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Bonnie, how do you get there? Nita Bonnie Rowley wrote: > Hi all, > This was posted on the ABC's 20/20 message board. > I guess Sarah has a grudge. > Bonnie > *************** > Author: ahalo2 (Read all messages by this author) > Author status: Preferred | Neutral | Ignored > Thread Only: (6 messages) > Thread Messages: FirstPrev | Next > > Re: Funding For Diseases 8:55AM PDT, Oct 14, 1999 > > momanator: > > I don't know a single person with HIV who voluntarily asked to be infected. > Parkinson's and diabetes is genetic... so, um, if someone infected with these > illnesses CHOOSE to have children, would that somehow make their children > less "innocent" if they were to come down with the disease later? Having > children is usually a VOLUNTARY act, isn't it? > > I don't disagree that some diseases are extremely underfunded, but I STRONGLY > disagree with encouraging Congress to take away funding from one disease to > make people with the lesser-funded diseases feel better. AIDS activists made > the fight for funding political because they HAD to. AIDS wasn't mentioned by > our President until 1985, and the first drug wasn't available to patients > until 8 years after the disease was first discovered. *Eight years* for ONE > treatment. And in those eight years HIV became an epidemic. > > It is ONLY since the research that AIDS deaths have slowed. That's gotta tell > people something. I would think. If the political approach works for people > who are desperately ill then more power to them. If a cause can find a > celebrity to help, more power to them. We should be following the example of > activists who find EFFECTIVE ways to get funding, not put them down for it or > saying that the funds are somehow "undeserved" because of how the cause got > Congress' attention or because the disease is a "voluntary" one. > > Six years ago 20/20 did a report on a nine year old girl with AIDS that aired > three times... they talked about how NIH and the clinical trials had saved > that girl's life. Now, they are "exposing" these same programs? After years > of themselves focusing on AIDS and the treatments, they now turn around and > blast the methods people have used to get funding? It makes no sense, to > support an issue then once it looks like the trials are actually saving lives > to turn around and push to have the funding taken away. As if the media, > 20/20, whoever hasn't known all along that this is how AIDS activists finally > got their effective treatments. It shows how very easily manipulated the > public is, "pc", whatever. People though seem to forget there are actual > lives at stake. > > I don't care what my sister's biological parents did to "deserve" HIV, this > child is alive because of these treatments and I'm thankful for that. And I > hate to see that people feel her life should come down to the mistakes of her > parents, and that some people feel other "deserve" to be sick or die because > of what their parents did. > > Sarah > [log in to unmask]