Way to go Commiefornia

About 6 months ago according to the CDC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_HIV_treatment#Basic_cost_estimates

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), currently (last updated: March 8, 2017), the lifetime treatment cost of an HIV infection is estimated at $379,668 (in 2010 dollars),[1] Another study estimated the discounted lifetime cost for persons who become HIV infected at age 35 is $326,500 (60% for antiretroviral medications, 15% for other medications, 25% non-drug costs). Undiscounted mean lifetime costs are estimated to be $597,300.[2] "Discounting" in this context refers to a process in which future costs and health consequences are converted to their present values, about which process there is some controversy.[3]

Funny, I was thinking the same thing after reading your initial list up there and your responses since. And it's not illogical at all, courts very often times award damages on the grounds of pain & suffering, lost wages etc etc.

You may think that living with HIV is just hunky dory, but I'd be more than willing to bet the overwhelming majority of society does not agree with you.

 

Trust me, I don't think living with HIV is hunky-dory.

I buried more friends, acquaintances, and co-workers who died of complications from AIDS that I can count. - I stopped counting in late 1988 when the number exceeded 200. The rampant dying continued until the three-drug protocols came out in 1996, so that number is probably well north of 300 - maybe 400.

I've held the hands of men while they died. Dealt with the unknowing and hostile families, provided shelter to dispossessed partners, and more.

I am way too familiar with HIV and all that it was and is.

I have several friends who are long-term survivors, living with HIV for from 10 to 35 years. I am fully aware of the consequences of HIV back then, and how different it is now. A lot of good people died while the medical field figured out how to treat the OI's and developed the protocols that control the virus, preventing progression, and as is now known, transmission.

I'm still losing friends to the side-effects of the early treatments. These include kidney and liver failure, heart disease, stroke, pancreas failure, and organ cancers.

For those infected prior to around 2000, the dying hasn't stopped, although it has been greatly reduced.

I wouldn't wish HIV, or Hep C on my worst enemy.

But why do we single out just this one virus for criminalization? It doesn't make any sense, and it perpetuates the epidemic.

 

Vaccinations aren't anywhere near the same thing.

I'm ok with it being a felony to knowingly transmit any STD. If you KNOW you have anything and don't disclose you are scum. You are ruining someone's life for your own sexual pleasure.

 

They aren't? Measles and Whooping cough kill more kids each year than you may be aware of.

Around the world, infant mortality from preventable (if vaccinated) diseases is a huge issue.

 

I'm good with the second sentence. Not the first. It should not be a criminal matter. Civil, perhaps, but not criminal.

 

The kids aren't having sex with each other and purposefully giving the others diseases. I do believe that it's required to disclose to schools if your kid isn't vaccinated though. Don't know, don't have kids and I'm not some anti vaccine person.

 

I believe those numbers cited are out of date. The drugs produced up to about 2000 are now out of patent, and the generics are substantially cheaper. The availability of generic treatments has limited the price that can be charged for the newer drugs, unless someone is on salvage therapy.

Either way, it's expensive. About what a smoker would expect to pay for health problems related to smoking over a lifetime.

 

Kids congregate. Not being vacc'd will as a direct cosnequence provide a vector for that disease, that is extremely efficiently spread in typical kids social situations.

I actually think it is more irresponsible to not vaccinate your kids and not tell everyone than it is to have sex without disclosure. The parties agree to have sex, knowing there is always a risk of STD's. The kids don't know, and often don't have a choice to stay out of the social situations, such as day care, school, etc.

Another thought on sex and STD's. Even if you get tested regularly - the current recommendation for sexually active people who have multiple partners is quarterly testing - you can get tested today, have sex with someone tonight, picking up a STD in the process. Your tests come back clean. You have sex again a few days later, thinking everything is OK, and pass on the STD.

Negative tests for STD's mean nothing if you have had sex at least once since then.
I always think that the tinder/grinder ads that say "DD free" or "clean" are a joke. They have no clue.

 

I won't go so far as more irresponsible...thanks for the cogent explanation. I've been outside the danger zone for about 30 years so I stopped paying attention.

 

Another view.

 

He seems a bit more reasonable about this topic. And it's true, fortunately if you are a straight non-IV drug using white man you are in the lowest risk category of anyone else, almost zero.

https://www.dangerandplay.com/2012/04/25/how-to-prevent-stds/

 

something-ist

 

The Las Vegas thread has me confused - do laws disincentivize behavior or no?

 

Laws alter behaviors to minimize risk of prosecution.

In the case of HIV criminalization laws (in 38 states, IIRC), the way to avoid prosecution is to not know your HIV status.

Not knowing your status when you are poz, will cause a greater number of new infections,as you are most infectious when untreated.

It also increases costs of treatment, as you don't know you are sick until you are seriously ill, thus burdening insurance companies, public health costs, etc. more than if you were tested and treated. The poorer outcomes continue for the rest of your life if you aren't in treatment early. This takes you out of productive society and makes you a dependent on the rest of us.

 

Your argument is that people will not get tested due to fear of prosecution.

If you’re sexually active in a community where HIV/AIDS is present, don’t you think that the fear of death or decreasing your life span significantly by not getting tested outweighs the fear of prosecution?

 

Logic has no place in a discussion of the continued persecution of carriers of deadly virii.

 

So which other diseases are criminalized in the US currently?

And secondly, as I've pointed out earlier in this thread, these laws criminalize behaviors/actions that are incapable of putting others at risk.

 

We all are in that environment if we have been born or became/remained sexually active with more than one person (who must also be fully monogamous) after say, 1982. How many here have been tested?

The fear and denial around HIV issues is huge.

 

Every time I give blood.