THAT TIME AGAIN. It is, once again, that time of the year in which countless numbers of otherwise sensable citizens across his land of ours seem to come, suddenly, awake to the disturbing fact that fact that statistics again show the HIV virus infection is not receding. In fact, this months figure show HIV infections have now arrived at a new, higher plateau here in the United States.
Some read into the reports a word of celebration in the fact that the figures just in do indicate that, for the year, there has been a decline of the rate of infection among women as compared to that among males.
This sort of small encouragement causes a great many people to take heart in current campaigns to acquaint more and more people who meet with the problem. The reasons for this apparent deline among womens are numerous in the telling, of course, but nothing of genuine consequence seems to have,in any way, altered the seriousness of the general picture for both men and women assoicated with the lifestyle which permits, and even encourages the very acts which contribute, to the causes which make the virus infection know as HIV to become one of mankind's greatest scourges.
Just this week the Governor of Massachusetts has set forth yetanother attempt to make the state reverse its present legislation – unique among the state laws of then nation ti make illegal to perform same sex marriages. He is,I believe, also asking that the same such denial be set up in relation to so-called civil marriages, as well. It is hisintent, it seems, to kill such wild adventures in licentious legislation during those hectic months associated with our national elections.
Figures today show that we now have an around l,039,000 to l,285,000 million people in the United States who have been infected with HIV, the AIDS virus. In 2003 the totals stood around 850,000 to 950,000, Half of them are black. The hardest hit group were,logically, gay men. Even more frightening to many people is the fact that about 25% of those more-or-less two million people actually are HIV infected but don't know it yet. It is also true that the actual rate of increase among stricken men more than offsets the decline among women.
We have never faced a problem such as this?
A.L.M. amccsr@adelphia.net June 17, 2005 [c407wds]
