World AIDS Day

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. | December 2, 2013

1st December is a “secular holiday”, the World AIDS Day. People wear red ribbons and converse about just how terrible AIDS is, and how the international community is letting down the victims.
I find the wearing of red ribbons rather silly, that’s why I don’t do it. But of course I agree that AIDS is terrible, and that the international community (aka “Global AIDS”) is a terrible failure.

Even worse than not preventing the spread of AIDS, “Global AIDS” (i.e. the coalition of UNAIDS and international donors, politicians and opinion leaders) has actually done all it could to perpetuate the AIDS crisis, in particular through a flawed communication strategy. Rather than addressing the real problem underlying the spread of AIDS, i.e. high-risk sexual behaviour, they consistently avoided speaking about this subject. Instead they concentrated on campaigns to promote the use of condoms, thereby creating a false expectation that the use of condoms makes sex “safe”. This false information has cost the life of millions, and has brought misery and suffering to many more.

I would not want to be one of those who are responsible for this disaster. And of course, neither do they. Although the facts about AIDS are well known, and have indeed been known for many years, the “Global AIDS” community is particularly slow in accepting them. This is no wonder, because accepting the truth about AIDS would imply acceptance of the flaws in the strategy that has been followed so far, and assuming responsibility for them.

World AIDS Day is a good occasion to recapitulate some of the basic facts about HIV/AIDS:

  • AIDS is an infectious disease. However, it is NOT transmitted through normal bodily contacts, but only through the exchange of body liquids. It is therefore generally safe to have normal social contacts with HIV-positive people, and there is no reason to cut social ties with them. (This regrettable tendency to discriminate bearers of the HI-virus is often described as “stigmatization” – a silly word, as originally the “stigmata” were the wounds that Christ received through his passion. If, later on, other persons, such as St. Francis of Assisi or P. Pio da Pietrelcina received such stigmata, this was generally seen as a distinctive sign of great sanctity, not as a sign of social exclusion.)
  • The main way in which AIDS is transmitted (certainly more than 98% of all cases) is through sexual intercourse, both heterosexual and homosexual (i.e., men having sex with men, often abbreviated as “MSM”). Exceptionally, AIDS can also be transmitted through the shared use of injection needles, which makes drug users a high-risk group. But essentially, it is a sexually transmissible disease (STD).
  • As things currently stand, AIDS cannot be healed. Available medical treatments can only delay the outbreak of the disease, or alleviated its effects. Thanks to these treatments, people can live with AIDS for many years, even decades. But it is a miserable life.
  • There also is no vaccination against AIDS. The only thing that can be prevented is the transmission of the virus from an HIV-positive mother to her new-born child. This is done through a vaccination immediately after birth.
  • The risk of transmitting the virus is greatest with newly infected persons, i.e. in the first weeks or months after having oneself caught the infection. This is because in these first weeks the body of the newly infected person has not yet activated its immune system. When the body’s immune system is activated, the risk of transmitting the infection is considerably lower, but not excluded. What follows is a permanent war between the virus and the immune system within the infected person’s body, in which finally the former will prevail over the latter. In that last phase, the risk of transmitting the infection will again rise – however, by that time the victim will be so weakened that he is much less likely to engage in sexual activities than in the first weeks after having caught the virus.
  • Thus it is the newly infected persons who are the most likely to spread the virus around. This is exacerbated by the fact that often these persons are not aware of being bearers of the HI-virus. And very often they simply don’t want to find out. The easiest way of dealing with potentially unpleasant news is by not dealing with them. This allows many newly-infected persons to persist in their irresponsible behavioural patterns without worrying about the possible consequences.
  • In sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS has severely affected the general population. In certain countries, more than 30% of the adult population were bearers of the virus, and the population of entire villages was extinct as a consequence of the pandemic.
  • In all other parts of the world, the pandemic has affected almost exclusively two social groups: drug users who share injection needles, and male homosexuals. The spread of AIDS is not, as some claim, a result of “discrimination” or “social exclusion”, but it has to do with the behavioural patterns of those victim groups. In other words, the victims themselves are responsible. If you are neither a drug-user, nor a male homosexual, yor risk of cathcing AIDS are minimal.
  • What do the general population in sub-Saharan Africa and male homosexuals in the rest of the world have in common? It is their sexual promiscuity, i.e. the habit of entertaining carnal relationships with several persons in parallel. If this pattern of behaviour could be broken, the fight against AIDS would be won.
  • In that context, it seems appropriate to clarify that “serial monogamy” (which means that sexual relationships remain exclusive, even if the partner changes every few years or so), which, following the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has become the predominant behavioural pattern among heterosexuals in Western countries, does not carry a major risk of spreading HIV/AIDS. This is why, despite the breakdown of marriage, the pandemic is not widespread among heterosexuals in Europe or the US. Even polygamy, i.e. that a man can be married to more than one woman, is not a problem, as long as there is conjugal fidelity. What is really dangerous is the development of “sexual networks”, i.e. a culture in which everyone has sex with everyone. This is (or used to be) typical only for populations in sub-Saharan Africa, and, on a world-wide basis, among male homosexuals. This is why, with the exception of Africa, HIV/AIDS is a “gay disease”.
  • It follows from what is set out above that the spread of HIV/AIDS could very easily contained, or even reversed, if the accent was set on behavioural change. This, and not drugs and condoms, will overcome the pandemic.
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