Three decades into this crisis, let us set our sights on achieving the "three zeros" zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.
I think that a big part of the energy that was going into fighting AIDS was reduced when we saw that more of the new infections were among our black and brown young people. That's a sad truth to have to claim, but I believe it's true.
One third of all of our cancers are from tobacco. It's one of the big killers in America and more than half of our kids still have environmental tobacco smoke exposure when environmental tobacco smoke is known to be associated with sudden infant death syndrome, with ear infections, respiratory infections and the rest. If we had to pick something to really go after, that would be one that I would really argue is an extraordinarily high priority and something people can actually do something about.
Poor children live in a particularly dangerous world--an urban world of broken stair railings, of busy streets serving as playgrounds, of lead paint, rats and rat poisons, or a rural world where families do not enjoy the minimal levels of public health accepted as standard for nearly a century. Whether in city or country, this is a world where cavities go unfilled and ear infections threatening permanent deafness go untreated. It is world where even a small child learns to be ashamed of the way he or she lives.
Bad dental hygiene can lead to respiratory infections and an increased risk for heart disease and strokes.
The majority of new infections in America are among young gay and bisexual men of color, and the full resources that could be brought to bear simply are not.
I'm the perfect candidate to be affected by SARS. I'm highly susceptible to infections.
Wouldn't it be great,as Scott Peck suggests, if all medical students had to undergo the symptoms and feeling of a spectrum of illnesses. From acute infections to terminal cancer - and Kuru, the laughing sickness. Just a month for each exposure, controlled of course, and a good heavy dose of excruciating pain. So they'll know what that feels like.
Patients rarely die of the disease from which they suffer. Secondary or terminal infections are the real cause of death.
If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections. . . Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.
Most of the common infections - colds, flu, diarrhea - you get environmentally transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. I think people under-rate surfaces.
