HIV/AIDS as a Controversial Issue

Where did HIV/AIDs come from?
     I have chosen to discuss about HIV/AIDs. What is the origin of HIV/AIDS? Simply we really didn't know for sure. HIV/AIDS for over twenty years has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments about it origin. However, Scientists have always had a number of different theories about the origin which does not prove the origin of HIV/AIDS.  However, the origin of HIVAIDS is not always clear but we constructed.
     
    Brief story of HIV/AIDS:  HIV/AIDS had originally been a disease known to exist in in monkeys; it was originally called simian immunodeficiency syndrome (or SIV). Scientists think that the “jump” from monkeys to humans lies,  may have been a decades ago in the 1940s, when African bush meat hunters became infected by the monkeys that they had hunted for food (“Viruses”). According to scientists, the history of HIV/AIDS, in humans, begins with a man in Africa who dies of a mysterious illness. 1981, was referred to be the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic (“Global”). Although, scientists believe that HIV was present years before the first case was brought to the attention of the population (“Global”) it is not exactly clear. In 1981, the CDC reports an unusual occurrence of Kaposi’s sarcoma (rare opportunistic skin cancer) in many gay men (“Global”). In 1982, the CDC formally establishes the term Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS (“Global”). After  25 years, researchers have confirmed that HIVAIDS originated in wild chimps and then spread to humans.
HIV/AIDS stands for immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that causes when it gets into human body and Causes AIDS; and AIDS stands for Acquire Immune deficiency syndrome.  HIV damage cells of body‘s immune system of human and destroys the body's ability to fight infections. As a result, it causes AIDS disease.

   As the argument goes, African says that the disease is originated from the West especially in North America and mainly in the United States in 1981.  On other hand, American also says that the origin of HIV/AIDS is in Africa.  When the scientists say that the origin of HIV/AIDS is Africa, Africans by themselves argue saying that if HIV/AIDS is originate Africa, and then it is in South Africa and Zaire and Cameroon or southern and western Africa. The same thing to the United States it also a controversial issue. Among American says that HIV/AIDS came from gay men. They called it as “gay cancer” as it was called by that time. It was indentify as different disease which later became HIV/AIDS. When the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported the new outbreak they called it "GRID" (gay-related immune deficiency), stigmatizing the gay community as carriers of this deadly disease. This was how American first thinks about the disease. However, this was not the cases; and it started to be seen in heterosexuals and people who received blood transfusions, proving the syndrome knew no boundaries.  With that being said, that was just how the construction goes not because it is the gay disease or minority disease. It became a deviant thing on how people constructed in different places.

        People with HIV/AIDS in Africa are suffering of stigmatization and label given to them by the society. People with eating disorder in Africa are considered to be HIV/AIDS positive. No one does like to be even close to them. If a person looks thin or skinny, people will consider he/she may have HIV/AIDS. Also if one has health issues, people will say that it may be HIV/AIDS.  Even thought they know that this disease could not be transmitted by touching, sitting on a toilet seat and by sharing food with HIV infected person, people still have doubt.  This is how people constructed HIV/AIDS as deviant sharing food with HIV infected person in Africa.  But in contrary to public perception, one can't get HIV/AIDS   by sharing food, drinking water at the same cup. But because of the construction and fear of the disease thinking as a deviant, nobody thinks these things are true. This is how people constructed HIV/AIDS as deviant when someone got infected.  Here is the Video: http://youtu.be/UF3JGrt9Zvo

