says that we assume that most people get aids by having sex, which is true.
when it happens some other way, it is more notable.
meg
Striatic is right. When someone gets AIDS through a blood transfusion or an organ transplant (not that it happens anymore except in very very rare cases), it’s much more notable, because even people who are careful or not sexually active can be infected that way.
The main reason that Ryan White became the poster child for HIV/AIDS, besides the fact that he was expelled from school for it, is because it was still widely thought to be the “gay man’s disease”, and that the only way you could get it was having sex with another man. He helped publicize the fact that other people could get it, too, and knowing that made people actually give a rat’s ass about the disease that they otherwise would have written off as one of a sinful existence.
Yvonne
No matter how people get it, it’s time to get real about cures and healing. We all know that politics have kept much of the research funds behind….it’s well past time to find a vaccine, a cure, a way to stop this disease for EVERYONE.
Blaise Pascal
@unsure: Most people with HIV cannot state with certainty how they got it. White and Asimov are unusual in that regard. They were also more public about how they got it than the others.
violet
It’s more notable, but there’s certainly still a stigma attached to HIV. Because it’s bloodborne, sex and intravenous drug use are your main transmission routes, and gay sex moreso than straight. And the gays and the junkies are not the most universally accepted of people, so there you go.
The impulse to mention other means of transmission is worthy in that it reminds us that everybody’s at risk and that research for a cure is in everyone’s interest, but it’s hard to point out without leaving a sort of loud silence around examples that contracted the disease from gay sex. It sort of marginalizes while trying to be inclusive, or something.
Hi everybody!
cleondann
I know freddy mercury… But i didn’t know that he was victim of Aids… world aids day is a succesful way tio fight against or spread awareness about World aids…
regards
cleon dann
buddhaflow
See if this interview blows anyone else’s mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQoNW7lOnT4
It’s with the nobel prize winning co-discoverer of AIDS..
Stacy Lee
@violet: the group with the highest incidence of AIDS is young African-American women, and they get it from heterosexual sex.
B.M.
” @violet: the group with the highest incidence of AIDS is young African-American women, and they get it from heterosexual sex.”
Yeah, with any man who will share their crack with them.
astrodex
Offensive. But I assume that was your goal.
Huh, huh. He said “B.M.” Huh, huh.
Kippax
@Stacy Lee: In the US, maybe. But this is *World* AIDS day we’re talking about.
creampants
Yeah lets find the cure to everything. I’m sure there will be no ill side effects to something like no disease anymore. /sarcasm
SWFLguy
Asimov reminds me of when in 1985 I had an internal bleeding incident. I lost a lot of blood and really could have used a transfusion. My doctor recommended against it as he said the blood supply was not safe. At the time it wasn’t and I went very anemic for a while because of it.
zavatone
I am peeved and irked that the WHO made World AIDS Day on my birthday. No one asked me about this.
ByrdBrain
Out of genuine curiosity- do the same people who freak out about people having babies because they are killing the earth by overpopulating it and using all its resources also not want a cure for diseases like AIDS, cancer, etc?
unsure
@ByrdBrain – I have read that some Deep Ecologists have said the world should let the AIDS epidemic run its course for the sake of population control, but most people who think the population should be controlled would argue that it should be done in a way that doesn’t cause tremendous suffering and social disruption(e.g. Africa).
btw – interesting conversation taking here, you’ve all pointed out things that weren’t immediately obvious to me, but which are good point.
violet
@ Stacy: Okay. But that’s a separate point. Let’s just say that if you made a diabolical experiment to see whether straight sex or gay male sex produced a higher transmission result, gay sex would “win.” The reasons behind black women’s HIV rates are different, and in fact likely have a lot to do with gay sex and, actually, its stigma.
Randall
I’m as much a homophobe as anyoy red-blooded amurican, but the whole idea of curing any desease is to reduce suffering. Aids is a terrible way to die, slow and horrifying, and I see no purpose or justice in it.
Randall
I’m as much a homophobe as any red-blooded amurican, but the whole idea of curing any desease is to reduce suffering. Aids is a terrible way to die, slow and horrifying, and I see no purpose or justice in it.
scot
AIDS is 99% a preventable, behavioral disease. Raise money for breast cancer research.
ALA
scot, I wish you many boils and hives and every preventable disease there ever was.
Hola
Buddaflow, it was a good interview, it didn’t really blow my mind. What about it would? The statement that African’s are more likely to have poor immune systems? What with malnutrition and lack of access to clean water, this is not surprising.
Zaulankris
“AIDS is 99% a preventable, behavioral disease. Raise money for breast cancer research.”
QTF, scot.
Noelegy
I’ve read somewhere that the reason the AIDS rate is so high among young African women is because African men believe that to have sex with a virgin cures AIDS. 
dave9
We may not have as much of a population problem as previously thought:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14743589
Gauldar
Lies and misinformation is a large problem with this issue. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if people were educated properly. But then again… people are willing to swallow any tripe when they are scared for their life.
http://redwolf.newsvine.com/_news/2009/12/02/3579743-tales-inside-scho ol-condoms-cause-aids
scot
AIDS is preventable and behavioral. Don’t raise money for bug chasers.
ted
Nice trolling work, scot, but a little too obvious. Try for the more subtle approach next time, and don’t post twice to try and fan the flames. It smacks of desperation.
violet
We thank scot, actually, for proving that feeding the trolls is a preventable disease. I feel like we’ve all grown a little thanks to this exercise in fail.
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