HIV, disclosure, rasicm, criminal records

[Hyena Dandy]

A) You're wrong, people do get charged with malicious infection of Hep C

That isn't what Panacea was saying. I got the impression it was that the standard it is held to is different, not "No-one is ever charged for other diseases."

[Gravekeeper]

That isn't what Panacea was saying. I got the impression it was that the standard it is held to is different, not "No-one is ever charged for other diseases."

Regardless, I covered why the standard is different.

[s_stabeler]

To be honest, I'd support a requirement that ANY STD be disclosed before sex. It's not nothing to do with how dangerous they are- it's because there is a heightened risk of catching a disease.

but the thing is, HIV is put under greater scrutiny for a simple reason: while the risk of infection is somewhat low ( I don't know the exact percentage), if the other person DOES catch HIV, they will be on drugs for the rest of their life- drugs that are both fairly expensive, AND, from what was said earlier in the thread, %^&*ing touchy- miss ONE dose, and it may well make the drugs USELESS. No other STD does that. Oh, and it's still functionally impossible to cure. ( there have been exactly two cures ever, and those were when people had gone on the drugs more-or-less straight after exposure- so are closer to "didn't get it in the first place" than "cure")

[Panacea]

Well, two things here. A) You're wrong, people do get charged with malicious infection of Hep C and B) HIV and Hep C are worlds apart.

Hep C is extremely low risk for sexual transmission. In fact its actually HIV that increases the risk of sexual transmission of Hep C, unfortunately. Being charged with malicious infection of Hep C is usually the result of intentionally biting/spitting/attacking someone in such a manner as to risk transmission.

But HIV has over twice the morality rate of Hep C, spreads easier and is incurable. Whereas Hep C is curable in most cases and is harder to spread. So there's no real reason to hold Hep C to the same standard. There was never a Hep C epidemic that decimated millions.

Isn't there? The problem with Hep C is you die indirectly from it, much like you do from HIV. Hep C is one of the leading causes of liver failure, which is a horrible way to go. The treatment for it, interferon, is horribly expensive.

I see far more Hep C positive patients these days than HIV positive, regardless of how it's transmitted.

No one ever proposed leper colonies for Hep C or any other sexually transmitted disease, and HIV isn't the only deadly one. Syphilis was widely feared prior to the discovery of penicillin, and the only treatment before that (mercury) was as bad as the disease.

So the point remains, we treat HIV very differently than we do any other sexually transmitted disease, or indeed any disease.

[Gravekeeper]

Isn't there? The problem with Hep C is you die indirectly from it, much like you do from HIV. Hep C is one of the leading causes of liver failure, which is a horrible way to go. The treatment for it, interferon, is horribly expensive.

And what? Hep C has cures. Interferon and its ilk may be expensive but you do not have to take it for the rest of your life unlike ART. Which is not exactly a hell of a lot cheaper.

The cost of these drugs is also specifically an American problem as the one modern country without socialized medicine. Where I live, Interferon is basically free for example.

I see far more Hep C positive patients these days than HIV positive, regardless of how it's transmitted.

But again, it is curable regardless of anecdotal evidence and is often present along side HIV for obvious reasons. HIV also, like I said, has over twice the morality rate.

No one ever proposed leper colonies for Hep C or any other sexually transmitted disease, and HIV isn't the only deadly one. Syphilis was widely feared prior to the discovery of penicillin, and the only treatment before that (mercury) was as bad as the disease.

Again, Hep C is extremely low risk of sexual transmission to the point of being statistically negligible. Hep C primarily spreads through blood contamination, not sexual activity. Its only with the combination of HIV that it begins to become a notable risk with certain types of sexual activity

The same unfortunately occurs with syphilis in conjunction with HIV. Which is the whole problem here with HIV. It makes you more susceptible to other infections such as Hep C and Syphilis, and makes you more infectious with them. HIV is particularly dangerous in combination with any genital ulcer STD ( of which there are unfortunately several ).

You're also completely off base with how HIV is treated. There were states that had laws that made it illegal for you to marry if you had Syphilis. This exact same argument occurred over Syphilis in the late 1800s over moral and legal implications of not disclosing if you had Syphilis prior to sexual activity. It was a big issue for doctors stuck between patient confidentiality and warning the partners of their patients who they knew were infected.

Also, Syphilis and Leprosy were often misunderstood as the same disease originally, so yes, there were Syphilis leper colonies so to speak.

So sorry, but you're incorrect on this account. The primary difference with HIV is that it occurred as a modern epidemic in the west in a time when we thought we had a handle on this kind of thing as a modern society. We also had better tools of communication leading to the knowledge ( and freak out ) spreading quickly once the virus was pinned down.

The secondary difference is that HIV is basically the alpha and omega of viral infections. It just isn't on the same level as Hep C or any STD. It makes everything worse in regards to STDs. It makes a person more liable to be infected by Hep C or STDs and makes those STDs more infectious on top of that.

[BlaqueKatt]

The secondary difference is that HIV is basically the alpha and omega of viral infections. It just isn't on the same level as Hep C or any STD. It makes everything worse in regards to STDs. It makes a person more liable to be infected by Hep C or STDs and makes those STDs more infectious on top of that.

We also don't have any "Hep C denialists" claiming the Hep C virus is harmless(or doesn't exist) and the treatment causes the disease and letting their children die.

[Titi]

He has been found guilty. He tried to say he didn't know what it was, it was just an STD. And he was actually diagnosed in 2011.

http://www.modvive.com/2015/05/15/ti...rtners-to-hiv/

I can understand some of that but a regular member of CS has had no problems finding partners even though they are HIV positive.

[s_stabeler]

I call bullshit that he didn't know it was HIV, since if he KNEW he had an STD, wouldn't be want to know which one, in case it was HIV, as it turned out to be? while HIV isn't quite the death sentence it used to be, that is reliant on treating it.

[Gravekeeper]

I call bullshit that he didn't know it was HIV, since if he KNEW he had an STD, wouldn't be want to know which one, in case it was HIV, as it turned out to be? while HIV isn't quite the death sentence it used to be, that is reliant on treating it.

I just like the image of a doctor that diagnoses a disease but won't tell you which one. It's a surprise! >.>

[Panacea]

And what? Hep C has cures. Interferon and its ilk may be expensive but you do not have to take it for the rest of your life unlike ART. Which is not exactly a hell of a lot cheaper.

Hep C causes cirrhosis of the liver. There is no cure for that, and it causes a long, lingering, incredibly painful death. The treatment over time is quite expensive.

[Tama]

I recall reading that even in the event you get a liver transplant, that's still a somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million after the operation and all the prep and the immunity suppressing meds you have to be on.

[Gravekeeper]

Hep C causes cirrhosis of the liver. There is no cure for that, and it causes a long, lingering, incredibly painful death. The treatment over time is quite expensive.

Yes, it does, in about 1 in 4 people and only if left untreated for a decades. The risk of cirrhosis is only increased by things like, you guessed it, a concurrent infection with HIV.

But again, the cure rate for Hep C is very high with modern drugs.

[Gilhelmi]

H


There's a difference between intent and negligence. We haven't had a real case of malicious infection in decades.

Yes we have, even a quick google search found many articles. I admit, some were as you said "young gay men" who did not see the horrors of the 1980s.

The problem I saw in many of the articles mentioned is that it is really hard to prove "intent" unless you have a lot of victims, and many victims do not find out until it is too late to prove "X" was the one who infected them (because of how fast HIV mutates).

So I agree that the OPs case was negligence, mostly. But I disagree that there has not been a real case for a long time. I suspect the media of not reporting because they are afraid that it would provoke the fires of stigma.