      I also think it may by the same thing to here in the United Sates. I remembered two months ago watching new on the CNN about the case of a young boy from Massachusetts who had been rejected in school in which he applies for. He was rejected simply because he has been HIV/AIDS positive.  This boy was stigmatized just because he has the disease like how people do to HIV/AIDS patients back in Africa. But people forget that AIDS disease is not transmitted when learning. This young boy became deviant according to the society way of constructing HIV/AIDS.  This related to what we have been discussing Alex  Thio Thomas. C Calhuon Addrain Conyers in Reading Deviant Behavior, (2010 ) that society view people who are either sick, disable and acting inappropriate as deviant.  This brings us to how the crimes statistic in this nation socially constructed with disproportionality among the population.
In the United States, HIV/AIDS is constructed disproportionally among the minorities groups like the way that crimes statistics goes. For instance, since the AIDS epidemic began in 1981, 1.7 million Americans have been infected with HIV and 583,298 have died of AIDS-related causes through 2007. Minorities still have a greatest burden of HIV/AIDS infection. For example, Gay and bisexual men account for estimated 53% of new HIV infections according to the Kaiser family foundation fact sheet (2010). African-Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS. Blacks accounted for 45% of new HIV infections in 2006 and 47% of those living with the disease. Black women are account for 64% of HIV/AIDS infection but yet they make up only 12% of the U.S. population. Latinos account for 17% of new infections yet comprise 15% of the U.S. population, while whites represent 35% of new infections and account for 66% of the total population. In this case, the AIDS case rate for African Americans is more than 9 times that of whites, and the HIV rate is 7 times greater among blacks than whites. Survival after an AIDS diagnosis is lower for blacks than any other racial/ethnic group. This is how the social construction of HIV/AIDS rate goes in the United States. It is hard sometime to believe that how research figure out. This social construction of HIV/AIDs disease is related to the course because it is about societal construction of who is considering being deviant. This is not true to my understanding due to the way it got constructed.. However, most benefit in all this process of the disease.
        
     The major players in decision-making process of HIV/AIDS are drug companies, doctors or physicians and Federal Drugs Administration (FDA) and they are the also the parties who are gaining from the diagnoses. But the parties stand to lose from diagnoses are patients and medical insurance companies. Their information of the disease got spread out via mass media, internet and research. It benefit them because there treatment. However, the society will label and consider people with HIV/AIDS as bad individuals of being sick that became their master status. But it sometimes depend on someone‘s status in the society. The good example of someone who had HIV/AIDS and was not poor is Magic Johnson of NBA.  He announced that he is HIV-positive and retires from basketball. But because he was so rich, he did not experiences all negative stereotypes like other poor people with HIV/AIDS.
Although stigmatization and fear still surrounds HIV/AIDS, many seek the label and fight for what is rightfully theirs. The men and women who are suffering from HIV/AIDS need help so that they can return to active life even though no complete cure for the disease. In spite of stigmatization, there is a comfort in having a label that explains the suffering. Role of the social institution is trying to help people of the disease but label them as weak at the same time.  However, some people are less likely to get treatment like poor people but rich can afford to buy medicine for HIV/AID.  They underlying social construction of the things such as race, class, gender, size, ability, sickness, sexuality, and perception of HIV/AIDS are that people with the disease are not contributing to the growth of the economy because they are weak.  On  the other hand,  possible social reasons for the existence of HIV/AIDS  is that not  all patients  with HIV/AIDS die;  they contributed to the economy in different ways and that  AIDS is not  a disease originated from gay men as well as  Africa. It does not matter but a universal disease.
     So did it definitely come from Africa?  Not still not sure but they have already looked at, and say that it is likely that Africa was the continent where the transfer of HIV to humans first occurred. They also have no evidence what so ever. Some say why “only African monkeys” but monkeys from Asia and South America) have never been found to have SIVs that could cause HIV in humans. This is very controversial issues which some people rooted back to the colonial times. It is like the argument that is going on about AZT, medicine for HIV/AIDS that kill patient and not treat the disease. But they physicians and drug companies argue it doesn’t.   This disease has been the subject of fierce debate and the cause of countless arguments about it origin for over twenty years.  Finally, the origin of HIV/AIDS remains as a politically sensitive exercise and social construction. 
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Works Cited: Addrain, Conyers, Thio, Alex, Thomas C and Calhoun, 2010.  Readings in Deviant Behavior.  6th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Ba. 1975
"Global HIV/AIDS Timeline - Kaiser Family Foundation." The Henry J. Kaiser Family  Foundation - Health Kaiser Family Foundation.
Web. 21 Apr. 2010.  <http://www.kff.org/hivaids/timeline/hivtimeline.%22Viruses Can Jump Between Primates And Humans, Researchers Warn."  Web. 21 Apr. 2010.
Kaiser Family Foundation Fact Sheet: The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in the United States, September 2009.

