AIDS

Recently I watched a video on Netflix called House of Numbers. The movie was recommended to me by my Sociology professor. I didn’t really want to watch it, I must admit, because it was about AIDS and I watched multiple videos on AIDS in my AP Biology class when I was in high school. I’m not sure what compelled me to, but I watched the movie anyway. I guess I just figured I would refresh my memory about the syndrome because I couldn’t really remember what it was. I’m not going to bore you with all of the facts thrown out by the movie; I realize that numbers don’t appeal to everyone. But what the movie was saying intrigued me. Basically what the director did was go around the world, asking renowned scientists and researchers about HIV and AIDS and what their views on the two were, and what their definitions of them were. One thing most of them said was that the situation is not getting better. No one to this day has been cured of AIDS. The reason for this varies among the experts, but most believe it is because the drug companies make so much money off of the people living with the virus and the syndrome that they do not want to find a cure because it would significantly decrease profits. Regardless of the reason we do not have a cure, everyone that becomes infected with the virus and then the syndrome will die because of it. This idea is literally the only thing that the experts agree on. I wasn’t as intrigued by the facts in the movie as I was by the disagreement between the experts. I was blown away that these were the people we were supposed to be looking to for correct and definite information about the issue and they all disagreed with each other. Some experts said that AIDS was a chronic disease while others said that it wasn’t a disease at all. The actual definition of what AIDS is has changed so many times that the scientists and experts don’t even know what the definition is anymore. Since there is no universal definition, different countries use different definitions. You can be deemed infected with AIDS in Canada and then walk across the border into the United States and be deemed a healthy individual. How is that possible? Then I thought that if there is no universal definition, how are the statistics calculated? The director actually answers the question later on in the movie as he goes to the World Health Organization to get the official statistics on the AIDS infection count. What he finds is that even the World Health Organization doesn’t have official numbers; they only have assumptions and estimations. This absolutely amazed me. AIDS is deemed as a major world issue: there are ads all over the world advocating for safe sex to combat AIDS, education on it is implemented into the health curriculum, and people have completely altered their lifestyle because of it. In the United States people in California are even given special benefits for having AIDS. They get free living, a free cleaning service, and a handicap parking spot. Yet, the World Health Organization doesn’t even know how many people actually have it. It just astonishes me that we know almost nothing about AIDS and it has such influential power. There aren’t even accurate tests to determine if someone has AIDS or HIV. At AIDS testing centers in Africa they give you three tests to determine if you are infected. If the first two match, you most likely have it. If they differ, then a third test is used as the final determinant. Why wouldn’t they just use the third test in the first place? Because the test is not always accurate and can’t be used to determine infection by itself. For this reason, you can go to different cities in Africa and get different results. So then why would people get the test if they can’t get a definite answer? That doesn’t make sense to me, it just seems like unneeded stress. Most countries in the world use the Western Blot test to diagnose infection. Experts disagree on whether this test is sufficient enough or should be used in combination with other tests or not used at all. Another issue, besides the debate on whether it is actually effective, with the Western Blot is that what is categorized as AIDS depends on the manufacturer of the test. Each manufacturer has different criteria for what is determined as AIDS based on the test results. Also, studies have recently come out that state that HIV is extremely difficult to transmit through sexual intercourse, contrary to popular belief. They tracked down and interviewed hundreds of people who had unprotected sex with a partner that was deemed to have HIV to see how many had the virus transmitted to them. What did they find? None of them got the virus. Zero. Research continues to support the idea that HIV is almost impossible to transmit through unprotected sex. So, in conclusion, I still have no idea what to make of the AIDS and HIV scare. I don’t know if I should believe the numbers and what the experts are saying if they can’t seem to agree with one another. The issues with the tests are also kind of alarming to me. It just amazes me that something that is so mysterious and undefined can have such an influence on an entire population. It makes me wonder what makes something a social problem and another thing not. I am beginning to think that it depends on society’s reaction to the problem. There is no telling how long the AIDS mystery will linger, but my guess is that it is nowhere near disappearing.