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The War on AIDS
| Article
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13160 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1987 |
4,547 Words |
| Author
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Michael Woods
Michael Woods, a contributing editor for THE WORLD & I, has
received numerous science-writing awards. |
The word means "poison" in Latin. Legions of these strange disease-causing agents, denizens of a mysterious realm that is organic, yet inert, have been infecting plants, animals, and people since the earliest days of life on earth. None, however, may come closer to the Latin meaning than the virus responsible for the next great pandemic of the second half of the twentieth century. For the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has proven to be a poison both literally and figuratively.
It causes disease in a fashion that authorities such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, have characterized as "diabolical." The AIDS virus poisons the human body's immunological defense system, the very system that protects people from viral infections and other disease.
But the virus has become another kind of poison that has fostered a second international epidemic. It is an epidemic of fear, misinformation, and even hysteria about AIDS and the spread of this incurable disease, which is believed to be 100 percent fatal. In some respects, the situation today mirrors the superstitions and unfounded fears of contagions that prevailed centuries ago, when great epidemic of bubonic plague, typhus, and other scourged periodically decimated the population of Europe.
Some people similarly fear that AIDS will decimate civilization. Others worry that the AIDS virus may be transmitted as easily as the common cold. Some believe it is an "Andromeda strain," a super-virus resistant to conventional treatment. Still others fear catching it from drinking glasses, toilet seats, doorknobs, and other objects touched by an infected person. Some fear being infected by insects such as mosquitoes and fleas. Nursing homes have turned away AIDS patients. Even physicians and nurses fear treating AIDS victims.
While most of these fears are substantiated by little or no evidence, the fact that a deadly and relatively unknown disease has infected large numbers of people is still a real cause for concern. "People from all walks of life feel helpless in the face of an almost universally fatal disease," says Dr. James O. Mason, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.
Is AIDS really that mysterious a disease? How much has science learned about the disease, its case, transmission, treatment, and prevention? Who does it threaten most? How does AIDS differ from other infectious disease?
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