Film Review of Generation RX

What is the main thesis of this film?
      Drug companies are producing medicine which does not help. Pharmaceutical companies persuade physicians to prescribe drugs which increase   sickness or cause suicide to people. They subscribe drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin and other in order to combat ADHD.

What were the main arguments in support of the thesis?
The people or “Generation Rx” was arguing that there is no autism, but the government claim that it exists.  People are claiming that the government with pharmaceutical companies is the one who are obtaining huge profits for producing and selling drugs that that are not treating or curing diseases at all. Another argument is that doctors are part of the problem simply because their aim is to be rich and not to treat sickness. The Generation RX is claiming that drugs like Ritalin and Prozac have effects on not only on children, but adults and that government must act soon.

How does the thesis of this film relate to the course?

Thesis related to the course because the problem is about social construction. When a person is labeled as autistic in the community, it then became his/her master status in the society. As a result, that person will have hard time to isolate themselves from the situation.  The example of this was the young gentleman name Samuel who had a speech problem and trouble finding friends. Another clear example of this is on chapter 21 of Reading in Deviant Behavior. The author had explained how people tell who is normal or not normal.

Furthermore, illnesses or disorders sometimes are socially constructed by the doctors using some scientific or medical terms which are hard to explain.  During the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) meeting, psychiatrists and physicians were questioned about the symptoms of ADHD, but they did not answer right.  To me, it was not very convincing ideas.  However, many scholars have proven that this is wrong.  Hope you will enjoy the following video of an animated video of an an arguments.

RSA Animation: Changing Education Paradigms".

The social construction related to Generation Rx is in (Reading in Deviant Behavior 2010) chapter 22 by Conrad and Potter in their article, “The Emergence of Hyperactive Adults as Abnormal”. These authors are saying that medical labels are socially constructed.  They continues to describing how medical category can expand including a wider range of trouble within the definition of ADHD and how whole social process of a labeling, have effect on people.

Which arguments/points did you find the most convincing?
Most part of the argument of the film was convincing.  I was also convincing that drugs are one causing suicide and depression among people especially the children. I find it convincing that making huge among of money can cause death of people. I think the problem is very clear simply because physicians and psychiatrists need to make more money and do not care about the lives of people. Why can the Federal Drug Administration, FDA do anything about the problem?

   Which arguments/points did you find the  not /least convincing?

 There was no proving of what cause suicide to most people was only medicine. I can also criticize Generation Rx in two ways.  I think people who were claiming the death of their love one were constructing social problem. I May have mixed opinion on the issue because this is how social constructions are made by people in other ways. There was nothing that proved it that people die because of after taking medicine. I did not see a doctor on the film being put into jail or prison because of the prescription of the medicine that kill a person. I think it was just the construction of the social problem.  
Choose one argument, point or question that most stands out for you. How would you study this point? Briefly design a research study around that point.
A Thousandth of adults and children dying and showing signs of depression committing suicide was so sad.  Because of that I would design my research to prove the lie from the FDA and physicians since they are denying effect that the drugs ADHD have effects.  I would first conduct experimental studies of adults with ADHD.  First of all, I would find adult who are under treatments and on medication for these disorders.  Secondly, I‘d then continue the study into a longitudinal one. Finally, find some clues whether their disorder has improved or not.  
  Word count 790

Work cited

Addrain, Conyers, Thio, Alex, Thomas C and Calhoun, 2010.  Readings in Deviant Behavior.  6th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Ba. 1975
Peter Conrad and Deborah potter, 1990 “From the Hyperactive Children to ADHD Adults:  Observations on the Expansion of Medical Categories