After deluging the Health & Sexuality page with my dogmatic indignation for the health care policies of the United States, I can finally say that for once, the government may make me proud with its AIDS policy.
In what could be a major modification in policy, some health care experts are advocating that "virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases," according to the New York Times.
The reduction in new HIV and AIDS infections in adults and the potential to begin patients on drug cocktails early will supercede the cost of regularly testing nearly all adults in the United States, according to two federally funded studies reported by the New York Times.
Despite wanting to fully equate these studies with success, I remain very hesitant to congratulate the medical and public policy experts on their work. I dislike being the pessimist, but honestly, can anyone expect the government to commit to this expenditure?
Sadly, I can already hear the half-hearted and dejecting rhetoric on Capitol Hill: "The costs of implementing this policy far outweigh the potential benefits. In addition, enacting this policy will encourage young adults and teenagers to participate in unsafe sex and in effect, generate more cases of HIV infections."
Cut the pork (my mother always used a better word than pork).
The statistics are the most pressuring and disturbing problem with this endemic. Nearly 42,000 people nationwide are infected with HIV each year. About 950,000 people are currently infected in the United States, but experts say that about 30 percent are unaware of it, according to the New York Times.
But the problem does not end there.
The New York Times also reported last week that doctors have encountered a "rare and potentially more aggressive form of HIV."
I understand the reasoning behind abstinence education and the concern that condoms may increase sexual activity among teenagers -- and in this scary day and age, pre-teens. But the truth is that the protection advocates of the sex education debate do not want to see infected kids either.
Both sides want to see AIDS disappear. Both sides want to see kids and unmarried adults practice abstinence, but one side is being pragmatic while the other is being rather dogmatic.
I pray both sides do not shift their discussion to this policy proposal. In its entirety, this policy is not about the encouragement of sex within any community or about the benefits of abstinence versus protection.
At the core of this policy debate is the discussion of saving lives or turning our back. Simply put, I like to see people live rather than struggling to sleep each night, wondering how many people died on our watch.
If the United States can spend money on the war in Iraq and consider spending money on war in Iran or Syria, it surely can spend some money on a policy that will ensure the security of life today and in the future.
Kurt Davis is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality columnist. He can be reached at kurt@cavalierdaily.com.
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