I don’t know if you remember the early eighties. You have to be at least twenty years old to be able to go back to that moment when the disease was first suspected and then reported. The belief from the get go was that only homosexual men, drug users of dirty needles or prostitutes were affected or were at high risk, so the rest of us had nothing to worry about, right? It was not difficult to jump to the conclusion that there was something inherently dirty with those human beings. There was even a righteous theory going around that the wrath of an impatient and angry eternal God was involved. I have always thought that the words “eternal” and “impatient” do not go together in the idea of God, but of course, all we had to do was stay clear of the victims to ignore their problem.

We became paranoid about infection from an enemy we did not know. Could we get the disease shaking hands? Perhaps swimming in a pool visited by the sick? Was it possible to get it when someone sneezed? Should we place them in isolated islands away from human contact like the leper colonies of yesteryear? It took some time, research and education to realize that the spread of the disease was not that simple. Somehow we became more knowledgeable and thought we could control it and keep it away from us. Whew! What a relief, wasn’t it? Well, we will see.

A look today at the faces and names of the dying provides a sad picture of familiarity, one that makes it less fearful because it has been “quarantined,” or so we think. Some of us know someone who has AIDS or has died from its effect. And the spread has materialized in warnings about safe sex that go beyond same-sex activities and have become controversial subjects of arguments in schools and churches, like the use of condoms and clean-needle exchange programs.

Still, the end of the scourge is not yet in sight. As the numbers increase it becomes clear that there is much more that we can and must do. Since the infection is still limited geographically and economically, we do not really feel individually at risk and are therefore immune to being involved as well. The possibility that the disease could mutate again and really do a number on us if it jumps to the general population at a faster clip is still there however. Evolution, although much controversial because it is not well understood either, is a tricky game; it is also a patient game.

Richard Dawkins, the famed biologist, in his book “The Ancestor’s Tale” states that “to the AIDS virus the person where it lives is an island.” An island, of course, that isolates the germ and must be migrated from.

To a virus so aggressive that its host eventually dies it is imperative to reproduce somewhere else, another human being, another island. Unless we make the disease happy enough to survive in its environment without propagation, the way other more benign viruses live within us, we have to continue to reinforce the island nature of that habitat. That requires compassion and money. And it also needs understanding and creativity.

One cannot avoid comparing our failing decades-old attitude towards the increase of AIDS with the recently exploded fear about the avian flu, a second pandemic track so to speak. The so-called bird flu, while still not transmitted to humans in large scale, has all the dramatic characteristics that surrounded the early episodes of the AIDS pandemic. We don’t know if it will mutate; whether it will be fairly spread around the world; whether we will be affected and catch it; if there will be enough vaccines against it, so on and so forth. And, most of all, the fact that the virus can spread through contacts with birds that, of course, migrate on their own and fly from here to there beyond our control, makes it more threatening and less understood. It is the new bogeyman.

The response of our government to the risk has been loud; something akin to a new war on terror, but noise is not an alternative to efficacy. According to the New York Times in an editorial dated December second “the United States , which has consistently pledged to contribute a third of the Global Funds AIDS budget, is not doing so.”

On the other hand, it is obvious that the reaction will have to be swift if and when the avian virus starts to affect humans; but caring about the new pandemic we don’t see or know should not be an excuse to neglect the one we know and is affecting us now. Makes one wonder: would we be more responsive to the AIDS virus is all of a sudden it mutated to some flying mode of contamination? Would making it less familiar or predictable stop the spread of the disease we know in its tracks?

Our record of compassion with the victims of AIDS leaves a lot to be desired. Our concerned reaction to a new pandemic that hits from a vengeful sky with wings is not a sight to be welcome. It is urgent to act.

The day after Thanksgiving we noticed in the news the rush of throngs who were mobbing department stores trying to get the best bargains they could get their hands on for this Christmas season. Please note that we said “this Christmas season.” There have been many others in the past and there will be many more in the future; there always are. Not for the millions who will die of AIDS or poverty this year or next. I am sure some of us may get what we want for this Christmas, but I am not sure we know what it is we should get or what Christmas is all about. Remember, it is not simply a birthday. It is the celebration of a life that culminated as a sacrifice on a cross.

And that is my point of view today.

Dr. Montesino, solely responsible for this article, is the Editor of LatinoWorldOnline.com and Senior Lecturer in the Computer Information Systems Department at Bentley College, Waltham, Massachusetts.
 

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