The Causes Of AIDS Through Needles
Many researchers and scientists have debates on the things that
cause AIDS to happen so rapidly in Africa. Although many facts and evidences
point toward the cause of AIDS as being unprotected sex, there has lately
been discussion that dirty needles may be the cause of AIDS. From a study
out of the British Royal Society of Medicine, they have concluded that
90% of people who have contracted AIDS followed heterosexual activities.
With this news, great awareness has grown in the United States. President
George Bush recently announced he is sending $15 billion to help the tragedy
in Africa. One of Bush’s goals, along with his health consultants,
is to issue information on safe sex to the people of Africa. However,
even with the long-term discussion that sex is the major cause of AIDS,
David Gisselquist has a different idea.
Gisselquist is the author who researched African AIDS, and he says that
AIDS in Africa is caused by dirty needles being used during medical treatments,
blood transfusions, and from other contaminated equipment. He feels that
needles should be blamed, instead of sex. The World Health Organization,
however, has concluded that Gisselquist is wrong, and that unprotected
sexual activities are the number one reason for the AIDS infections. But
because of Gisselquist’s concern, congress is holding up the $15
billion plan from President Bush. If by chance Gisselquist’s reasoning
is true, then money can be changed to funding new and clean needles or
even provide education to certain health programs and treatments.
Another person who disagrees with Gisselquist’s viewpoint is Maria
Wawer. She is a professor at Columbia University that has researched AIDS
in Uganda. She states that young children not in their teen years and
people over the age of 45 in Uganda have never been tested for HIV. Without
these records, she assumes that sex remains the number one cause of the
virus. Although there is evidence that sex is the number one cause of
AIDS in Africa, there may stand a chance that other issues might have
been left out such as needles (AIDS Weekly, p15).