The Age of Aids

I absolutely adore Frontline on PBS. I gravitate towards news programs in general but I like that Frontline takes just one topic and completely investigates it from many angles. I spent the last 2 nights up until 11 watching a 2 part series on the Age of Aids. Wow, was it well made and thought provoking. It was interesting to watch as the disease progressed and to realize how much valuable time was spent that could have been used on getting out the word on prevention because of all the hangups on the percieved target audience: gay men. Its as though people were willing to look the other way because they saw them as dispensable. Of course once it took off through infections spread through hetero sex and to children then we were behind the storm of the epidemic. Having seen a few people in our community who suffered and died from this disease I know how crippling it is.

What bothers me the most is the inherent classism and racism in the treatment. Its so sad that there are drugs that basically halt progression and enable HIV + people to live a longer life and yet the cost of these drugs are soo through the roof that only the wealthiest can afford them. People will die and its preventable...infuriating. Another issue that bothers me is that while President Bush to his credit (wow did I say he gets credit for something) pledged a record large amount of $$ to prevention, there have been debates that led to a relience on teaching abstinence over condom use when it has been proven that the programs that were soo succesful in Uganda emphasized safe sex. Its not very easy to change peoples lifestyles but its much simpler to give them tools of prevention.

So tonight I was hoping to get to bed at a reasonable time but I just saw that Primetime is running a special A Call to Action: Calling all Angels on the state of Foster Care in our country and well I cant miss that. Of corse it starts at 10...dont they know we old people need our sleep,geesh.