World AIDS Day, a day late

I wish I had thought to post about this yesterday, which was World AIDS Day. Leslee has a great post about the AlterNet.org numbers and how the United States was the only country to vote against the U.N. resolution on "access to drugs in global epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria." Is there a good reason for that? What do we gain by preventing drugs from getting to AIDS patients? Is there something in the rest of that resolution that warrants our no vote? (when I find the verbiage of the resolution I will post it for us, or a link to it) Tequila Mockingbird has a personal view on the subject that is worth reading, as all of her posts are.

I worked for a doctor for 11 years, until I decided that an hour commute was worth a hefty raise (don't go there, we will discuss it later!). We had a few patients who were HIV positive. I watched them and their families go through the trauma, the illness, the weakening muscles, and death. Our staff was wonderful, we didn't condescend or act repulsed. We weren't repulsed, we didn't think these folks were lower than us on the food chain. They were humans and deserved our respect as all other patients did. Our nurses made an effort to make these patients feel as welcome and loved as our flu patients and therapy patients. Hugs were always given, to show that they were not afraid of catching the virus, that they knew how it was passed and a hug wasn't going to do it. Now we get to my concern. I wasn't afraid for our nurses at all. I was afraid for our patients. A woman who deals with sick people all day long is hugging someone who has little or no means of fighting infection. Who is in greater danger?

I have never heard or seen a study on this, if AIDS patients were at a greater risk around healthcare workers and in clinics or not. I am against the idea that we can't touch people with AIDS, that somehow they became less of a human when they contracted the virus. I just am also against blindly fighting that stigma in ways that endanger people. I am against doing anything blindly, actually. Is there a middle ground between the reactionary responses of the extremists? I hope so.