For some reason the AIDS crisis holds a special place in the hearts of the left. To be true, AIDS is a devastating and merciless killer, but AIDS unlike many other global killers is 100% preventable. No one ever caught AIDS by coughing on someone or shaking their hand. This disease is not contagious like TB, SARS, the Bird Flu or Ebola, nor is AIDS random striking regardless of one’s efforts to prevent it like Cancer. Indeed, AIDS isn’t even the world’s most deadly killer. Regardless of this the UN has released another infamous report, noting, with much trepidation how the number of people living with AIDS is at an all time high.

According to the United Nations, the number of people with AIDS increased by over 5 million people last year, to over 40 million. Yes these numbers are disheartening and it is unfortunate that so many people wake up to an inevitable death sentence. But are these numbers as staggering as the UN report would have us believe? Perhaps not. In the first place the global population has increased by over 100 million people every year for several years now, so it should come as no surprise that the number of people living with AIDS is at an all time high.

Most of the people contracting AIDS reside in the 3rd world, which also accounts for 99% of the world’s population growth. This isn’t a coincidence it’s a direct by product of an increasingly cavalier attitude about sex. Yet the UN and the left place the blame for the spread of this disease on the shoulders of the developed world. Like clockwork, AIDS activists demand more funding for AIDS, but why? Like poverty, which we discussed earlier, AIDS today is about personal responsibility, people who make irresponsible decisions in life, such as frequent and unsafe sexual intercourse with many partners are destined to contract AIDS. Those strung out on drugs, who share needles with other degenerates are equally at risk. Gone are the days when people contracted this disease from hospital blood transfusions, gone are the days when people can claim ignorance of the disease as a defense. This is no a radical, revolutionary concept, but an inescapable reality. At present $8 billion dollars is spent annually combating the AIDS virus, but is this amount justified?

According to the aforementioned UN report, 25 million have died from AIDS since 1981, but how many people have died from Cancer, heart Disease, Diabetes? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 7 million people die from Cancer each year (12.5% of all deaths), with 11 million new cases annually. Based of those figures, over 170 million have died from Cancer since 1981, but where’s the outcry? Unlike AIDS, only about 1/3 of all forms of Cancer are preventable. Diabetes, another global killer claims nearly 4 million victims a year (9% of all deaths). Today over 130 million people are currently afflicted by the disease. Far more deadly than Cancer or Diabetes is Heart Disease, accounting for over 16 million deaths each year (29% of all deaths). Heart Disease, like AIDS is preventable, but unlike AIDS, Heart Disease can’t be traced to one single preventable incident, yet we spend far more on AIDS research than heart disease. Why?

Yes AIDS is a deadly killer and as we have noted, according to this UN report, 25 million have died from AIDS since its discovery in 1981, but millions more have died from Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes and other equally deadly ailments. But where is the outcry, where is the demand for more money, where are the vigils and demands for cheaper drugs? Are the victims of AIDS somehow more important than a cancer victim or someone who dies from a heart attack? Given the fact that more money is spent on AIDS than any other disease, save Cancer, one cannot help but feel that AIDS victims are indeed held in higher regard.
Link to CTV article
http://www.who.int/whr/en/